Hi everyone! Hope you enjoy this little story. I'm not claiming to own anyone except Sasha Vespa (If you know where both her names come from, mention it in a PM/Review and win a prize... if you're female.. or like pictures of Dan). Rated T for some swearing, untimely deaths, and the general teenage themes. Thanks!

Sasha Vespa sat in the passenger's side of her mother's car and stared out the window with her head on her hand. She was on her way to the hospital after she had a mental breakdown studying for her university exams. Not yet trusting her daughter after the breakdown, her mother decided to be her chauffer on the way to hospital. Sasha watched the cars pass quickly as if they were in reverse as they raced down the highway. Sasha's head was still reeling from the stress and shock of her panic attack and seeing the cars moving so quickly caused her heart to beat quicker and quicker with each passing second. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get out and away from this confinement; she felt she was trapped like an animal in a cage. She looked down at the door handle frantically then around the car, her gaze finally coming to rest on her mother who was closely focused on the road. Her mother took her sight away from the road for a moment and met her daughter's before looking back.
"There's no need to worry Sasha, you'll be better soon." she said soothingly, seeing the anxiety in her daughter's eyes. Sasha whispered a simple 'no' in response then pushed the door open on her side and scrambled out. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, she had not been wearing a seatbelt causing her escape to go smoothly. She tumbled out and hit the ground hard rolling a few metres before coming to a stop. She heard her mother's car wheels screech and car horns blaring then saw a blinding flash of light and finally nothing.
She felt no pain for she had no body to feel it in. There was nothing to feel, as if she was only a disconnected mind or a stray thought. She couldn't tell if she was blind or if there was simply nothing to see. She was not fearful though; it was as if she was simply resting peacefully at friend's house.
"I was not expecting to see you here so soon, Sasha" a soft male voice rang out. She felt this voice was of a familiar stranger, one she must have known all her life. "You were so young, why have you decided you wanted to see me so soon?" The sweet voice asked rhetorically, it seemed. "You had such a full life ahead of you, too" it said wistfully. There was a moment's pause before he continued with, "Sadly, I cannot yet take you into my arms and may never..." Although she could not understand what he meant by this, she felt saddened by this turn of events. "I can however help you on your way." He said his voice suddenly filled with what could only be described as excitement. "What is the one thing you wish the most?" He asked her. Sasha did not know if she could yet talk as until this point she had only been conscious of her consciousness.
"I wish," she began, her voice sounding just as normal as it had the previous day; as if she wasn't floating in an eternally blank abyss. "I wish to protect Daniel James Howell and those he holds dear." she said suddenly, as it was the first thing that came to her now reeling mind. In retrospect, this wasn't the most important thing on any person's list of necessities in the afterlife, but it was too late to change her mind.
"Very well, you will be bound to this young man until the day he dies, take good care of him." the voice said happily as Sasha's vision became blindingly bright without a source of light.
"Wait!" she called out into the nothingness. "Are there any rules I should know about?" she asked the entity awkwardly. He gave a delighted chuckle before responding.
"Who do you think would enforce these rules if there were any?" he asked with an audible smile and his presence faded from around her.
Sasha felt as if the ground had been stolen out from under her feet and was falling, or rather flying. She opened her renewed eyes to find herself being whisked across a shimmering blue ocean with no land in sight. Though her eyes and brain told her she was soaring, her body contradicted it. She felt no wind across her skin or mist in her face as was to be expected of the ocean. Instead, it was like she was standing in nothingness, causing her to wonder if any of this was real. The beautiful and glistening ocean was replaced with a glowing computer in a dark bedroom. She looked down at the chair and saw a familiar face sitting in it expressionlessly clicking occasionally. Excitement welled up in her as she realized who this was.
"Dan!" she exclaimed and took a step towards his slouching figure. He, however, didn't seem to notice her. She looked at him closer and waved a hand in front of his face barely even causing him to blink. She supposed he couldn't see nor hear her. All at once she realized the problem.
"I'm...dead." she said aloud, stunned. Verbalizing her thoughts seemed to cement the notion into her mind, telling her that it was true and that she had passed on. Suddenly, she realized the consequences of her actions. She would never again get to see her family; never hear her best friends laugh with her; never tell her secrets to the ones she confided in, knowing they would be safe from prying minds. She wished she could have told her mother how much she meant to her one last time, or to see her brother's smiling face before she had passed. The opportunities were all gone now, and she could never know what the consequences of her actions had been. To be lost from friends' and family's love forever seemed too much to handle. Just then, there was a knock at the bedroom door causing her to break out of her self-pitying.
"Yeah?" Dan responded from his position at the computer without breaking his stare. The door opened and Phil Lester took a step into the room, recognizable from his ebony hair and slightly lopsided facial features.
"Dan, I'm starving, wanna go out and get something for dinner?" he asked nonchalantly, as of there wasn't a girl standing next to Dan who had appeared out of nowhere. Dan stopped what he was doing and turned to look at Phil, in thought.
"Sure, know where you wanna go?" he asked in reply, turning around to face the computer once again only to save his work and close out of the programs. Phil took a moment to think as Dan got to his feet and stretched his tall frame.

