“We’re going to be late!” Lacie shouts from the hallway.

I am genuinely the one to cause nightmares in others. An embodiment of the things they fear. Of themselves, or fear of what they have done. Yet, I am trapped in one. In the nightmare of a sagging, expiring meat suit. Wiping away shower fog, only to frown at the image in the mirror.

Lacie knocks on the bathroom door.

“Why the rush?” I bark.

“We’re part of that special team Florian was talking about last night,” Lacie states cheerfully behind the door. I admit I find her amusing only in the sense that she appears excited, despite the morbidity of the situation. “I’ve never worked with an Agent of the Order of the Exalted.”

“I just got out of the shower,”

“You’re not moping, are you?”

“I am not moping!”

Perhaps maybe Troy would. Last night I did digging. I knew how to be more believable in this Mortal Veil. All I could dig into Troy was a sad man. Had lost himself in his work. The man doesn’t have much of a personality besides beige furniture, white walls, a dying plant in the corner, living with his daughter sharing rent, and white polo shirts. A weakling Phantom would feed off of a man like this. The powerful Phantoms didn't care about easy prey. I am in the body of beige colored food.

“Dad,” Lacie begins. I can hear her nails tapping on the bathroom door, “maybe,” she pauses, “you should think about dating again? Mom remarried.”

That’s right. Troy’s ex wife. She remarried early on after their divorce and had a second child, Gavin. Meanwhile, Troy sunk himself into work and a lack of a personality. I wouldn’t be surprised if some string bean Phantom was evacuated from Troy’s life the moment he passed on.

“No one is going to want to date a man in beige,” I grumble.

Lacie laughs, “What?”

“Nothing,” I open the bathroom door finally. Her Aura blast me with more radiance than the cold that rushes into the room steamy from a hot shower.

She gasps. Ow! Her Aura. A radiant halo of colors, beaming as bright as looking directly in the sun, smacks me in the face. She has an idea and I am going to hate it.

“What about a dating profile?” she asks.

A what now?

“What’s a dating profile?” I ask her, while searching around for the keys.

“Dad, you’re not that old,” she responds.

“Pretend I am then,”

“You take a picture, and setup a profile, and people with similar interest message you,”

“Is this necessary?” I ask her, finding the keys haphazardly thrown on the dining table.

She huffs, her Aura flickers briefly. Ah, so she has been attempting to reach her Father for a while now.

“I want you to be happy too,” Lacie remarks, “Mom didn’t seem too concerned with the fact that you nearly died. She has a husband and you’ve just.” she frowns, looking around the apartment, “Have been existing.”

So, even she can see her precious dad lived in a sad beige world. How would Troy respond in this given circumstance? I don’t know him well enough to play along. My instinct says to use this against her and tear her apart. Slowly darkening her Aura. As a Phantom, I know how to do so. But there is a small portion of me, a small portion that makes me Mortal like her, that is holding me back.

Fuck.

I still also have to find his contact book. I wonder if Troy would know any journalist willing to leak information about the case.

“Why can’t I just grab my contact book? Isn’t that the same thing?” I ask her.

“Daad, contact books are outdated,”

“Didn’t you say I wasn’t that old?”

“You will be if you use a contact book,”

“Want to make a bet?”

Shoes are near the front door. Is there anything else we need to take care of before leaving? Lacie watches me, “Fine. I’ll make a bet with you. I bet you won’t look as cool and as hip with the times if you use a contact book. A contact book is only the people You Know. The Internet connects you with a ton of other people outside of those that You Know.”

“Buuut if I go out and meet more people. Then I add to the people I know, like the internet,”

“That’s not how that works at all,” she tells me, while meandering into the kitchen.

“Do we have time to eat?” I ask her.

“If we’re late, it’s going to be because someone took a shower to mope-

-for the last time I wasn’t moping-

-then what were you doing-

-brooding, there is a distinction between the two,”

She giggles.

“What were you brooding about?” she asks me.

Now is the perfect time to drop the truth on her. Your dad died yesterday, and I have taken over his body. I am not your precious dad. I am an impostor. But that’s exactly what I am brooding over. Being an impostor. Not being young enough. Influential enough. How I feel the Celestials have underestimated to play this cruel joke on me. How I have become to live a nightmare.

“Beige,”

She laughs, “What does beige mean this morning?” she’s been rummaging around in a cabinet.

“It means look at this apartment. We have an armchair, and a TV, with a dying plant. We can paint the walls, but we have not, and I am in an expiring meat prison, and all I own is a white polo shirt and my uniform,”

“You know,” she waves a book in her hand, “You can always buy stuff to replace, what you don’t like?”

Actually, the thought didn’t occur to me. In fact, I was worried it would give me away.

“I didn’t want you to think I changed,” I tell her.

“Everybody changes, and if they don’t change, well,” Lacie smiles waltzing back around the dining table, and heading over to me. Still standing at the front door, “then they are very beige, right.”

Er. I hate these types. Protectors. People who hold on to an inkling of positivity.

She’s been holding out for this man. When she really shouldn’t.

“What’s this?” I ask her.

“Your contact book. You shoved it in the cabinet one day and didn’t bother to retrieve it.”

Ah. Accepting the book.

“Should we get going?” I ask her.

“Dad,”

I will never get used to that. Am I?

“Mm, what?”

“Proud of you,”

Eugh. Gross.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s get going,”