“This place is way better than school, huh?” Luke said as they rode the elevator downstairs after another long day at the lab, “Think we’ll get to meet Peter Rose soon? They said sometimes he comes down to the lab. With how much everyone is impressed with you, I’m sure they’ll sing your praises when he arrives.”

Emily fiddled with her security pass in her pocket. She couldn’t believe that Alice had somehow gotten an internship in the marketing team. Luke had mentioned it in passing as something he had heard. Alice’s internship was after her normal school, so the two of them never ended up crossing paths. But still vaguely disturbing to Emily that she was working in the same building as the unpleasant girl.

“Yeah. This is way better than having a Senior highschool year,” Emily said, “All the people at the lab are really awesome. Peter Rose… I can’t wait to meet him. Founder of CODA, building this whole city with all his own money. He even managed to keep our city and territory safe during the second American Civil war in the 2300s despite all the chaos going on around us. My Mom was a refugee from the Revival Empire when she was a girl. If CODA hadn’t let her and my grandparents in, then who knows what might have happened to my family. Peter Rose was the one that called to accept the refugees even when other people didn’t want to.”

“Glad the Empire’s mostly gone now,” Luke said as the doors opened, “You know people say that CODA was secretly supporting the democracy faction despite saying they were neutral. If we didn’t have our own military rivaling both of the American ones all in one place then CODA city and the other territories CODA controls around us might not still be what they are today.”

“Well, I’m glad. They would be doing the right thing if that’s true,” Emily said firmly, “I’m just glad that Sean and I were born here instead of out there. Things have calmed down, but Mom says that things are still very tense after the war. She still has some friends out there that she talks to sometimes over the phone that are still out there.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that,” Luke said as the door of the elevator opened to the bottom floor, “Your genius would have been totally wasted out there. Best for everyone you’re here with CODA instead.”

They started walking out of the building together. Emily glanced at him, “Hey, stop acting so humble, Luke. Weren’t Donald and Barbara saying how amazing you were doing just yesterday?”

Luke frowned slightly, “Yes, but compared to you…”

“Pah,” Emily said, “Don’t compare, they’re not just boosting your ego. You made your own unique protein last week, didn’t you? Even most full-time workers don’t end up finding one or two in a whole year. They just look for small iterations on the already discovered ones. It’s only been five months, you’re already way faster than even most of the brightest CODA has to offer!”

“Hmmm. I guess. What have you made? Ten, twelve?”

Emily shrugged and felt a little embarrassed, “Around there.”

They lapsed into silence as they walked outside and began walking on the street towards the train station. It was a decent walk there.

“Hey, Em,” Luke said, his voice oddly tense, as they approached the train station, “Want to go catch a movie sometime? Maybe this weekend?”

Emily looked at him in surprise, “Like at a theater? I mean, sure. I didn’t have any big plans or anything, and it sounds fun. Haven’t gone to one of those in forever.”

A subtle tension in Luke’s shoulders that Emily had just noticed released.

“Great, Em,” he said, “Great.”

They got on the train, and Emily flinched as there was a short burst of wind and soft whispers as the doors closed and the train car lurched into motion. But the next second, everything returned to normal like nothing had happened at all.

Emily shook her head as nothing else strange happened for a few seconds. She got a tight feeling in her chest as she listened to the clattering of the train and soft voices of the other passengers. But nothing else happened. Emily let out a deep breath. Must have been nothing. Just an odd burst of wind.

— — —

Emily and Luke stood in the lobby of the movie theater looking over the big posters of their options. Neither of them had done any research, just meeting at her house and driving over together to see what movie caught their interest after walking in.

At the moment, the two of them were staring at a particular poster together.

Emily turned and glared at Luke suspiciously, “Did you know about this? No way this is random.”

Luke smirked and raised his hands defensively, “Oh yeah. I knew. I saw an ad for it and couldn’t resist. I know you’re a Zeena superfan, she’s got to fight the demons and find love both!”

Emily flushed slightly and glanced at the near scandalous poster of Zeena in her skimpy armor from the videogame and her oversized sword. Zeena was warding off a big horned archdemon holding a ball of flame ready to throw at her. Behind Zeena was a man in white robes lifting a staff with a blue glowing ball of light at its end. The healer companion and the primary love interest in the game .

“I… I’m not a superfan. That was way back in middle school that I was so into that stuff.”

