Ghost Story

Chapter 4

Emma ran up to her room and slammed the door behind her. She covered her mouth with her hand to quiet her sobs. The tears rolled down her face. She felt as if her heart was breaking all over again. She stood up and took a deep breath. She wiped her tears away and leaned against the wall, looking out the window. A knock on the door broke her out of her thoughts. David walked into the room with a plate in his hands. The plate had two slices of pepperoni pizza on it. He showed her the plate and put it down on her desk.

"Neal is just an idiot, Emma," David said.

"I know." She sat down and clutched her pillow in her hands. "He just made me so happy, Dad."

"Yeah, well, you need someone who is going to make you happy for the rest of your life. You're still young. You have a lot of time before you find your True Love." He ruffled her hair and left the room. Emma got up off the bed and grabbed her plate and brought it back to her lap, but didn't take a bite of the pizza.

She felt something tug on her hair. She turned her head, but nothing was there. She let out a sigh and pushed her pizza away and went downstairs. Her father was on his computer while her mother was watching television.

"Dad, can you look something up for me?" She asked. David looked up at her and nodded. "Look up our house."

"Uh, sure. Why?" He asked as he started typing.

"Because I think this house has a history that you aren't telling me."

David sighed and gave the computer to Emma, allowing her to look at the websites. "It's old."

She sat down next to her father and clicked on a link. Everything was quiet for a moment, and then she let out a gasp. "There was a fire here. In my room. It killed a teenage boy." She scrolled down some more, and saw a picture of the boy who died, and it was the exact same man who she had seen at the foot of her bed and in the dream with the fire. Suddenly, it all made sense. "Thanks, Dad." She kissed his cheek and ran up to her room. She closed the door behind her and went to her closet, and looked through an old box for her camera. After she found it, she turned it on and placed the setting to night vision. She placed it on her desk and opened up the recorder app on her phone. She turned the lights off and began the video. "I know this may make me sound stupid, but let's begin. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Let's see how many of them you can answer for me."

"What is your name?" Emma paused for a moment, moving her phone around the room, trying to find the spirit. "Why are you here?" Once again, she paused, hoping for a response when she reviewed the footage. "What do you want from me?" Question after question came to mind, and Emma asked them all. After an hour of asking questions, she ended the session and turned the recorder off. She went over to her camera and turned it off, and then turned the lights on. She put her headphones in and listened to the audio first.

"I know this may make me sound stupid, but let's begin. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Let's see how many of them you can answer for me."

"Okay, love." She gasped as she heard a crystal clear response. It was a whisper, in an accent that she couldn't really place.

"What is your name?"

"Killian."

"Why are you here?"

"Unfinished business."

"What do you want from me?"

"You safe."

"Do you want to harm me and my family?"

"No."

"How many ghosts are here?"

"Just me."

"If you are here because of the fire, do you think it was an accident?"

"No."

"Are you attached to me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for your cooperation. If you even answered me at all." Along with her laugh, there was a male laughing too.

"You're welcome."

The video ended after that. She closed her laptop and looked around her room. "Because you are attached to me, I assume you are following me and are listening to me right now. I'm going to do whatever it takes to prove something about the fire that killed you. I promise, Killian."

When she connected the camera to her laptop. The camera's microphone picked up her voice, but not Killian's. She payed close attention to the area around her on the screen. She paused the video when she saw an outline of a figure trying to manifest on the screen. Killian had tried to appear for her to see him. She smiled at the thought. Killian wasn't trying to hurt or scare her. He was trying to get her help and to communicate.

There was a knock on her door. She grabbed her camera and disconnected it and shoved it under her pillow. She turned back to her computer just in time for the door to open. Mary Margaret and David came in.

"Were you... Talking to someone up here?" David asked.

"Uh, yeah. Ruby was doing this thing and she needed my help," Emma lied. She hoped that her parents didn't catch it.

"Oh, okay. We just wanted to tell you that we were heading off to bed."

Emma got up off her bed and hugged both of her parents. "I was just going to sleep too. Love you both. Night." She practically pushed them out of her room and leaned against the door.

She quickly went through her bedroom routine and laid down on her bed. Her phone buzzed, and she groaned. She reached over and saw that it was Neal. There were five soft knocks on the wall and she laughed. "It's no one to be worried about. Not anymore." She deleted the message, not even reading it, and then blocked his number. "Night, Killian." There was another knock and she laughed before drifting off to sleep.