"Though I know I should be wary, still I venture someplace scary. Ghostly hauntings I turn loose, Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice! BEETLEJUICE!"

In full death and color, Beetlejuice appeared. He turned to greet his best-friend, and saw…no-one. Confused, the ghost with the most did a full circle looking for his friend. There was no one there.

"Lyds," Beetlejuice asked, surveying the room, "Where are you babes?"

He checked his watch; the funny thing is she still should be at school. Beetlejuice began searching her room, if she was going to try and scare him, or pull a trick on him; he was going to get the upper hand. As he thought that, he turned into a hand that was higher than another hand, turning back to normal, he began his search.

After a good half an hour or though, not only was her room empty, it seemed like the whole house was. Of course, her parents were probably at work, or whatever they did, but still he wondered who called him. He walked back upstairs and sat down on Lydia's bed, trying to piece together the puzzle.

"The transports could be out of function, and she could have called me from somewhere else… Well, if that were the case, she would be at school!"

Happy with his new found revelation, Beetlejuice transported to the school, and became the clock on the wall for obvious reasons such as "Ah, a ghost," while funny, it had its consequences, especially if he did appearing acts near Lydia while she was in public. She didn't like to lie to Burp and Prude, but she did so quite a few times to cover his hide when it came to those appearances.

As he looked out through the clock, he found the entire classroom empty. Now normally Beetlejuice wasn't a worry wart, but two empty places too many and he was starting to feel a little edgy. He attempted to ease his nerves by checking the rest of the school, to find that it still indeed had people in it.

Maybe some of these people knew where Lydia was, but how to find out.

It must have been a lucky chance, but he spotted a hall monitor and appeared behind her in his infamous disguise of Betty Juice. He tapped her on the shoulder causing her to whirl around.

"Excuuuuuse me, but I'm Betty Juice and I accidently slept in today, and I was wondering where Miss Shannon, and the rest of her class could be. I so, don't want to miss any more precious class time."

Gosh, Beetlejuice sometimes questioned why he still used this disguise, when Lydia was in her last year, when she was eighteen, he would so use this disguise for something useful, a little mischief before they went to Physical Exercise (Education) (but if he did that kind of stuff now he would terminate his friendship). The girl stared at him, and his disgusting female version, before speaking.

"Well, it wasn't smart of you to sleep in, Miss Shannon will be really mad, but I guess it's better than not showing up at all. They went to Peaceful Pines' bridge and woods, you know that little park and bridge to the west of here."

Smiling, rather gruesomely though, he thanked her. She nodded, but as she walked off, she began muttering to herself things such as "that is the ugliest girl I have ever layed eyes on."

Beetlejuice heard the comments, but put them to the side. Those compliments could be rewarded later. He transported to the described location, and looked around. Was it supposed to be a showcase of the vehicles that appear when 911 is called; he knew they had to learn about that kind of crap, but did they need to go to a park and call the vehicles to see them?

He – still in the disguise of Betty Juice – approached the crowd warily, not sure how to act or fit into this situation. Coming closer to the crowd, he found in fact they were split into little groups, not surprising, and the first group he came upon and eavesdropped on was Claire's and her little clique's group. They were positioned around a sobbing Claire wrapped in a towel.

"I-I-I just like f-f-fell into the, like, c-c-cold water, and it was, like, j-just so wet." She sobbed, whimpering like a puppy.

Her friends all took turns comforting her, with meaningless comments.

"I bet."

"I'm so sorry."

"I know, like, you must feel so bad."

Claire sobbed even more, and gripped the towel tighter.

"Then, with the w-water going over my h-head, I, like, thought I was going to d-die, and like, not even in my most fashionable clothes. It w-would have been, so like, c-cruel."

Beetlejuice gagged, and was about to walk away when…

"Then that, D-Deetz girl, Lydia, like, grabbed my w-wrist and p-p-pulled me out of the water, and I was like, so thankful."

His attention snapped back to Claire, but she had broken down completely, realization of her near death experience setting in, and she didn't say anything else.

A bit frustrated by his lack of knowledge still, Beetlejuice drifted over to another group, this time Burp and Prude's. They were sobbing even worse than Claire.

Bertha looked up, and stared at Betty Juice (Beetlejuice), and he shifted.

"Where were you today? Lydia could have used your help."

Beetlejuice didn't see why he being there would have helped with the Claire problem, and saving her. Using his best, "I'm worried," expression, "What happened?"

Prudence straightened up, to look at him, and frowned.

"Oh, hi Betty, Lydia is…is…" Prudence broke down crying again, and Bertha helped comfort her. When neither straightened up and showed any sense of going to, he moved on to the third group he hoped to get information from.

Delia and Charles sat on a park bench, Charles leaning forward, his head in hands, and Delia rubbing his back.

"It's alright Charles, they said there was still a chance, and you know Lydia… They didn't find her which gives us a fifty/fifty chance."

Charles started crying harder, his body shook with the sobs.

Beetlejuice approached them. Delia looked up at him.

"Betty, I was wondering where you were."

Beetlejuice twisted the skirt he was wearing, a bit worried with all of this talk of…

"What happened?'

"While they were crossing the bridge one of the girls, Claire, dropped her bracelet, and in an effort to catch it, toppled over the bridge. Lydia went in down to the side of the river a little ways, and grabbed Claire's wrist before she could be caught in the strong current where the fork in the water was. After pulling her out, Lydia slipped and fell in, and…got caught in the current."

It was the first straight answer Beetlejuice had got, and now he was wishing for the vague answers.

"Is…is she dead?"

"They don't know. She fell about forty-five minutes ago, so they haven't ruled it out, but…" Delia stopped when Charles began crying harder.

Beetlejuice, extremely worried, realized what had happened. Lydia must have called his name, and due to her location in water and not on a stable surface, the transport system between the realms had just dropped him off at her house. They changed the transport system to that way, after many ghosts going back to the real world to do 125 years of haunting, found themselves in a pool or underwater haunting a lake.

Beetlejuice, quickly rushed down to the water side, and as soon as he was out of sight of the living mortals, he snapped back to regular form. He floated above the water, and followed the current described by Delia, and quickly scanned.

They told him when he was dead, that his heart would never hammer in his chest, it would never beat again. They were wrong. His heart felt like it was going to break out of his chest and go on its own search for Lydia.

He found the end of the current, and stopped before it. The current ended in a waterfall, and not just a regular waterfall, the kind that plunged into a cave.

"LYDIA!"

This story is in honor of a fellow classmate who broke his neck while tubing, while it has no direct connection, not many people are aware of how easy it is for a person to die, no matter the age. Note: the boy was the same age as me, fourteen. He never even got to go to his first day of high school.

You decide, I can continue this fan fiction, or I can leave it right here.