Luckily some directions were scrawled on the back of the paper, otherwise the two of us would’ve never found the place. Something I didn’t think of until after we left the guild. Betton was also so embarrassed that he refused to go back in and ask. He’s getting a bit too comfortable lately.

But I let it slide, since he was the one to find the directions. The directions which lead us to a decrepit looking house on the outskirts of the farming district. Next to the house, but a decent way away, is an even worse looking hut. Unlike the house, the hut has signs of being lived in, so we head there.

“Hello~?” I call out. Something inside the hut shifts before viciously scrambling around in the dark. After a minute or two of horrible scratching noises, whatever it is calms down. Not long after that, a small, and very old man crawls out of the leaning shack.

“What you want?” he asks gruffly. His eyes travel up and down my body, lingering a bit too long on my chest.

I shove the paper from the guild into his face, cutting off his view of my tits. “It’s this, Sir.”

The man gives me a quizzical look before reading the paper, apparently not recognizing it. As his eyes flicker over the words, he starts to tear up. He looks up at me, hope radiating off of him.

“Are… are you really here to put her to rest?” he asks desperately.

“Yes!” I say with a smile, and a total lack of shame. Behind me I feel Betton glaring daggers into the back of my head.

He points at the nearby building with a long, gnarled finger. “T-that’s the house. She’ll find you quick once you enter,” he adds nervously. “Don’t… don’t get killed over her. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Without another word to us, the elderly man shuffles back into the darkness of the hut. The sounds of sobbing come from within.

I smile widely at Betton. “Ghost hunting time!”

My minion sighs at me, irritated at my antics. Once we are out of earshot of the hut, he asks, “Have you thought of a way to deal with the spirit?”

I laugh at his silly question. “Nope, figure we’ll just… figure it out as we go.”

He glares at me. “If I die, to a ghost, after trailing after you, I will haunt you.”

I shiver at his threat. Somehow he actually thought of something horrifying to me. “Don’t worry Betton, I don’t want that.” Another shiver racks my form. Betton frowns deeper.

We reach the doorway to the ramshackle house. The door is hanging on one hinge, dangling awkwardly. The design of the building is odd, with large beams forming a skeleton for the rest of the building. Most of the windows are shattered, the glass blown inwards. Staring into the darkness within, I feel afraid for the first time since waking up.

I’ve always hated ghosts, they always freaked me out. My friends in highschool would use shitty horror movies on me often. Big, tough Alex is afraid of ghost movies? How lame.

Remembering my immature friend’s mocking, my goo begins to boil. I use the anger as a shield and step inside the scary as hell building. As soon as I cross the threshold the temperature drops to a much more comfortable range, losing the everpresent mugginess the rest of the town has. I smile as comfort washes over me.

I turn around, and am shocked to find Betton right behind me. His teeth are chattering furiously, and from the scowl on his face, not from fear.

“S-s-shit-t-ty ghos-s-s-t-t,” he whines between his teeth. “S-s-so cold-d.” I resist the urge to laugh at him, worried it might upset the ghost lady.

I look around the room, and find that the two of us are in what looks like a common area. There’s several moldy couches sitting around, with a coffee table in the center. Several doorways split off this room, and a spiral staircase heads up to a second floor. Now that I’m inside the darkness of the building, everything is perfectly visible, thanks to my night vision.

Most of the rooms branching off of this one have doors on them. Except for the one the furthest from the front door, that one is open, revealing the figure standing in the— I tackle Betton to the side as something whooshes past where his head just was.

The two of us look up into the gaunt face of our assaulter. It’s clearly a woman, but other than that her features are worn away from decay. Her hair is only left in patches, whole clumps missing completely. Her skin is desiccated, looking vacuumed sealed to her skeleton. Her dried-out eyes swivel in their sockets to look down at the two of us.

“Uh… Hi!”

────────────

After pushing the guy out of the way of the ghost blows for a fourth time, I just pick Betton up. For once he doesn’t complain, instead chattering his teeth away in relative silence. The ex-woman swings a sixth time, also missing a sixth time. Her teeth grind in her mouth angrily. She lets out a loud wail before vanishing.

I keep vigilant, waiting for her next attack. After a couple minutes I realize one isn’t coming. I put Betton down, and look to him for answers.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“So, why’d she leave?” I ask him.

He looks at me, annoyed. “W-why w-would-d-d I know?” he snarls. I just shrug, not sure why I thought he might, that would be too helpful of him.

I lead the way deeper into the house, going for one of the still closed doors. As we make our way, the door the woman appeared in slams shut.

“Guess she wants some privacy,” I joke. Betton doesn’t laugh.

The first door we open leads into a bedroom. It must be the old man’s since there’s a double bed. The dresser is full of now destroyed dresses, probably his late wife’s. Or his I suppose…

Betton quickly finds something interesting while snooping through our employer’s things. He raises a clenched fist, which from dangles a bundle of burning sticks. He looks over at me, clearly baffled.

“Uh, I’m guessing that’s not typical for people to own in this world?”

He raises an eyebrow at me, but ignores my slip up otherwise. “No, having a bundle of everburning sticks in your nightstand is not normal in this world.” He glances at me a second time. Never mind, then.

“Well, what is it?” I ask.

He stares back at me, frowning. “I… have no idea.” Without any further discussion, he grabs the deep red flames with his bare hands. As the flames start to spread onto his skin, a deep purple energy flares to life around his hand. The purple quickly smothers the flames, extinguishing them with a quiet scream.

