Like every other night in her dreams Hailie came back to her family town. It was more like a horrible nightmare rather than a typical dream. She felt like she was trapped in that one particular day, forced to relive it over and over again. Hailie couldn't free herself, always thinking what she might have done differently. If she didn't come that day... Wouldn't it just happen some other day? And wouldn't it end up so much worse? She thought about various scenarios all the time, but the truth was that no matter what she has done, she couldn't have escaped from what happened to her.

And so once again, she was leaning on the steering wheel of her old and small, but easy to use car. She felt weak, even though 10 minutes ago she was full of adrenaline. There was blood everywhere, draining from Hailie's arm and face onto her loose dress and a car upholstery. Her eye swelled a bit so she found it hard to see well, moreover she couldn't stop crying and teardrops were running down her face like a waterfall.

Hailie grabbed a handle and stepped out of the car. She barely stood on her feet, but she had to end it and finally spoke out. She should have done it so much earlier. Maybe then somebody would have protected her.

She looked at a bright neon of a police station. She was afraid, not only because of what happened. She was afraid to talk. But was there anything worse that could happen to her if she tells?

Weak on her feet, she managed to cross the street and reach a door to the police station. She opened them, using all the strength she had and walked inside, squinting eyes from bright lights. She felt like she was in a trance, she didn't know what was happening around her. Seconds had passed and somebody ran up to her. She heard voices but didn't understand them. Everything was so blurry and loud. A policeman led her up to the chair and the other one was calling an ambulance.

She felt blood in her lips and a dryness in her sore throat. She didn't want to see how she looked. She already thought of herself as horribly ordinary, but now she was wounded, swelled and ugly. And she felt so alone and frightened, without anybody to protect her.

A mid-aged woman kneeled beside her and looked at her carefully. She gently touched her throat. There were traces of choking, but it wasn't the worst. Bruises were all over her body, today especially on her face. A woman was terrified just by glancing at her.

"Who did this to you?" she asked softly.

***

Hailie woke up, sweat running down her back. She touched her lips, but there was no blood on them. She was fine, it was another of these stupid dreams of what happened.

"Will I ever stop having sleepless nights?" she asked into space and got up. She knew there was no point in trying to sleep again. She looked at her phone, checking what time it is. "3:33. Wonderful."

Hailie went to the bathroom situated opposite to the room she picked for herself. She was living in this house for three days and nothing really happened. Everything was just like always, except she heard creaking all the time, because it was a very old building. She might thought that something was walking down the halls, but it didn't scare her. As long as she hasn't seen any ghosts, she refused to believe in them.

"Okay, you have a whole night before you. What are you going to do?" she asked her reflection in the mirror. "You've got a big essay to write 'till Monday, maybe you could start it already?"

She thought it was pitiful that she was so lonely, she had to talk to her reflection. She didn't like to look at herself. Her brown, long hair slightly revealed a thin, exhausted face. She always felt that she had so much work to do and so little time to get it done. And what a nose! It had a dent in the middle of the bridge, with an upturned tip. It was nothing like the small, pretty nose of her sister, which she had after their mom. She hated the fact that there was nothing perfect about her.

"You are so weak and awful. Why can't you just change?" she asked herself, rolling up a blouse and glancing at her belly.

In her mind, there was a sudden memory she couldn't get rid of.

"Well, well, isn't that my best friend, sitting here all alone? What's up girl?" asked her bestie from high school, Amy Booker.

She was sitting in school's cafeteria, thinking about her boyfriend, when Amy showed up. She always had this bright smile on her. Back then, Hailie didn't know how fake it was.

"Jayson asked me to come tonight to his house. His parents apparently are going to work all night. Some big case, he said."

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, her voice excited. "Tell me, Hailie, what's it like to be a girlfriend of our hot golden boy? Honestly, when I first met you, I didn't know what Jay saw in you, because... You know, you were a little bit weird. But don't get me wrong! Now I feel like I could not survive a day without my best friend!"

