Ghost Hunt((Open))

[Sarah Pilgrim]

Sarah crossed her arms over her chest, not letting up one bit on the scowl. "If he's ghost and stuff, shouldn't you just tell him to move on or whatever?

[Chris Sloan]

"If he wanted to he would, but he doesn't want our help in that matter, and to be perfectly honest it's kinda cool being a ghost's friend." He smiled a bit.

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to. I just wanted to ask."

[Sarah Pilgrim]

Curiosity had her sorely tempted. Sarah had never tried to look for ghosts or anything when she was on the astral plane. And the idea of getting to speak to a ghost was a bit of a draw. She could almost hear Susan now. C'mon, let's go ghost hunting! she would've said.

Which was probably the big reason why, Sarah pretty much spit out, "No."

[Chris Sloan]

Chris nodded, "That's okay. If you change your mind any time, and decide to look for him, just let me know what you find out. Thanks for coming to meet me to talk about it though." Chris offered a small smile.

[Chris Sloan]

Chris sat up in front of his computer. He had just finished talking to Lucas again last night, and had learned more about him. sure, when he came back he had to pull his chair off his bed but still. In a small notepad file, he wrote the name "John Lucas Thackery".

Lucas said that he was a student here, but didn't know if he meant a student at Westbrook or not. It was easy enough to pull up past student yearbooks, and he searched as many as he could find from Westbrook, but no students had the name John Lucas Thackery. So, maybe there was something here before Westbrook? Another school?

Chris again searched the internet, looking for old maps of the area. The lot was empty when Westbrook was built, so he had to go back further than that. What used to be there? After searching for a couple hours he finally found an old enough map of the area. Apparently it had always been a vacant lot, and was cleared and zoned for something else. So... there was never another school here.

Chris sat at his chair thinking. What did he know about Lucas now? He knew his name, he has magic, he made a promise to someone about something. He likes to prank people, but only does so harmlessly. Chris felt like there was something obvious, right there in front of his face but he was missing it. Chris went to look at the time and something clicked. The pocketwatch!

Nobody uses pocketwatches! They use wrist watches, cell phones, or other devices, but NOBODY uses a pocketwatch. Chris pulled the internet back up, and found the wiki. Wristwatches outnumbered the pocket watch 50 to 1 by 1930, so Lucas had to have been alive from before that. Chris wished he paid more attention during his history classes...

Chris scanned again for a couple hours through census after census. He was looking through the old files on the internet for anyone matching Lucas's name. It didn't take as long as he expected, since he was starting with the end of the time period and working back. He found out that there were two John Thackery's from that time, one with the middle name James and one Lucas. Chris figured James was the father and so marked in his little notepad file the year Lucas was born, 1918.

Chris saved the new information he learned on Lucas, and turned off his computer.

[Sarah Pilgrim]

The deal with Lucas bugged Sarah all weekend. Honestly, what would it hurt just to take a look? One trip into the astral plane wouldn't push her over the edge. She wouldn't wind up like mom, and she wouldn't do anything to wind up like Susan.

She would just take a peek, and that's it. She probably wouldn't even see anything anyway.

She waited until her roommate left to go to Westy's. She sat down on her bed, making sure she was away from the edge of it. She'd learned the hard way that she couldn't control which way her body fell when she projected, and the last thing she wanted to do was come back to bumps and bruises. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and just let go.

It felt like floating. Her body fell back against the headboard, looking as though Sarah had just gone to sleep. But she didn't feel that. She still felt like she was sitting there on the bed, oblivious to the sensations her physical body was experiencing. She braced herself, and opened her eyes.

The echo of Westbrook felt familiar, yet different. The structure itself felt strong, confident, and beyond its windows sprawled the rest of Paragon City, where it looked like a battle of light and shadow was being waged. The school stood out like a beacon though. Bright, full of hope. It gave everything inside a sheen. She tried not to linger on that as she rose from her bed and headed downstairs.

She passed classmates, or rather their echoes, unseen. Some she could recognize, others had echoes that were so different from their physical body she couldn't tell who or what she was looking at. This presented another issue....

If she could even see an echo of Lucas on this plane, she would have absolutely no idea if she was looking at him or not.

"Lucas?" she called out. Would he be able to hear her? No one else would be able to, she knew that much from experience. Maybe Lucas wouldn't be able to either.

[Westbrook Academy]

One boy, wearing pajamas (old school PJ's- button down shirt with matching pants) looks up at the call, but doesn't respond.

[Sarah Pilgrim]

Sarah cast a glance around as she passed the echoes of her peers, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. Sadly, everything was out of the ordinary. She was unfamiliar with this part of the astral plane, and had no idea how to tell Lucas apart from everybody else. She sighed in frustration, and vowed that if she didn't find him soon, she'd give up and let this ghost stuff go.

"Lucas!" she called out again as she passed the boy in the old school pajamas, completely unaware that he was the one she was looking for.

[Westbrook Academy]

Lucas curiously looks up at who's calling his name again, but doesn't respond. He follows a trail of students into a classroom, and takes an empty seat.

[Sarah Pilgrim]

((RL sorta ate me alive, thus delay in posting!))

Sarah's head is turned away when Lucas looks up, otherwise she might have noticed the gesture and put two and two together. After another 10 minutes or so, she gives up. She returns to her body, tucked safely away in her dorm room. She feels like heavy weights drag her down, and there is a moment or two of disorientation as her consciousness returns to her physical body.

No ghost sightings for Sarah.