I stare at Betton, mouth wide. “That… was kinda, cool?” I look at the now smug kid. Shouldn’t have said that.

The house shakes slightly, a deep rumbling coming from somewhere nearby. Betton makes a face at me. “There’s more of these, we should remove them.” I nod, curious to what the bundles are for. Maybe they’re tormenting the girl in revenge for the father sleeping with their husband. Whoever ‘they’ are.

We make it through two more rooms, and smother five more bundles, before anything noteworthy happens. As we find a seventh bundle in a window curtain, the woman reappears. She stands in the doorway of the room, backlit by the light coming from the outside. When I notice her, I jump really bad and almost lose my cohesion.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t immediately attack again, instead creepily staring at the two of us with her dead eyes. She watches as Betton dispels the next bundle. Once the small flame is extinguished, her gaze travels to me. We make eye contact, and anger flares in her eyes. Instead of making a move, she just vanishes again.

Betton turns to face me again, completely unaware of the ghost’s presence. “So, the temperature in here is almost back to normal, there’s probably only one or two of these left.” He holds up the burnt out sticks. “They must be upstairs.”

I nod silently, somewhat shaken from my recent experience. Why was she mad at me, and not Betton? With no answers, the two of us make our way to the upper floor.

The second floor is much brighter than the first, the windows regularly placed into the walls streaming in daylight. That doesn’t stop the creep factor, as the space is cluttered with things. Old furniture, stacks of books, unidentifiable things covered in sheets, trunks of clothes. Typical old people attic stuff. Plus about a million years worth of cobwebs.

We find the last bundle almost immediately. It’s sitting on a chair, in the center of the long room that runs the length of the house. The fire on this one burns a much deeper red, the flames flickering out occasionally. This is too easy.

Not aware of such cliches, Betton walks right up to the bundle and starts to dispel it. He lets out a strained grunt. “I-I’m not sure… if it’s because of all the magic I’ve used, or if the strength of this one is higher, but this is tough.” He grits his teeth, visibly straining against the flames. Nevertheless, eventually his purple light succeeds in snuffing out the burning red.

The moment the red light burns out, so does every other source of illumination. Sunlight stops coming in the windows, the only thing visible on the other side being a shifting void of blacks. After a delay of a few seconds, the house shudders violently. Everything sways like we’re suddenly on the ocean, the furniture and other trash in the room rolling around violently.

I quickly scoop up my dude, and grow some toothy cleats. With way more force than necessary, I jab my feet into the floor. The teeth on my soles bite into the soft wood, giving me a good grip despite the swaying surroundings. As quickly as I can I head for the stairs leading down.

The idea of smashing through the floor flits through my mind, but I quickly discard it. Whatever is going on outside the house, probably is happening inside too. What if I punch through into that inky void instead of the lower floor? I’ll stick to the stairs.

I make rapid progress, smashing anything that gets too close to us. Once we reach the opening to the lower floor, and I see that it’s actually there, I jump. I land on the ground floor with a huge crash, smashing one of the sofas in a huge plume of stuffing. Looking for an exit, I see that the front door is still open, hanging by that single hinge. Even then, all that’s on the other side is that shifting black mass.

I quickly notice that all the doors are closed again. After we had searched a room, we left the door open. Despite that, the only still open door is to the room we never entered. Just like one of the shitty horror movies I was so afraid of as a kid, that final room glows with a deep red light.

I let out a sigh, and begin to walk towards the opening. At some point Betton started crying, and for once I don’t blame him. If it wasn’t for the monster in me, I think I’d be sobbing too. As we get near the doorway, the wood of the house begins to pulse rhythmically. I ignore it, and just head straight inside.

For a second, everything goes black, and then me and Betton are in a large open space. Not unlike the nothingness outside the house, it stretches on forever, with dark swirling masses moving over it.

The two of us just stand there in silence for who knows how long, until a woman appears. Even though she looks nothing like it, I immediately know it's the ghost from earlier. Instinctually, I mean, because through context clues I could’ve also…

Anyways, she’s no longer desiccated, instead looking like a young twenty-something woman, just slightly transparent. She smiles at the two of us.

“Why’d you come here?” she asks accusingly.

I just stand there, kinda confused on why she’s upset. “Your dad is paying us to set you free… or something.” I shrug.

She sighs loudly. “Great…” The woman rubs her face in her hands. “Just great.” She makes eye contact with me. “You! Do you know what you’ve done?” she asks angrily.

“Uh… saved you?”

She scowls. “No, you let out a monster.” Her face clenches and she grits her teeth. “One I sealed.”

Betton decides this is a good time to speak up. “Oh! Yeah, those bundles could’ve totally been a sealing ritual.” He nods to himself.

I smack the back of his head, sending him rolling quite the distance. My eyes lock onto the ghost again. “So… Where is this monster?”

She frowns. “We’re in it.” With a wave of her hand she gestures to the space around us.

I tilt my head. “Is the monster… corporeal?”

She looks at me, confused. “Yes, why?”

“Well…” I rub the back of my head. “That means it's killable, right?”

She looks at me like one looks at a moronic child asking if he can microwave a lizard. “Yeah, but so are dragons.”

I rub my chin. “So, does it have any special abilities? Regeneration or immortality or a curse?”

She sighs in defeat. “No, it’s just huge and violent.”

I smile, my teeth small needles.

“Well, that’s great, then.”