"Actually, I was thinking we could get something to bring back from the new diner across the street." he replied, pointing behind him as if that was where the building was located. Sasha knew neither Phil nor Dan could see her, but she felt as if this offer extended to her as well.

"The one that just opened?" Dan asked curiously, walking past Phil and out into the living area. She couldn't explain why, but she felt an overwhelming urge to follow him and see what he does next. Phil followed him out to continue the conversation as Dan took out his light winter coat.
"Yeah, I heard they have really good food and it's popular even though it just opened. I actually hope it won't be crowded today." Phil replied, grabbing his equally furry coat. If Sasha was now in London, it must have been cold outside; especially if they were getting their coats. Dan opened the door to their flat and they both walked out, locking the door behind them.
"Good, I'm starving." Dan repeated as they walked out their door and into the shiny metallic lift heading down to the ground level. Sasha stood behind them in the lift, feeling even more like a ghost than before. She reached her hand out to touch Dan's back but found it just to go through him. She sighed and Dan gave a slight shiver before continuing his conversation with Phil as the lift began to descend.
"Phil, I was thinking before, and I had an idea for another Collab video..." the taller of the two began. For a moment, Sasha felt as if she was getting insider info and she should tweet everything she heard, then remembered how that was impossible given her current state. She then had an idea, though: Dan always has his phone on him, so what if she tried to tweet this info through his account.
"...Okay Phil, what if we got the Delia Smith to appear in one of our videos; like for the next Phil is not on fire? Some of the fans have been saying that Delia actually knows who I am!" Dan asked excitedly, waiting for Phil to respond, reciprocating his enthusiasm. Phil looked at him for a moment as he thought this absurd concept over.
"You realize how hard it would be to get the actual Delia Smith to be in our video? I mean who knows how busy she is in real life. And she wouldn't listen to some crazy fans of hers who want her to be in a random video on the internet, would she?" Phil asked, cracking his sideways smile and pointing his finger at Dan. There was an irony in this that did not go unnoticed by Dan as he chuckled in response, his arms bending to cover his stomach vaguely from his sides. Sasha reached for Dan's phone in his back pocket but found her hand only to go through it as it did other objects; the likely outcome. Once again, Dan shivered when she touched him.

"Cold?" Phil regarded, noticing his friend's shivers.

"Not really, just got a chill up my spine." Dan answered casually, pulling out the phone Sasha so wanted to get her hands on. She had yet another idea and quickly thought out a message she could leave on Dan's phone then touched it in his hands, hoping it would work even if it was farfetched and would most likely only work in a movie.

Soon enough, Dan's phone vibrated as he checked twitter while he walked out of the their building and out into the street. He found a message recently saved as a draft waiting for him.

'hi dan! my name is sasha vespa, i was 19 years old as of dec 15 and lived in tallahassee, florida. that was until I committed suicide one night. I don't know how long ago that was but now I'm here with you! please believe me!'

Dan's face went white as he read the message and stopped in his tracks. Phil turned around, curious as to why his friend stopped before they reached their intended destination.
"Dan?" Phil inquired, noticing his friend's unnatural paleness and solemnity given that he was usually an exuberant character. Sasha stood next to Phil to better see Dan's reaction with an arrogant smile on her face.
"Phil have you touched my phone recently?" Dan asked slowly, looking up at Phil, the confusion apparent in his voice. Sasha felt a bit guilty that the first person blamed for her message would be Phil, but he couldn't be blamed for too long as he had nothing to do with it.
"No, why d'you ask?" Phil responded in equal confusion, stepping to look over Dan's shoulder at his message. "Who sent you that?" He added with a smile, seeming to find this situation comical. Dan looked at him sternly then back at his phone; he was clearly not amused.
"That's just it, it wasn't sent to me. It's in here as if I was the one that wrote it." He said nervously, swiping through his other messages to himself including some early morning dream blurbs. Phil still seemed to think this was funny and continued his smiling.
"Maybe you sleep text or something; we could record you when you sleep to see if you're really sending messages to your friends from the Sleep Realm. Or maybe the monsters in the dark have taken over your phone!" He offered, announcing Sleep Realm loudly and dramatically as if this was the perfect solution. Dan scoffed at this idea and shoved his phone back into his pocket, deciding against concerning himself with his night-time quirks.
"It's just weird because I could've sworn it hadn't been there before. And it's not just that, why would I pretend to be a girl who committed suicide? That's just... fucked up..." he said, occasionally gesturing with his hands where needed. Sasha followed close behind them, discouraged by the fact that they didn't believe her message. Maybe if she just kept writing messages they would eventually have to accept it as the truth, no matter how absurd they may find it. Dan's back pocket sounded an alarm, reminding him he had scheduled something for this very minute. Surprised, Dan quickly took out his phone to find another message in place of the notification.