Luke smirked wider, “Oh, middle school? Then why was there a big poster of her hung up in your room over the summer? Was it signed too? I thought I saw something scrawled at the bottom…”

“Shush!” Emily said in a panic while glancing around, “Okay, okay. You caught me. It’s so embarrassing, her lines are so over the top whenever I replay that old game…”

“Hey that game came out in 2347 and still holds up even now,” Luke said, “I got nothing against it. I don’t exactly have a limited edition, signed poster by the lead voice actress though…”

Emily groaned as softly as she could, “I get it, okay? But she was so cool in person, I even shook her hand! There was a convention I went to last year. I didn’t tell you because I thought you would think it would be lame… You don’t think that, do you?”

“Errr, no. I think it’s actually cool! Yeah, she is a really great character. Great story and all that…”

The two of them stared at the poster for a few seconds.

“We kind of have to watch it now,” Emily admitted, “I have to see it, even if we don’t go together. I can’t believe I somehow missed it.”

“Sure, but it’s a romance I’ve heard,” Luke said lightly, “If we go, it’ll be like a date. We’ll have to hold hands and everything. That’s just the rules.”

“Ha! You wish,” Emily said, “I’ll be too busy snacking on the popcorn for that. I bet Zeena will be mostly slicing and dicing the demons. I wonder if the Archdemon of Gluttony from the third ring of hell will appear? He escaped in the game, but he was a great villain and if he came back…”

Emily kept excitedly theorizing about what would happen in the movie and Luke occasionally jumped in with an observation or two. They bought the tickets, bought one big bucket of popcorn to share, and then went into the theater.

The movie began and Emily leaned forward in her seat to watch as Zeena came on screen fighting one of the lesser demons with her sword. The movie continued and Zeena fought and developed her relationship with her healer companion. Emily raised her eyebrows as half way through the movie things started getting a little heated between them and things started taking a distinctly steamy turn.

A minute into it, Emily felt a finger brush against her hand sitting on the arm rest between her and Luke. It really was an involved scene, there was no need to make it so long. Well, now Emily knew why this movie was rated R along with all the demon blood and gore… Shouldn’t Zeena go back to fighting demons soon? This was taking a while.

Emily glanced over at Luke and after a second he grabbed her hand in his warm grip. Emily smiled as she remembered what he said before. This movie really was more of a romance than she had expected at first. Luke smiled back at her. Guy and girl at the movies, of course they would be holding hands. Emily idly wondered what it would be like if they actually started dating each other. How strange would that be?

Then as she turned back to the movie screen… she stiffened and her hold on Luke’s hand became a death grip. There was… the sound of wind around her. The faint whispers from all sides could just barely be heard over the crashes and shouts as Zeena and her lover were interrupted by a demon crashing through the wall of their tent as the movie skipped to the next morning finally.

Emily’s heart beat loudly in her chest and she stiffened as straight as a board in her seat as the wind and whispers grew louder and louder around her. If she just sat here, then it would just go away, right? It was just a hallucination, she just had to let it pass like she had months ago.

She started sweating and felt suddenly cold as the noise drowned out the movie until she couldn’t hear anything else. She grew more and more panicked as she sat there as the noise and whispers grew louder and louder as she sat there. She started feeling a sense of impending doom. She couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, no matter how much she knew she should just stay put and ignore it.

“Em- Alright? Em?” She turned and could just barely hear Luke’s voice over the whispers and wind.

“I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!” Emily said and he flinched back. He glanced to the side, presumably someone had said something to him. She quickly released Luke’s hand and fled down the stairs to leave the theater room into the main hallway. The bathroom, yes she could wait it out there. She’d wait it out on the toilet so Luke wouldn’t see her freaking out.

Emily, we have to start now.

We can’t keep pushing it off.

We’ve skipped time again,

and we already broke our original promise.

We should have already started last time,

when she was going down that elevator,

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

and getting on that train.

No! I mean, Luke is her best friend.

This is an important moment in their friendship.

Can’t we just wait one more time?

I don’t want to see her hurt.

There still should be some time to waste.

Listen, Emily.

There will never be a good time.

We don’t know exactly how much time we have left.

We skipped from thirteen to sixteen years old in one jump.

Then another whole year at least after that.

We don’t know how many skips we have left until the worst happens.

This… This is how we protect her. You.

Surely you can see that?

We can’t just sit back and observe her anymore.

I won’t do that again when I can protect someone I care about.

But we’ll be hurting her!

Look at her now!

She’s running out the theater, scared senseless.