They've become inseparable since she joined their group of popular kids. All because the most handsome guy in the school noticed her. He was indeed perfect. All the roses, kisses, talking... She felt like she wanted to be with him every minute.

"It's great, I just... I feel like Jay might want something tonight... You know," she blushed and glanced at her plate with two cupcakes she bought in the cafeteria. She loved everything with chocolate.

"Oh, so you weren't together yet?" Amy was surprised, but then the look on her face changed. "You just gotta give boys what they want. I don't get you. Jay is great. But, honestly Hailie, let me give you advice."

"What advice?"

Amy grabbed the place with cupcakes and she put it on the other side of the table.

"You shouldn't eat so much. I mean, you look great enough, but I saw you in the girl's locker room. Guys like a flat belly. If you eat less, you won't have to be ashamed of your figure."

"I am not ashamed-"

"Oh, you should be. You have a potential to be an It Girl, but first you have to start working out a bit more and put away chocolate. Think of it that way. If you start undressing for Jay, you would prefer he saw a hot and attractive girl, right? Or he finds himself another one. I have experience, I know how boys think and I just want what's best for you."

Hailie hasn't had friends before Amy and Jayson. Maybe that's why back then she would do absolutely everything to melt into their group. She wanted so badly to be with them, she couldn't see how wrong it was. How much body shaming she was getting from her presumably best friend. She could have made her feel like a goddess and then she would mix her with mud. And back then it was okay. It was normal. Hailie didn't understand how toxic it was to be friends with people she spent time with. And the worst of it was that those habits from the past stayed with her. She heard Amy's voice in her head all the time.

She washed her face, trying to remove those painful memories from her mind, unaware of a figure standing right behind her. A young, golden-haired woman was staring at Hailie for the past few days. She was going wherever Hailie was, trying to understand her and figure out how to make her life a living hell. Turned out, she didn't have to do that, because that girl managed to do it herself. She took a sigh and walked out from the bathroom. She was a demon, so she didn't need to sleep, but just simple looking at that pitiful human made her tired.

"Nothing new?" asked a man, standing next to the door. "You look quite unhappy, Pride."

"Oh, hell! Corpse would have more self-confidence than this girl!" she exclaimed, getting angry. "She's like a mistake in the system. Ask others."

"He doesn't have to. We're all here," said Envy, glancing at her newly made, red fingernails. "Except Sloth. I don't know where he is. Probably sleeping somewhere, maybe on the porch." Envy turned around like she was checking if Sloth indeed isn't anywhere near. "So, what do we do? I can't come up with an idea of how to destroy her life. There's no fun playing with such a depressed girl."

"Any update?" asked Lust, comfortably sitting in his chair. He looked like he didn't care at all. Who knew what was going on in his mind. He rarely talked to them.

"Well, there's nothing we can do. I tried to make her greedy eater, but it was a big failure. She looked at herself in the mirror, started crying and threw up everything she ate," mumbled Gluttony, eating up a hamburger. Again.

"No anger works on her. It disgusts her too much," said Wrath, still standing next to Pride. He adored her and she knew it. She thought that everybody loved her. "That girl must have been beaten or got through something horrible. She has a bruise on her arm."

"And I can't do anything either. My charms would only help her with confidence and self-loving," muttered Pride, asking herself how that girl could hate herself so much. She wasn't an ugly one. Besides, she met so many residents of this house who were in love with themselves in one way or another. "Same with Sloth, I feel like she really needs a nap, a good and long nap."

They all moved into the room, where Hailie was sitting on a chair, staring into the computer. She tried to come up with something good, so her essay wouldn't turn up to be a complete disaster.

"It kind of feels wrong to want to hurt her. I mean, most of our toys were actually a little bit older. And they weren't so alone," continued Pride, thinking of what they have done in the past. They could have made a human want to kill not only himself but also everybody he ever loved.

