roommate [shane/ryan]

👻 chapter seven 👻

 Shane sat down on the ground and rested his fingers on top of the white planchette, just like he had did a week prior. This time, however, the atmosphere felt different. For one, he was all alone. He knew that whatever happened tonight couldn't be attributed to someone else tampering with the board. It kind of excited him, honestly, but the skeptic within him quickly emerged to try and pull him back to his senses. It's like a science experiment, he reassured himself. This is just the control run, right? This is... this is definitely for science.

"Uh, hey. Ryan. If you're here. It's me, Shane, again. I just want to ask some more questions, I guess." he said, anticipating the movement of the planchette with every fiber in his being. "Ryan? Are you here right now?"

A burst of excitement fluttered in Shane's stomach as the planchette quickly moved to the 'yes' marking in an almost eager motion.

"I have some questions I want to ask, if that's okay. Is this your room?" he asked, focusing intently on the object beneath his fingers. He knew that the answer was within him, but he wanted confirmation from the source himself before he would be content with it.

Yes.

"Oh. Cool. Uh," he stammered, "Sorry if this is, like, too personal or whatever, but is this the bedroom where you were killed?"

Yes.

"Who killed you?" Shane paused, considering the weight of the question he presented. A spark of fear presented itself as he imagined Ryan quitting the game because of his dumb question. Still, he persisted. "Did you know him?"

No.

The boy fell silent as he considered the implication of Ryan's answer. It was a lot of process and Shane struggled to truly wrap his head around it. Someone had came into the house and killed Ryan. A complete stranger invited himself into Ryan's home and just murdered him before his life really even had a chance to begin. As he slipped deeper into his own head, Shane felt very nauseous and, for a brief moment, considered ending the game entirely. It just isn't right to disturb the ghost like this, he thought.

Suddenly, a familiar wave of skepticism washed over Shane and before he could stop himself, he had already asked the question: "Are- Are ghosts really real? Am I just imagining this? Is this some type of weird candle-induced trip?" The heavy mood began to lift as quickly as it had come on when the planchette started to shift and spell out:

D-U-M-B-A-S-S

Shane stared at the board in disbelief. The shock didn't come from anything relating to the existence of ghosts, but from the fact that he literally just got fuckin' owned by one of them. Still, a smile tugged at his lips. Ryan was feisty and Shane kind of liked that. He shook the embarrassing thought away and racked his brain for a new, worthwhile question.

"Do you like being a ghost?" he asked, hesitantly. It was such a kindergarten question that Shane mentally kicked himself for even asking. He didn't think it would be surprising if the planchette ended up on 'goodbye' because of it, but much to his surprise, it began to move again.

No.

"Oh," he said, softly, "Why not?" The planchette stuttered under his hand as it moved to form another word: 

B-O-R-I-N-G

Shane felt puzzled as he thought what Ryan had just said. He supposed it would be boring. It wasn't like he had any concept of how ghosts actually worked, but he imagined that Ryan was probably just stuck in the house all day every day and had been since the day he was killed. He frowned at the thought. "Is there anything I can do to help? I'll try to do it for you."

S-U-M-M-O-N    M-E

Shane stared at the board, absorbing what had just been spelled out for him. He didn't know the first step of summoning the dead. Where does someone even look for advice on that? He sighed, shrinking away from the mountainous task that sat before him.

"I really need to go," he said, moving the planchette to the 'goodbye' marking, turning it upside down, and removing it from the board. 

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry."

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a/n: i hope someone is still reading/caring about this !!! i've basically plotted this out to the end, so stay tuned :^)