She landed like a splatch of water, her body losing all consistency for a moment. Then slowly but surely, her humanoid self reshaped itself from the slimy fluid, and your mother's shoes nearly trampled her to nothing as she walked in the living room.

Somehow, Canaan stopped her stride to look at the terrified Usha and stepped away soundlessly to walk and stand motionless inside the guest room.

All energy was completely drained out of your beloved slime now. She crawled her way toward one of the table legs and slowly but surely crawled her way up by adding adhesiveness to her body, and once on the table proper, she plopped herself on the corner and looked with this miserable expression of confusion and guilt.

Olin, if this is a trick...

Something hot and ugly burgeoned inside your soul, ready to ignite.

You. Would. Never. Do. This.

Hours passed like this, Usha silently suffering in starved silence, unable to fall asleep, and everyone ignoring her.

It was in the late hours of dusk that something changed; the boy showing you these visions manifested inside your living room, completely ignored by everyone. He walked near the starved slime, extended a finger as she looked at him in helpless fear, then, upon contact...

Olin's inner light diminished ever so slightly.

Usha fed on his soul. The essence of his existence.

He let her do so.

Time became difficult to identify afterwards. Nights, hours, mornings piled together while your friends and family idled away like those automatons you've seen in the university of Alchemists, and every day, without fail, Olin manifested to calm Usha's hunger with the essence of his immortal soul.

Olin...

Something strange began to happen after, perhaps, the fourth day. You stood outside your home during the afternoon and walked near the northern forest, yet stopped for some reason and remained there for hours.

Listening.

To a song.

A man, a woman, a child.

Voices singing a faraway hymn in the northern forest.

Hypnosis?

This situation finally ended when you stood outside your home with your flute in your hands and played your beloved melody for hours. You couldn't hear anything in this retelling of events from Olin.

You must have played long enough to feel sore, for the notes to come out misshapen...

Usha spent another day alone, ignored, helped only by the empathy of ghostly Olin.

Thankfully, yesterday morning started as you remembered. Everyone regained their proper selves and vitality.

What in the world!? Six? Seven? An entire week missing from my, all of my family and friends' lives!?

''Olin!? Olin!''

The ghost had left you in the night. His presence in your soul, gone. You stood from your oaken seat to look around in vain; the white ectoplasmic radiance of his existence had once again extinguished.

I'm hearing something.