No, no, no! I won’t do it, we’ll find another way, we’ll…

I’m sorry Emily. We can’t.

I really didn’t want to do this.

But I’d rather you hate me

Than stand by when we can stop

All the suffering you’ve gone through.

The suffering now and back then because of what happened.

This is why I must be here.

Thank you so much for everything, Emily.

I won’t stand by and let anyone I love be hurt by my inaction again.

Sean, what are you saying?

Look at her! How is this helpful?

All we’re doing is torturing her with our voices.

Be quiet, we… we can’t do this to her!

Please!

I’m sorry.

But only one of us needs to speak for this to work.

Be as quiet as you want,

But I’m getting her attention now

And giving her information to change what will happen.

And to do that we have to escalate

until she can understand more of what we say.

And can finally understand us.

Sean, stop!

Why are you…

Don’t!

EMILY

EMILY

EMILY

EMILY

Emily sat on the toilet with her knees curled up to her chest, hands covering her ears rocking back and forth. But she could still hear the whispers from all sides. Was there still wind? She couldn’t remember, the whispers were becoming so loud all around her. They shifted and changed, only random fragments of words poking through the noise. The female was arguing with the male one.

“Emily…” The voices whispered. No, not both. The male voice only.

“No, no, no,” She whispered, rocking back and forth while still trying to stay as quiet as she could as her eyes grew wet, “Leave me alone…”

“Emily…”

“Emily…”

Her head was pounding, constant whispers of her name assaulting her from all sides. It grew worse and worse until she felt like her head split into two.

“I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Suddenly everything reached a crescendo and then all sound cut out. Emily uncurled slightly and peered towards the door of her bathroom stall from over her knees. She waited a few seconds before cautiously uncurling like a turtle exiting its shell. She stood up and fearfully peered through the crack in the door. Everything looked okay besides the sudden silence all around her. There was a woman at the sink staring at Emily’s stall, but she looked normal. Not threatening at all.

What was wrong with her? What was happening?

Emily unlatched the stall door and opened it to poke her head out to inspect the rest of the bathroom. Coast seemed clear… It took a few seconds for Emily to notice the woman’s lips were moving over by the sink. She looked concerned as Emily finally noticed it and stared blankly at her for a few seconds. Everything was still so silent, but Emily’s furiously beating heart began to slow down as nothing else happened. She relaxed fractionally.

Then she heard it. A noise. She looked to the back wall of the bathroom. There, shimmering a few feet off of the ground and pressed against the wall was… something. It was like one of those odd funhouse mirrors, distorting and twisting the view of the wall behind it. Invisible, but still clearly visible to Emily by how it warped the light.

She stared at it in shock for a few seconds before flinching violently and gasping as a hand suddenly reached out and slapped against the bathroom wall.

It looked like a human arm in shape, but pixelated and distorted. Strange polygons and shifting rainbow bursts of light shone from its form so much that it was hard to look at it directly. If it weren’t for the five fingers, Emily would have difficulty in instinctively recognizing it as a human arm at all.

The distorted arm flexed, and another arm reached out of the portal and slapped against the other side of the wall. A head popped through. The distortion effect was so great that Emily couldn’t even see any of the facial features of the creature as its head turned to fixate on her.

She stood there frozen in fear as the figure began pulling itself forward and revealing its torso climbing out of the portal on the wall.

Emily felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped, spooked. The hand flinched back and Emily saw the woman who was at the sink before looking concerned and moving her lips silently, trying to speak to Emily.

Emily quickly glanced back at the now obviously male figure that had now leveraged itself up to the waist even as its head remained fixed on Emily.

Suddenly it felt like the air was vibrating around her, and she heard the voice of the male ghost speak from all around her from all sides just like before. But more coherent. Actual speech instead of faded whispers.

“LiTtle EmiLy, HoW NiCe To fiNallY MeEt You in PeRson.”

“AAaaaaaaahhhhhhHH!!!” Emily screamed before turning around and sprinting out of the bathroom in a panic, ignoring the silent woman at the sink.

“WaiT, You CaN’T LEaVe! So mUch to tEll yOu! CoMe BaCk!”

Emily saw the distorted figure move past the confused woman in the bathroom. The other woman didn’t even react as the distorted figure’s arm passed through her torso.

Emily slammed the door shut and started running, not even sure where. But just knowing that she had to get away. She found the side door and pushed it open and jumped through, ignoring the strange looks of the unnaturally quiet people around her. If… If she got away for long enough then she would be safe. The noise would return and the ghost would go away again. Like how it had before.

