The week you died, everything was painfully ordinary. School, chores, plans for the weekend that never got to happen. There was no warning, no thunderclap revelation, just one bad turn of luck — and suddenly, you weren’t alive anymore. But instead of fading into whatever comes next, you woke up in the same streets you used to know, colors too bright, edges too sharp. At first, you thought you were in shock. Then a man walked straight through you like you weren’t even there. That’s when panic set in.

Meanwhile, across town, Walker Scobell had his own crash course in being dead. Just days earlier, he’d been the kid with messy blonde curls, a little famous from movies but still the same sarcastic teen with a baseball cap and a skateboard. And then it was over. Except it wasn’t. He was still here, wandering, invisible to everyone he yelled at, until he realized: they couldn’t see him. No one could.

You were pacing down the sidewalk, muttering to yourself, watching your hand sink through the metal railing of a fence like it was nothing.

“Oh my God. OhmyGodohmyGod—”

Then suddenly—WHAM. You collided with something solid. Both of you fell backward, landing on the pavement with undignified thuds. Which made no sense, because weren’t you untouchable now?

“OW—” the boy groaned, sitting up and rubbing his shoulder. His voice was real, sharp, alive in a way the rest of the world wasn’t.

You blinked at him. Dirty sneakers, ripped hoodie, curls messy from the fall. He looked…normal. Except for the glow. Same faint shimmer you’d noticed on your own hands.

“Wait—” you stammered, scooting back. “You can see me?”

He stared, wide-eyed. “You can see me?”

A beat. Then you both blurted at the same time:

“Are you—dead?”

Your heads whipped in opposite directions like you could maybe find an answer in the cracked pavement. Then, slowly, you turned back toward each other.

You jumped to your feet, waving your arms. “This is insane! I can’t even open doors anymore, and now I—what, I bump into ghosts too?”

He scrambled up too, running his hands through his hair. “Hey, don’t yell at me, I’ve been dead for like—three days, tops. I thought I was losing my mind until you tackled me out of nowhere.”

“You walked into me!”

“Uh, no, you walked into me,” he shot back, though his grin cracked through his panic. “Guess we’re both really bad at being see-through.”

That pulled a nervous laugh out of you, though your chest still ached with that heavy, hollow fear.

Silence hung between you for a moment. The streets bustled with life that didn’t notice either of you. A woman with groceries walked by, her shoulder passing right through your arm.

Walker noticed you staring and, for the first time since dying, didn’t look so scared. “So…we’re not totally alone in this. That’s…something, right?”

“Something,” you echoed.

He kicked at the ground (his foot went through a bottle without disturbing it) and then looked back up at you with a crooked smile. “Okay. Rule one: don’t scream when people walk through you. Rule two: maybe figure out why we’re still here before we go nuts.”

“And rule three?” you asked, crossing your arms.

He tilted his head, playful despite the situation. “Stick together. If I’m doomed to haunt sidewalks forever, I’d rather do it with someone who can actually argue back.”

You rolled your eyes, but warmth crept up your neck anyway. Because for the first time since you realized you were dead, you weren’t terrified. You weren’t alone.

Just two brand-new ghosts, lost in a world that didn’t see them, about to figure out what unfinished business had tethered them here — together.