Chapter 10.

I created a thread and titled it, “I am a lurker from the past thread who moved into the apartment of the last known victim of the rumored ghost girlfriend.”

I then made a post to the thread.

“FormerLurker: Through a certain sequence of unspeakable events, I accidentally stumbled upon the apartment of the last rumored ghost girlfriend victim. As for how I know it belongs to the previous poster, it is only based upon circumstantial evidence. The tenant of this room was discovered dead three weeks ago. The cops didn’t investigate into much detail since the tenant was known to be a social outcast without family or any loved ones and they assumed his death was just another case of suicide. The body was only discovered one week after he died, only due to a neighbor discovering the rancid odor emanating from the unit who later informed management. The story went unreported in the news. Another reason I suspect it to be the same person was because I discovered a VCR player and an unmarked cassette tape. I don’t really believe in the whole ghost thing, but I wasn’t really daring enough to watch the tape. Instead I disposed of it by tossing it out a window with an arm grabber after dousing it in salt. PS. I’m an atheist lol.”

Shortly after posting, a flood of replies came in like they were starved for more details.

“Troll1: Suicide? For real? So it was just a prank or copycat after all?”

“Troll2: Take a picture of the room with today’s newspaper as proof.”

“Troll3: ^Dumbass, what would that prove?”

“Troll4: OP salted VHS cassette tape. OP tossed it out the window with an arm grabber. LOL am I the only one who picked up on that?”

“FormerLurker: ^better be safe than sorry, right?”

“Troll4: ^LMAO exactly. You sir, are a smart man. I believe I shall reward you with all the interwebs.”

“Troll1: Curious to see if the ghost girlfriend rumors die down now that the cassette tape of rumors is gone.”

“Troll2: Nah, there will definitely be copycats still.”

“FormerLurker: Yea arsidcfkgwhijlklldqiweetrotmyouriroopw”

As I was typing out a response, the keyboard suddenly stopped responding to my input and a weird message from me somehow ended up getting posted.

“Troll2: ^What the?”

“Troll1: … are you sure you didn’t watch the tape and get possessed lol?”

“FormerLurker: I really didn’t, but my keyboard stopped responding to my input for a second for some reason.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Troll3: Brah, are you trying to troll the trolls?”

“FormerLurker: I’m really not.”

“KHAAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAHA!”

The lights in the room which were initially off flickered rapidly for a brief instance along with a loud woman’s cackles that echoed throughout the room. I fell backward on my chair as I felt my heartbeat sore to the skies when my head hit the ground.

The moment I’d pressed the enter key on the keyboard, the screen flashed for a moment and a woman’s face drenched in blood, with only the whites of her eyes visible, appeared on the screen before she disappeared a second later.

Enough with jump scares please! I seriously hate creepy shit like that! After a few seconds passed by, I realized there was something strange on the ground where my head landed. I was certain it wasn’t the solid ground I’d felt. When I raised my hand behind my head and examined it a bit through the sensation at my fingertips, I nearly had a heart attack. It definitely felt like a VHS cassette tape.

I jumped to my feet, scurried away to a corner of the room and looked back at the ground where I was previously; but once again, there was nothing there. I was surely going insane, that had to be it. 

I really needed to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist to get myself checked out. When I was about to raise my hand to wipe the sweat on my forehead, I realized something dreadful. What was an empty hand a second ago, now had something solid in it.

Fuck man, I’m not a damn magician. Why me?

I really wanted to cry. When I looked down, to my dismay, all I saw was my empty hand.

Is this place really cursed like everyone else was afraid it was?

This was all too much for my fragile heart to bear with. I was an atheist, why was I getting so jumpy over irrational nonsense like ghosts?

“You know what? Screw it! Ghost girl, if you’re really there, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Please date me.”

Yeah, that’s right, an atheist just tried to hit on a nonexistent ghost girl. I’m definitely going mad. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, I received no reply. But I was not a man to take a cold shoulder for an answer, I needed to make absolutely sure the coast was clear.

“Still not coming out? Come at me ghost girl! Bring it! You want a piece of this ass? Fight me grill! I’ll send you flying so far you’ll need ghost dentures when I’m done with you!”

“Pfft.”

Eh? What? Wait. Nonono. Hell naw!  I looked all around the surrounding area, but I didn’t find anyone in the vicinity. Was I really hearing things now as well?

Slowly, but surely, it felt like my senses were being hijacked and controlled by someone else. I’d heard of taking away the player’s ability to flee or fight back in games before, but hijacking the person's senses that they’re overly dependent on to differentiate reality from fiction was an entirely new concept to me.

No, what am I thinking? It’s all in my head, my brain must be playing tricks on me. With my back pressed against the two walls of the room in the corner, I kept a vigilant watch out for anything suspicious until morning without a single wink of shut-eye. Despite my efforts, nothing appeared after that and my first horror-filled night in my new apartment came to an end.

It was anticlimactic, but rather than feeling relieved at making it through the night, I felt like I was being toyed with. The entire time it felt like I was being watched. As for how I could tell, it was naturally my sixth sense which was trained through my past relationships with psychotic exes.

In all honesty, it was scarier not seeing anything scary compared to actually seeing something scary. My nerves were on edge at all times, constantly waiting, but nothing ever came. It was the type of situation that could drive you to insanity.

At some point, I completely forgot about the thread I’d started on that message board. When it was finally morning, I immediately dressed myself before I fled from my apartment and headed over to my new workplace.