Piper’s cold hands slip off the window sill, and she hits the concrete sidewalk again. Standing up, she rubs her arms and takes a break. 

“You know, you should wear a jacket.” A voice says. Piper, as a knee-jerk response, gives her answer.

“If I owned a jacket, I would wear it.” She says, then pauses, and looks around. Nobody is there. I am going crazy, Hearing voices. She thinks. 

“You aren’t going crazy.” The voice says again. Piper closes her eyes. 

“Yes I am. You aren’t real.” She puts her foot in a crack in the wall and pulls herself up onto the windowsill. “Don’t know why I’m talking at all, there’s nobody to talk to.” 

“Why don’t you use the door?” She slides through the open window, careful not to cut herself on glass. 

“Well, the door,” she says, sighing, “It happens to be blocked by fallen beams.” She steps out onto the floor, and weaves between piles of splintered wood and glass shards. She comes to the corner of the house, where a ladder leads down into the cellar. 

“Is it safe here?” The voice asks. Piper jumps off the last rung onto the floor, and goes into the darkness.

“Who knows?” She says with a shrug. She walks over to a small space that isn’t covered in dust, glass, or other debris. There is a bedroll and a box overturned to work as a table. She sits on the bedroll, and sighs. “You know I’m a Phantom, I’m guessing?” 

“Yeah.” Piper puts her face in her hands and takes deep breaths. She lifts a satchel from over her shoulder and dumps its contents out. There is a burnt roll, and a few crab apples. She cuts the apples into pieces, and puts them into a small pot, which then is put over a portable gas stove. “Why do you live here all alone?” The voice asks, making her almost drop everything she is holding. 

“You’re still here?” Piper asks, sitting on her bedroll. 

“Yes. Now answer my question.” Piper takes the apple pieces and puts them onto a metal plate. She sighs and starts talking. 

“First of all, I’m a Phantom. That makes it hard to be out in the city. And second, the only two people in the universe who would help me are currently in a grave made of rubble.” Piper says roughly, as if every word hurts. She sighs, and uses a knife to cut the burnt parts off of the bread. The voice does not speak again for a while.

When the sky gets dark again, Piper goes back up to the rest of the condemned house. She sits on a beam and stares out at the stars. The voice interrupts the silence and she nearly falls off the seat. 

“Hello.” It says. Piper jumps. 

“Could you please warn me before doing that?” Piper asks, and pulls her hair out of the ponytail. 

“Sorry. I have not yet grasped the concept of human life.”

“You’re not human?” Piper asks, picking up a piece of glass and looking through it. 

“Nope. What’s it like?” 

“I wouldn’t know.” Piper says, then drops the shard. “Us Phantoms are never treated like them.” 

“I thought you all wanted to take over the government and kill people.”

“I wouldn’t mind the government being toppled, but I’m not a genocidal maniac.” Piper says, sighing. 

“What’s your name?”

“Piper. What is yours?” It’s a little weird introducing myself to an imaginary person, but I think I’ll just roll with it. She thinks. 

“I don’t have a name. And I’m not imaginary.” Piper stands up and brushes the dust off the beam. She walks to the window.

“How do you keep hearing my thoughts?” She asks, brushing glass off the window frame, careful not to cut herself. 

“I’m in your head. Your head is where thoughts originate.” The voice says, as if that was obvious.

“But if you’re in my head, then you’re imaginary.” Piper reasons.

“Who told you that?”

“Logic. Who you clearly haven't met.” The voice laughs. “You can laugh?”

“I’m not fake, and you need to accept that. I can laugh just as much as you can” The voice says, sounding slightly offended. Piper rolls her eyes. 

“Joke’s on you, voice. I don’t laugh.” She says proudly.

“Why not?”

“If I told you all my reasons, we would be here for hours.” Piper turns and slides down the ladder into her little den. It is dark, but she knows her way so well that she could do it with eyes closed. She sits on the bedroll and stares at the shadowed ceiling, and eventually falls asleep.

“You don’t dream.” The voice says. Piper’s eyes go wide open.

“It’s not possible for Phantoms. One of the many downsides. Thanks for the alarm clock, by the way.” Piper grabs the ribbon from her pocket and pulls her hair back. The voice is still not gone. “How long do you plan on living in my brain?” She asks, letting her hands fall to her sides. 

“Once I finish my assignment I’ll be gone.”

“Assignment?” Piper stands up and starts walking towards the ladder.

“Actually, that’s a secret. Probably shouldn’t have gotten you interested.”

