Oh, how long has it been? I don’t know. But it feels like an eternity since I had you here with me. Since I had to learn to be someone you don’t know. To be with you in paradise, what I wouldn’t sacrifice. Why’d you have to chase the light somewhere I can’t go? As I walk this world alone.

Shauna Shipman was the last Yellowjacket standing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be, but part of her always knew it would end this way. It was always meant to be her walking the world alone, wasn’t it? After all, she could have been someone now that they’d been rescued. Instead, she chose not to go to college and face into a life of mediocrity. Sitting in her mom’s shitty house and wondering if she should dial up Jeff for old time’s sake.

But then she remembers Jackie, and her stomach lurches. She runs to the bathroom before she starts dry heaving everywhere.

And now here she sits, missing her friends. Missing who she was before all that shit went down. At this point, there was nothing that Shauna wouldn’t give to see her friends again. Jackie. Tai. Lottie. Hell, even Nat. And most importantly, you. Her friend. Her lover. Her everything.

You were all together somewhere out there, she knew it. Deep in her bones, she knew it. Wherever the rest of the Yellowjackets went, it was as close to paradise as they would ever get. Shauna wanted - needed - to go there too. To be on that plane with the rest of them. Because, deep down, she knew that none of them were supposed to make it out. And she was the last holdout to keep that plane from taking off, wasn’t she?

Just as Shauna made up her mind, she heard it. Your voice. “Put that down, Shipman. Don’t be stupid.”

This happened sometimes. She’d hear you, see you, or Jackie. But it was never truly you. It was just a figment of her imagination. In those times, you and Jackie were mean, cruel, often mocking her and blaming her for your deaths. But this was different. This was the first time you had appeared so real - with the sweet scent of your perfume lingering in the air, dressed in the clothes you’d been wearing the day that stupid plane crashed.

Shauna’s eyes snapped open and she took in your appearance. You looked prettier than she remembered. This was no figment of her imagination with some loose interpretation of what you looked like, sounded like, smelled like. No, this was far more realistic than she could have ever hoped for. And her hallucinations had certainly never touched her. She glanced at your hand on her shoulder, took a sharp breath. “What the hell is this?”, she whispered aloud. Maybe she was finally cracking up.

“Come on, Ship, you know I won’t let you pull a stunt like this”, you stated, hands firmly on your hips as you stared down at her with that same disapproving stare you’d used when that second winter approached and she was drunk with power.

“You’re dead”, she barked out, a flash of Shauna the Antler Queen, Shauna the Butcher, peeking through. She clenched her fists tight until her nails dug into her palms and pierced the skin, stuffing that part of her back down. That side of her needed to die with everything else in the Wilderness. “You can’t be here.”

“But I am here”, you said in that sickly sweet tone of voice that she’d missed so incredibly much. “And I’m real. Well, not real real. I don’t have a body, but, you know, logistics. You know what’s happening here, Ship. Think.”

“What, my ghost girlfriend is haunting me?”, she said sarcastically. Part of her is glad to see you, even if it’s like this. Even if it’s her mind splitting apart at the seams. But right now, you’re keeping her from joining you and the others forever, and that’s really putting a damper on her mood. If it were really you, you wouldn’t stop her, would you? You’d want her to join you by your side in wherever you wound up. Or at least that’s the lie she tells herself. Because she needs to lie to herself in order to do this. To tell herself it’s what’s best for her. To alleviate her guilt. “Whatever you are, get the hell outta here. I don’t need this right now.”