Problems with the living? Unhappy with eternity? Is death the problem and not the solution? Do you have problems adjusting to your new condition?

CALL NOW BEETLEJUICE

Yerim frowned, looking at the rudimentar ad she had cooked up. When she had died, the internet wasn’t even a thought of a thing, but she guessed it was necessary, now that no one read newspapers.

With a huff, she sent it in and sat back. She hoped this “email” thing was good to bring her new clients - dead or alive.

Hyejoo sobbed in her bed - tampons, they had thrown at her while she screamed and yelled because i’m dying i’m dying someone help me! (a bright red handprint on miss Desjardins’ white white white shorts), and now she sobbed in her bed.

It wasn’t her fault; mama had never taught her Womanly Secrets because she said it corrupted the soul, made girls smile in ways Good Girls didnot, made girls look at Boys in ways girls should not . A curse of blood. Now Hyejoo was a sitting duck, ripe for picking on.

Her cellphone - an old thing, screen broken to the point it cut her fingers and tinted the cracks with blood, barely usable - dinged with a new message. She cleaned up her tears, aware it was probably the video of her screaming and sobbing while they all chanted plug it up plug it up plug it up like a sacred hymn from a religion long forgotten and Hyejoo, the devil whose presence needed to be banished.

The email that opened up in her screen - blood being fed to the old cellphone like a ritual -  had the subject line as BEETLEJUICE, BIO EXORCIST. Spam.

She clicked on it by accident, on a failed tentative to get it to the correct folder, and opened a black box of white and red text, like an edgy kid’s dream. The text inside just said to call now Beetlejuice, something or another about problems with the living.

An ugly laugh bubbled from Hyejoo’s lips, making her double over as she sobbed again. Problems with the living - that was the lesser way of speaking about her situation!

“Beetlejuice. What a dumb name!” She scream-laughed, uncaring. Mama wouldn’t be home for a few hours, so she could scream and laugh if she wanted to.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I inherited this title!” A girl said, opening the attic trapdoor, and scaring Hyejoo half to death. She had bright purple hair, and wore a white suit with black vertical stripes. She was also slightly green, kinda dead-looking. “Hi, I’m Beetlejuice, but you might as well call me Yerim!”

“How did you get in my attic?” Hyejoo shot back, pressing herself against the headboard as the girl flopped graciously down. Yerim cocked her head.

“Well, you called me, right? Beetlejuice, bio-exorcist, gets rid of the living for a living. Just say my name three times,“ she rose up three fingers, a smile on “, three times in a row, spoken unbroken, and I’ll make sure to get rid of anyone you ask!”

Hyejoo blinked once. Twice. Thrice. The she got up in her bed, looking down at the girl.

“Get out.” She said, pointing to the attic door. Yerim cocked her head out, so she balled her fists, setting them side by side of her body. “Get out!”

The bed floated up so fast she almost hit her head on the ceiling; Hyejoo fell down, grabbing her sheets, and she glared at Yerim.

“Is this your doing?” She asked, a note of fear in her voice. Yerim shook her head.

“Not at all! I only have powers after you call my name. Three times!” Yerim kept that stupid grin on her face. “You do look like you got some funky mind powers going on there, though!”

Yerim floated up, still grinning, bright and undead. She moved with ease, accustomed to the weight of her own powers. Hyejoo wanted that; flawless, purely being without caring.

“I don’t know how those work, but hey, how about we try and make it work?” She kept her grin, and extended one hand. “Again, Yerim, but you might call me Beetlejuice. Three times.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Hyejoo replied, cautiously, and accepted the offer, slowly floating her bed down.

Mark did not have the courage to watch the video. All he did was listen to it as it played through the locker room, boys being boys and disgusting. Half of the room commented on the video; the other half discussed prom, looming closer with every passing day.

Would it be so bad, he wondered, to give Hyejoo a normal night? His date had flaked out, having been caught in the Incident with Hyejoo and thusly, banned from attending prom. He felt rather ashamed of their behavior, and really wanted to make up to her.

He had “known” her since first grade (small towns didn’t offer much in terms of new people to see), but always kept his distance; after all Hyejoo was known as the daughter of the crazy, religious woman, and his parents had alerted him to cult behavior since a too-young age. As such, Mark had kept away, watching.

But that event had been too much for him. He had had nothing to do with yet, and yet guilt bore down a heavy weight on his back.

“Hm, I think I’m getting a feeling for this…” Hyejoo said, Yerim watching as she rose up the dresser, an ancient piece from her grandmother, solid oak wood and a heavy silver mirror reflecting the bruise on her cheek (pray or He Will Burn YOU), a gift from her mother. The Curse Of Blood, she had been told, wasn’t welcome on This Holy House.

“You sure are!” Yerim replied, cheerful, rolling on the air. “Gosh, I can barely believe you’re able to do that now! You could do so much more if you just called me - ”

“No.”

“Buzzkill.” Yerim ruffed, slipping to the bed. “Come on. We could ruin the lives of the girl that ruined your life. That’d be fun. I love ruining human lives. They always cry and scream and make such funny expressions!”

“No offense,” Hyejoo started, focusing on making the dresser and the bed levitate; sweat started to cover her body, heart rate going high high high. “, but I don’t want to use some phony ghost’s powers to ruin peoples lives. I’ll do that myself.”

