"I'm sorry you have what?"

"Marigold," Nitro grumbled.

With a snort, Marigold threw her feet onto the table, knocking a few stray screwdrivers onto the dirty workshop floor. On the same dusty floor laid scientific equipment and inventions of uses beyond the idea of any man. Marigold's fingers stretched for one of the fallen tools, but gave up once they rolled out of reach.

"There is," Nitro hesitated, "a ghost in my house."

Nitro had barely finished speaking before Marigold erupted into a shriek of laughter. Her feet kicked the metal table top, causing an earthquake to the project she had been working on earlier. Her hand hit the wall as if it was an old friend telling a joke; photographs dangling on the wall jumped and skipped around. The framed photos of Marigold and another man accepting an award watched Nitro mockingly from their nailed perch. The album-like walls seemed to be closing in with their criticizing glares everytime Marigold burst into a fit of laughter.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She giggled, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm not sure what we can do for you. I mean, I don't consider myself much of a ghost hunter."

"Couldn't you science a way to make my house ghost free? I can't have a single date night without my books flying across the room at us!"

Marigold retracted from her extended portrayal of laid back laughter. She began congratulating him about his new date in a softer voice that reminded him of his mother. Nitro gave her a stiff smile and the picture covered walls surrounded him again. The faded blue door behind him shrunk until it was too small for a mouse; the spotlight shifting from the ghost to Nitro, made him aware of the textures of his clothes. The hair of his arms rose as did his temperature. His tired, burning eyes investigated the workshop to distract his mind.

Nitro watched a pile of markers, stacked by a whiteboard on the walls, preparing to topple over. He tried to make sense of the scribbling on the board next. There were two sets of handwriting, probably Marigold and the man in the photograph. One side of the board had equations and hand drawn diagrams while the other had doodles of stick figures and smiley faces. Drawing in the middle of important research, why doesn't that surprise me? Nitro internally teased his friend. The buzzing of fluorescent lights caught the attention of his wandering eyes.

"You hear that too?" Marigold's exclamation broke Nitro's trance.

"Sorry, what?" He leaned away, expecting another outburst.

"You can hear the lights making that- that," She attempted to mimic the buzzing. "I hate it! I can barely work here when those lights start whining. Daunte bought me a pair of noise cancelling headphones for my birthday, works like a charm."

"Great. So my ghost?" Nitro urged, his back beginning to ache from standing.

Marigold jumped from her seat with a devious cackle and scavenged through her machines. Many technical words came spewing from her mouth as she rambled about his otherworldly visitor. The slam of a door interrupted the one-sided conversation. Nitro turned toward the hallway from behind the endless rows of tables and the man from the photographs stepped into the room.

"Nitro!" He smiled, arms open wide.

"Damien, it's good to see you again," Nitro greeted his friend as he embraced him.

[This one is just a draft of something I never finished, but if you guys like it... I could write more.]