Scarlet Letter

"Are we alone?" Molly asked. Spunk nodded.

"I'm pregnant." Molly looked away from Spunk at the floor. "And I don't know what to do."

"Are you... sure?" Spunk asked, and Molly nodded.

"I haven't bled in three months or so. And it coincides with an... incident."

Spunk could almost smell the shame on her. He hoped for her sake that it had been consensual. And not familial. Who knew what the Lightbringers sect did behind closed doors.

"What do you need me to do?" Spunk asked her after a moment of silence had passed. Imagine, the fear of your own family's hate so strong that you would go to a stranger for help.

"I don't know." She admitted. "But I can't have a baby. Daddy, he'll..." She visibly shuddered. "I can't have a baby." She reaffirmed.

"Ok." Spunk said. "Let me see what I can arrange for you."

"I can't..." She started, then decided to rephrase. "I can't be missing for more than an hour. Daddy will come searching for me."

"I figured." Spunk said, a sour taste in his mouth. Taking her to a doctor was more or less out of the question. "Do you... want to stay? With him?" Spunk asked and she shrugged.

"What else is there? Family is everything." She responded and Spunk took that as a softer version of "yes" -- maybe there was something to work with there.

"I'll see if I can find a nurse to come visit and prescribe something. You might need to ... fudge the numbers a bit. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Molly nodded. "You think I might be too far along."

The door clattered open as another customer walked in, giving wide berth and a weird look to the girl dressed in a traditional dress and shawl before Spunk. He smiled and waved at the man who looked like he was on a mission. He turned at the video section.

"I'll make some calls today and see what I can find. You hang in there. Do you need anything else for the time being?"

She shook her head.

"If you want out..." Spunk motioned vaguely towards the outside, where her father stood resolutely with a sign declaring his shop evil, "You just let me know. I've got friends that can get you saf and set up. Train you for a career. Give you a fresh start."

This was apparently too much for her to handle. He saw tears brimming in her eyes. He smiled warmly at her. "No pressure. Just think about it. Get that sadness out of your eyes and head back out there before your father runs me out of town, will you?"

She swallowed and dabbed at her eyes with the shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She nodded. "I'll come back in tomorrow." She turned on her heel and headed to the door.

"Hey, Molly -- " He called before she opened it. "Do you know anything about ghosts?"

She gave him a quizzical look and shrugged. "Like unfinished business? Mom used to read us those fairy tales when we were young before," She waved her hand towards the outside, like he had done just a moment earlier, "But are you saying you believe in them? As a grown man?"

He shrugged. "We'll talk. Later."

"The Lightbringers scripture says that ghosts are echoes of a person's sin and shame, left as testament to the righteousness of God." She offered, and he could tell that her faith was leaking faster than a baby's last, full, diaper.

"Thanks." Spunk said. Molly nodded and walked out the door to rejoin her father.

"What's her deal?" A voice came from behind him, and he realized that the customer who had walked in was at the counter with a video stick to purchase.

"She's... questioning, I think. Her dad's the protestor outside. She's been making excuses to come inside the last few days."

"Oh." The guy nodded somberly. "She single?"

Spunk laughed and the guy looked offended. "She's still a child, dude." Spunk said, a hint of apology in his voice. It was a white lie, but he didn't want the guy to go outside and hit on her. "Sorry."

"Oh." He looked mildly ashamed. "Sorry, too. Just kinda going through a rough patch, you know?" He waved the video stick at Spunk and he nodded.

"Me too." Spunk grabbed the video stick and rang it up for the man. "I've heard there's some great single culture out on Eta Grinyrion." He offered.

"Haven't heard about that one before." The man said as he scanned his payment into the system. "I was just out on Vralk and it was real bad. You could tell that all the hype was just the tourist board trying to bring in visitors. Hardly any women at all."

"Wow, that sucks. I'd been recommending it to some folks. I will definitely stop doing that." Spunk said. He handed the man his receipt. "Let me know if there's anything else that we can do for you."

"Not today, but thanks! Have a good one!" The man grabbed his receipt and video stick, and walked out the door.

Taking advantage of the lull -- mornings were usually quiet, Spunk decided to finally take a look at the footage.

"Let's see what we've got here." He muttered to himself as he opened the security camera dashboard. He scrolled through to the day prior's video file and clicked to open.

Nine camera feeds greeted his eyes, and he settled on the middle bottom camera feed, as that was the best chance he had at catching his ... incident. He clicked to zoom, and sped up the footage until he came on screen.

He saw himself in full HD. Walking towards the chest display, hands in pockets, mouth moving silently as he probably complained about the sex toy inspector that had invaded his life. He crouched near the Zetalden leather. The HD picture began to fuzz and Spunk swore. It was going to be one of those types of ghosts, wasn't it?

He watched through wavery lines as he stood up in the feed, as the picture grew darker and darker. He saw -- thought he saw -- the fine haze descend over his figure before the picture errored out. It stayed black for a full five seconds before slowly fuzzing back into focus on his body, spreadeagled on the floor like a goddamned sacrifice.

"You fucker." He muttered as he closed out of the camera feed. It wasn't worth keeping, but he didn't want to toss it yet, either. And he had no proof that he wasn't crazy, either. Not from that tape.

The door clattered and Spunk looked up and smiled. "Hey, how can I help you today?"

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