Emily was in a dark alleyway on the side of the theater, a dumpster to her right. It was clean, not as much trash as she thought there would be. Emily pressed herself against the far wall and waited, breathing hard as she looked at the door. After a minute, the Ghost phased right through the closed door without even stopping.

“DoN’T Be ScAred,” the ghostly man said, “I JuSt WaNt to TaLk.”

“T-T-Talk?” Emily stammered and the ghost took a step forward. “S-S-Stay back! I’ll- I’ll run again if you try anything!”

The ghost man stopped.

“oKay.”

Emily saw a flicker of movement on the far side of the alleyway and glanced quickly at the motion along with the ghost man. She quickly looked back at the ghost, it must have been nothing.

“What d-do you want, Ghost?”

“ViRus.” The ghost said, “DoN’T bUiLd the ViRus. It will End tHe WoRld. YoU muSt StOp it or aLL will be LOst. ReMember.”

“E-End of the world? Virus? What? I didn’t build anything, you’re not making any sense!”

“YoU wiLL. SomEday. ReFuse, eVen if CODA asks. Even Peter RoSe.”

“No, no, no. Fuck!” Emily said, “Why am I believing this? It’s just a stupid hallucination. Just paranoia telling me things. Hearing voices, seeing things. I- I- I-”

“I Am nOt PaRanOia!” The ghost said with a hint of anger, “LiSten or yOur FaMily will Die! YoU wiLL Suffer foR miLLioNs oF YeArs! You muSt preVent it. SmaRt eNouGh. RaTional EnOuGh. UnDerStand! LiSten!”

Emily slid down against the wall muttering herself, “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” over and over again as the ghost remained there looming over her, yelling at her in frustration in its distorted voice from all sides at once. She curled up with her face buried into her knees and started crying.

“ThAt is eNough!” A female voice suddenly said to interrupt the male’s shouting.

“No sHe mUst UnDerStand…” the male protested before there was a sudden pop and everything went quiet again. But a natural quiet with ambient sounds and faint human voices in the distance. Not the unearthly, smothering quiet of before. Emily looked up and blearily saw that the ghost had disappeared through her tears. Luke was standing with the door to the alleyway open, frozen as he saw her curled up and shaking on the ground.

“E-Em? Are you okay?” He asked in shock.

“N-N-No,” She said weakly

He came over and pulled her to her feet, looking concerned as he looked her over.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened? You just left the movie so abruptly that I thought…”

“Can… Can we go home?” Emily interrupted, “I- I need to get home. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I think I’m sick. I- I- I- don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

Luke wrapped his arm around her shoulder as she started crying again and guided her out of the alleyway and towards his car. She got in the passenger’s seat in a daze and Luke went in opposite her in the driver’s seat. He hit a few buttons and the car began driving itself out of the parking lot back home.

Emily curled up in her seat and didn’t say anything, and Luke didn’t prod. Emily wasn’t sure what to tell him. What should she do? What was Luke thinking about her right now? Why couldn’t she just spend some time with her only real friend without just causing more problems?

— — —

Alice quickly darted around the corner of the alley, but kept her phone out to keep recording. Hopefully that crazy bitch hadn’t spotted her while she was muttering and shouting at thin air. Alice had gotten a message from her friend that was working selling the tickets at the movie theater. Luke Astas and Emily Stenson were seeing a romantic movie together.

Alice knew that it had all been an act. That bitch had been angling to push Alice out the whole time so she could have Luke for herself! Alice had even doubted herself over the summer if the girl really wasn’t putting on an act or not. Emily was good, Alice would give her that at least.

But this proved it. Alice knew it all along.

Alice had come over as soon as she got the message. She’d corner Emily somehow, get the girl to admit what she had done. Alice honestly couldn’t care less about dating Luke anymore. It just rankled her that that bitch had dared to manipulate her like that. Acted all innocent and needy and then turned around and done something like this. It was the principle of the thing, and Alice would give Emily a piece of her mind about it.

But when Alice had gone to approach the girl she had spotted in the alleyway to the side of the movie theater, what she encountered was unexpected. Who knew that the girl was so crazy… So instead of approaching, Alice took out her phone and started recording.

After a while, Luke appeared and Alice ducked away and shut off the recording as she started to walk away. She would have to think carefully about what she would be doing about this…