'trust me im real. If you don't believe me, talk to me and ill try and respond'

Dan scowled slightly as he read the message then looked around him nervously; if this ghost was real, what if she wanted to hurt him. Or worse: what if she was a he and he was some evil demonic ghost out to kill him. Phil noticed Dan's reaction to the message again and came around his shoulder to read it. This time it was hard to believe that Dan himself typed these messages as in the time it would have taken for him to type it out a moment before, Phil had been with him and saw that he hadn't done anything of that sort.

"What do you think, Phil?" Dan regarded his friend curiously, hoping he would provide a more logical answer to this situation as he shoved his phone once again into his back pocket.

"Well we're not technically out in public yet so you won't look like a lunatic if you start talking to ghosts. I guess it's worth a chance. Worst thing would be she doesn't exist and it's all just some prank." He replied with more thought than he himself had given the subject, the words seemed to have just set themselves free from the dark depths of his brain. Dan shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked around just to make sure nobody noticed him although there was nobody around to.

"Alright…Sasha… if you're real, why don't you prove it… make a sound or something." He suggesting, a part of him hoping this was all a prank and he wasn't living a ghost investigation like he had seen on T.V. as a child; they always ended badly. Sasha jumped around with glee, ecstatic they finally believed her. The next problem she faced, however, was how she could make a sound if she was a ghost.

First she decided just yelling might somehow be enough for them to hear, but only resulted in her feeling self-conscious as this attempt failed. The two were getting impatient waiting for a sound and took one last glimpse around them before Dan announced, "Well, Phil, guess it was all a prank!" he laughed at himself nervously for even believing such a stupid notion of ghosts haunting his cell phone. Their stomachs growled in synchronization reminding the two that they had yet to eat dinner. Sasha stomped her foot angrily, she wanted desperately for somebody to know she was here. In a moment of ghostly adrenaline, she ran forward and tried to push Dan over, knowing it wouldn't result in anything. This time she touched him, though, he felt real and her hands didn't flow through him. Dan staggered forward a step and looked around in utter confusion; the expression mirrored on his counterpart's face. Sasha stared at her hands in disbelief, just a few moments before she had attempted to touch him but it didn't result in anything. Why was it that this time she could touch him as if she were alive again?

Dan felt panic slowly rising up inside him. As he had been walking, he saw Phil in his peripheral field of view so it couldn't have been he who shoved him. He turned around, feeling an eerie presence in his blind spot only to find the same emptiness he had met before.

"Sorry," He began cautiously, "guess I tripped." He concluded, trying not only to convince Phil, but also himself. Phil, who had been standing with his mouth agape, nodded apprehensively and they continued on their short trek to the diner. It was just a short walk away, but at this rate it would take them ages to even cross the street. Sasha wondered if the only reason she could touch him was because she was angry at him. She found some reasoning behind this theory and thought every nasty thought she could about Dan and attempted to push him with all her might. Dan stumbled a few steps forward and attempted to right himself by flailing his arms wildly; it was to no avail and he fell onto his hands and knees on the side of the road.

"Dan?! What'd you do that for?" Phil asked incredulously, unable to understand what he could have tripped on so wildly. Dan lifted himself up with his scratched hands and glared at Phil.

"I didn't do it on purpose! It felt like someone pushed me." Dan said throwing his hands in the air to accentuate his first point. Phil glanced around, ready to pounce on whoever pushed his best friend over so evilly and out of nowhere. Just as before, the streets were nearly deserted aside from an occasional car. Also just as before, Dan seemed like he lost his mind.

"There's absolutely nobody around here, are you sure you didn't just trip yourself up or something?" the older suggested hopefully. Phil never been one to believe in ghosts despite their attempts at the Super Amazing Project and his childhood obsession with the Shadow Realm; this would be no exception. Dan massaged his scratched hands and looked around as well as if to solidify Phil's claims. Sasha smiled arrogantly, exuberant at the fact that she could now touch people who were alive. She felt the tiniest bit guilty, though, that she had been the cause of Dan's small pains. An extension of this ability would be to speak to them, but she wondered if she was yet capable of this. The text messages would have to be enough for now as she was feeling quite emotionally drained. Apparently, people have a much smaller emotional range after death because simply getting excited as she did had tired her out. Dan grunted and looked back at Phil, expecting him to have some magical answer to their confusions.

"Maybe… Maybe the ghost girl doesn't want us to eat dinner! She's trying to starve us!" Phil exclaimed suddenly, his finger in the air. Dan slapped his forehead out of frustration, only just managing to hide his smirk.

"I don't think she cares if we eat at restaurants or not. That's if she's real at all!" Dan added quickly, making sure to point out that he did not believe in this ghost charade. Their stomachs growled in unison once again, pushing their thoughts to the back of their minds. As if in sync they began walking, this time determined not to let anything distract them from their meals. Dan felt the seeds of doubt arise in the back of his mind. If somebody was indeed pranking him, why would they go to such great lengths to do it? Sasha felt her eyes get heavier and she walked closer towards Dan as they strolled until she finally felt herself merge with him. It was a feeling of comfort and warmth, as if she was asleep in the bed she had during life.

Thanks again for reading. Again, guess Sasha's name origins to win a picture prize! 3

-PhanFictionWriter