But this one. She had that aura, like she wanted to come to this house just because she hoped that something bad would happen to her.

"I mean, look at her." Envy stood beside, waving her hands above Hailie's head. She couldn't see or hear six ghost talking with each other in the same room.

Her bloodshot brown eyes, set charmingly within their sockets, watched carefully the computer screen, trying to find any mistakes in a few sentences she had written already. Bright light underlined her dark circles under eyes, suggesting that she hadn't slept a lot in the past few days, which was true. She probably hadn't slept for a long time. She also had a pale complexion, but there was nothing attractive about it. She was so badly pale in an unhealthy way, like she barely stepped out of her house and lived among shadows.

"You guys, I'd like to know what happened to her. Aren't you curious?" asked Greed, with her black hair elegantly pinned up, showing big diamond earrings.

"I am." Pride kneeled beside Hailie. "I really, really am! And I have an idea. Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to ruin her life and make her want to kill herself, we would help her?"

Wrath started laugh so hard, he had to catch on to something. Pride tossed him her angry look, which he loved to see.

"We are demons, honey, not helping hands."

"I usually don't agree with Pride, but this time," Lust finally joined the conversation, after thinking about all of this for a long time, "this time I agree. Why wouldn't we help that poor little soul? Help with getting back on her feet, and more importantly, with a revenge."

Greed got excited.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "That's brilliant and so much more fun. We don't have to kill that girl. We might make her better and she will bring us people who deserve bad luck much more than she does."

Pride was staring for a long time on Lust. There was something wrong. He wanted something else, then just help that girl. She could see it in his dark eyes, but she didn't know what it was.

"So, we have a deal? Helping instead of hurting?" she wanted to be sure, but whatever others would choose, she made her decision already.

"Hey y'all, what I've missed?" Sloth shown up in the room, yawning. He just woke up from a long, pleasant nap and he felt awesome because of it.

"Sit up and listen, we explain later," hissed Greed, nervous about Sloth and his laziness. She could never find him, when she needed something. He had a talent for disappearing. "How are we going to achieve that?"

"We can't really show up to her. She would freak out. One ghost is enough, so that will be me," decided Pride and even if others didn't like that, nobody wanted to fight with her. That would be a hell of a nasty fight, trying to say that somebody can do it better than she can. "I will become her friend, I will find out what happened to her and I will help her with self-confidence."

"Easy steps, I will make her eat again," said Gluttony, eating now a cupcake. "And eat better, because life without chocolate is a very sad life."

"Sleep." Sloth didn't have to say anything else. He yawned again. Soon it will be time for another nap.

"Fine." Wrath was voted down. "An angry girl will be better with fighting for what she wants." He knew all about it. Not a lot but just a little bit of anger could work miracles.

"Motivation. That's mine and Greed's." Envy touched her red, short hair. "She needs to know what it is that she wants and then she needs motivation for getting it."

All of them looked at Lust, who smiled dangerously. There was something powerful about him, something that made the other demons didn't want to have problems with him. It would end up quite bad and all of them preferred living in harmony with each other.

"Lust. We all need it, don't we?" He walked over to Hailie, looking at her with curiosity. She stood up, trying to find any ideas on what to write. He watched her going around the room. She had something interesting in her, something young and fierce. Besides, he was so lonely for such a long time. "Pride can be her helping ghost, but I... I will be her humanlike friend."

Demons exchanged glances with each other. They could become visible for the human eye anytime they wanted, but more of that, they could also become touchable. They could trick them into thinking they were indeed humans and not creatures from hell.

"Lust, are you sure it's-"

"Yes." He didn't let Pride finish her sentence. "Believe me, that's exactly what she might want. She needs all of us, but mostly me and Pride. Don't worry, I won't hurt her. I know how to control myself, she knows too, I hope."

They all looked at Hailie.

"That's so not us," realized Wrath. He was the most hesitating one.

"But it's gonna be so much more fun," replied Lust, looking forward to their first meeting.