Everyday Canvas

Ghost of a Chance

Prompt: Use these words in your entry today: small, harm, autonomy, wedding, pay, kneel, realize and injection.

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In the small town of Autumn Hollow, lived Abby and Hal, a couple who had been in love for a long time, since childhood, to say the least.

Their wedding was a grand affair, with joyous laughter and merry toasts echoing through Autumn Hollow. But happiness, as everyone sooner or later realizes, can be as fleeting as a wisp of smoke.

Hal, a scientist, was a man of ambition. His latest experiment was a procedure, an injection really, that could grant the recipient eternal life. So, he decided to try the injection on himself first.

A few months after the wedding, the day after the injection, Hal woke up feeling stronger, his senses heightened. Abby and the townsfolk marveled at his vigor, but it didn't last. By the seventh day, Harold was unrecognizable. His once bright eyes now held an eerie glow, his once warm smile replaced by a ghoulish grin. The town's doctor could do nothing but watch as Hal started slipping away.

Abby, heartbroken, refused to leave her husband's side. Each day, she would kneel by his bed, holding his hand and whispering words of love and courage. But all was in vain and Hal passed away, leaving Abby with her grief.

Surprisingly, after Hal's demise, peculiar things began happening around the house. Objects moved on their own, whispers echoed through the hall, and the scent of Hal's cologne lingered in the air. Abby realized that Hal was still in the house, his spirit granted autonomy in death as a reward for the injection he had so bravely tested.

Hal's ghost, unable to cause any physical touch or harm, did what it could to communicate with Abigail. He moved objects to spell out messages, played their favorite songs on the piano, and even maintained the garden they both loved. Yet, he could not provide a warm embrace for Abby.

Abby, however, found a way to pay tribute to their love. Every year, on the anniversary of their wedding, she would put on her wedding dress, kneel by Harold's grave, and tell him stories of the short life they had shared and the love they still held for each other. And Harold, his spectral form glowing softly in the moonlight, listened.

To this day, this love affair in the tiny town of Autumn Hollow still continues, with the tale of the dangerous ambition, that frightful injection, and Hal the ghost who was granted the chilling gift of autonomy, who is now forever bound to Abby, the woman he loved.

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