“Fine with me.” Piper emerges into the light. She looks into a broken mirror for a second, then groans. “It’s happening again.” Her eyes are turning an inky black, and her reflection in the mirror is fading away.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m turning invisible again. It happens at least once a day. I can’t control it.” Piper looks around. It is as if everything is black and white, and moving much slower.

“The other Phantoms can control it. Why don’t you?”

“I refuse to use these powers. I don’t want to be a Phantom, so I have resolved to be anything but a Phantom.” Piper sits on the beam. “My visibility can come back any second so I can’t leave until that happens.”

“How long do these episodes last, normally?”

“Sometimes they can last for hours, and sometimes only a few minutes.”

“Oh.” The voice stops, but she can still hear it even after a few seconds. 

“Your voice has a weird echo. Is my head really that empty?”

“No, actually it’s quite full.”

“I’m tired of calling you ‘voice’. Are you sure you don’t have a name?”

“Positive.” Piper sighs. She paces around the room, still invisible. 

“I’m going to call you Echo. Are you good with that?” Piper asks, eventually. 

“Sure. I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Nope. I’m stubborn.” Piper says, almost smiling, but catching herself in time. She sighs.  

“Could you at least try to control the invisibility?” Echo says after a while. “It would be useful if you need to hide really quick, or if you want to end these episodes.”

“I don’t even know how.” 

“I’m sure it’s all a matter of mindset. Just will yourself to be visible again.”

“Fine. I’ll try.” Piper walks over to the mirror, staring at the lack of a reflection. She closes her eyes and tries to turn visible again. When she opens her eyes, there is a shimmery mass materializing in front of the mirror.

“You’re almost here! Keep going!” Piper tries again, and soon color comes back into her vision, and everything moves at a normal pace. 

“I’m not doing that again. It’s too much work.” She says quietly, sighing.

“Okay. I won’t push you.” Piper nods, and steps out into the cold. The wind blows wildly, and goosebumps are starting to raise on her arms. “Why don’t you have a jacket?”

“I lost everything in the earthquakes.” She blows on her hands. “Including my sanity, as it seems.”

“For the last time, you are not insane. I am real!”

“I’m not buying it.” Piper hears Echo sigh. She walks towards the marketplace, hands in the pockets of her worn jeans. The doors of the houses and shops are constantly being opened and closed, a constant stream of people going about their day. People rushing back and forth, never saying hello or goodbye, just speeding along to their destinations with bored faces. 

“A bit fast-paced, isn’t it?”

“I hardly notice it.”

“This place is weird. Not at all what it’s like out among the stars.”

“Ok, now I know you’re fake. Nobody lives out in space. It’s impossible.”

“Well, not for mortals like you.” 

“So now you’re saying that you’re immortal?”

“Yes. Is that not common here?”

“Not at all.”

“They really need to teach this stuff in our classes.”

“Who’s they?”

“My people.”

“So there’s a whole bunch of annoying little voices up in the stars just like you?” Piper asks with a sly almost-smile.

“I’m not annoying.”

“I beg to differ.” Piper stops at the door to a really old building. Faded letters on a wooden sign might have said ’library’ at one point in time, but that was a while ago. Piper walks in, and up to the front desk, where a wizened old man sits. “Hey, Pete.” The man pulls out a scrap of paper and writes down something on it. Piper takes it and reads it, then starts walking towards the bookshelves in the back.

“Why doesn’t he talk?”

“He’s mute,” Piper says, then walks in-between two shelves.

“What’s on the piece of paper?”

“Reading suggestion.”

“So do you read all day, every day?”

“Pretty much. Why?”

“It just sounds really boring. I’m a writer, and I like a vacation once in a while.”

“Your annoying side is showing again, Echo.” Piper pulls a book down. She dusts off the cover and spine and goes to sit on a moth-eaten couch in the corner.

“I don’t have an annoying side.” Piper sighs and opens the book, a story about science fiction stuff, and alien invasions. “Hey, I’ve heard about this story. A friend of mine wrote it and he graduated with flying colors at school.”

“Again with the confusing stuff, Echo. This is ruining my brain cells.”

“It actually isn’t ruining your brain cells. Trust me. I can see your brain cells.”

“That’s great. Now stop talking.”

“Fine.” Piper starts reading the book. She gets halfway through when a bell starts ringing outside. Curfew soon. Piper closes the book, gently puts it back on the shelf, and starts walking towards the door. She waves goodbye to Pete, and walks out into the dim light. The curfew bell is still ringing.