Yerim grinned. Hyejoo ignored it, feeling heat creep up her cheeks, which she dismissed as being a symptom of exercising her powers.

Hyejoo kept her head down, ignoring Boy’s Malicious Grins and scuttling from one class to another. Yerim had stayed on the library, busy trying to understand how a computer worked, and that was just fine with Hyejoo. She didn’t need to be the Creepy Girl Who Talked To Herself. She was fine with being Plug It Up Girl.

Hah.

“Hey. Hyejoo, right?” Said a voice, masculine, and Hyejoo freezed, looking up. She Knew this Boy. Mark Lee. Jock. Popular. One of the Boys her mother always alerted her to. “Hi. Okay, this is going to sound weird, but do you wanna go to prom with me?”

“No.” He was a Boy and Mama had said Boys wanted things after Prom and Prom was sinful and sinful wasn’t good and hyejoo was too sinful already to be committing more sins and she did not want to go to hell.

Mark blinked, confused, clearly not expecting to be rejected.

“Are you sure? I mean, we don’t have to go romantically, we can just go as friends and get some McDonalds after.”

“I don’t recall we being Friends.” Hyejoo replied, turning her nose up. Mark simply smiled at that.

“Well, then how about we be friends, then?” He offered her a hand, and Hyejoo looked from it to him. He seemed genuine. She did not trust that. He was, at the end of the day, a Boy, after all. “C’mon now, Hyejoo. McDonalds. Listening to some cheesy music. And then you’ll never see anyone again.”

She blinked. Once, twice.

How was she supposed to ruin lives if she wasn’t going to meet them again? Perhaps she should go. 

With careful fingers, she shook his hand, and Mark smiled.

“I’ll go. Platonically.” She said, and he nodded, excited as a puppy.

She and Mark get elected Prom Queen and King. Yerim is on the crowd, whooping maniacally in a way only Hyejoo can listen to, and it made her smile. She waved, timidly, at Yerim, who hollered louder.

They’re crowned and the world stands still.

The bucket drops, and red becomes her world as laughter fills her ears.

blood covers her pig’s blood for a pig pig plug it up plug it up plug it up hyejoo mama was right mama was right the Boys the Girls THEY you should have TOLD ME MAMA

and god made eve to bear the curse of blood and eve was weak and lost the raven on the world and the raven was called sin pray it. pray for your repention and your sin of blood you cursed child pray pray PRAY or e l s e 

i should’ve killed you when you did Those Things as a baby you wretched witch you’ll end up mad as sin

pig’s blood for a pig

Yerim flew to the stage, were the boy laid down, dead, his ghost staring confused at the crowd.

“Hey, can you see me?” He asked, frowning, and Yerim nodded. “Er, what’s going on?” 

“You died. Get lost.” Yerim replied, smacking her palm against his chest, exorcising him to the waiting room. He had eternity now to spend on the waiting list, and Yerim had all but a few, precious seconds, watching Hyejoo’s blood-covered face panic, pale. “Hey, hey! Hyejoo!”

Her eyes snapped back to reality, focusing on Yerim. She was still panicking, but now that she had something to focus on, her shoulders seemed to be relaxing, an idea forming itself on the tempest of her mind.

“Beetlejuice.” She called, low, loud enough for only the people closest to the stage to listen, and Yerim grinned, watching Hyejoo’s hair stand, like the snakes in Medusa’s hair, taking life of their own. “Beetlejuice.”

One more. One more, and Yerim - 

“Beetlejuice!” Hyejoo yelled, the sound cables exploding and the children cowering as Yerim became visible, glowing with malicious intent. Hyejoo stepped forward, hands in fists, knuckles whose skin stretched so tightly against the bones that it seemed ready to snap.

“ It’s showtime!” Yerim screamed, summoning the giant black and white sandworms, and the world became fire and blood, Hyejoo grinning maniacally as the doors refused to open and the cables sparked energy around the students, like giant snakes, grabbing them and throwing them aside as the sandworms ate their fill. It had been a while, after all, and Hyejoo was going to get them so many meals.

Hyejoo wheezed, coughing blood. Mama had tried to kill her and failed; Hyejoo had, in turn, strangled her with her mind powers. The entire town had been destroyed by her and Yerim, who now kept Hyejoo’s head in her lap, using her fingers to comb the blood-soaked hair.

“Am I…” She gurgled, blood escaping from in a thin line. Her lungs felt full of water. “Am I dying?”

“Absolutely.” Yerim said, smiling sadly. “Y’know, you could join me. Be a bio-exorcist, too. Have fun killing the living.”

“It would be nice.” Hyejoo said, looking up through glazed eyes. “Has the sky always have so many stars?”

“Not since you added so many to it.” Yerim replied, kissing her forehead. “Let go, Hyejoo. Nothing is going to hurt you anymore.”

Hyejoo sighed, closed her eyes, and did not breathe anymore. 

“What are you doing?” Hyejoo’s ghost asked, looking down on Yerim, standing up by her side. “Didn’t you get me a job offering?”

Yerim grinned, let go of the corpse like a sack of rocks, and smiled.

“Hell yeah! Let’s go, there’s this kid who got our ad, and she’s got like, awful parents, it’ll be fun!” Yerim chirped, grabbing Hyejoo’s hand and missing her smile.