Bella stared at the man as though he'd grown two heads.
Revenant? Killer ghost?
Miles chuckled. Then cackled. His laugh bounced along the walls, echoing. The absurdity of the whole situation would have made her laugh too if not for how serious the man looked. Bella swallowed the lump in her throat.
She didn't like this at all.
"This is beyond cr-azy." Miles shook his head as though in disbelief.
"He doesn't look like he's joking though." She leaned in, whispering as her hands twisted by her sides, trying to fend off the chills crawling beneath her skin.
Supernatural things had always been depicted in the movies.
Ghosts. Werewolves. Vampires. A few notable celebrities, out of the blue, claimed that they existed. That they were very much a part of our own world.
Of course, no one believed them.
Some were so consumed by the ideology that they lost touch with reality entirely, leading to their confinement in mental hospitals.
An image of Carrie's face on the tabloids headlined, "They're watching me!" A-list actress spirals into madness over ghost stalkers, flashed in her mind. Carrie was one of the closest things she had to a real friend. She, like, many other celebrities didn't even give such thoughts the time of day.
That was until her grandmother died. Then she started complaining about recurring nightmares. Bella didn't think too much of it at the time. But she wished she did.
Carrie steadily lost weight. And always looked on edge. Bella had tried to get her to go out with her. But, she turned her down.
Every, single time.
At some point, Bella herself, gave up. And she ended up regretting it.
Her pulse quickened. The cold draft of air pushing through the area settled across her shoulders, weighing her down with so many assumptions.
Ghosts can't be real. And a killer ghost of all things, that seems so farfetched....
"Look," Miles said, breaking the tensed silence that had fallen over the three like a veil. "There are ce-rtain things that shouldn't be joked ab-out. This isn't fu-nny."
"Who said I was joking?"
"Sir, with all due respect, you m-ust be joking. You're literal-ly trying to s-ay that a gh-ost killed them."
"And I can prove it."
Bella's eyebrows raised. Prove it? Once again, he looked dead serious. Like he didn't have the time nor the energy to be mocking them. Bella licked her lips.
"I-"
The man turned around and limped away. The clicking of his staff against the ground echoed with his rather hasty footsteps. He stopped at the pedestal where the crystal ball sat atop and looked over at them with a raised brow.
Miles and Bella shared a look.
"Is he rea-lly been serio-us right now?"
"I think so. I think we should check it out."
"What? I say we ba-ck out now and look for information else-where. We may have gotten the wh-ole address wrong, anyway. This is m-adness!"
Bella and the man locked eyes for a second. She inhaled. If they left, she wasn't sure they would get the information any other way. But even then, life would still continue.
You still have the chance to walk away from this. You've managed to blow your life out of proportion already, don't you think this is getting out of hand?
What if your fans find out? What would they think? You'll lose them and get rushed to an asylum!
Your playing detective ends now. Have common sense. Who do you think you are? You can't do this. Walk away!
Bella heaved a breath she didn't realize she was holding. I will do this.
With a trembling breath, she murmured, "It doesn't hurt to try."
Without waiting for her brother, she walked towards where the man stood, directly beside the crystal. Bella exhaled. She tried to dispel the alarms shutting off in her head, the growing spiders crawling lines up and down her back.
You're definitely going to end up like Carie.
The saliva in her mouth turned sour.
To her surprise, Miles walked towards them, settling opposite the now amused man. Miles grunted before muttering, "Get on with it."
"With pleasure, you fool."
A second after that a rush of cold air slashed past them. Then his hazel eyes began to glow silver.
Bella's heart skipped a beat. Her mouth hung open.
What?
He placed his hands on the crystal ball and it also glowed silver. It started with small bursts of silver light. The gleam slowly intensified, humming loudly as it did.
The air warmed. Before she could open her mouth, the light suddenly spurted through all of the cave, washing everything else out of existence.
Right then, Bella felt herself melt away in the glares of silver and grey.
***
Bella felt light headed.
Her eyes cracked open. The pulsing headache receded.
Bella looked to her left and noticed Miles right beside her. He looked equally as confused as her.
When she tried to speak, she couldn't. Her mouth felt like sandpaper. Her throat was completely clogged. She tried again but she still couldn't.
Sirens shut off in her head.
What in the world?
Miles, too, finally noticed her and also looked like he wanted to speak.
But he couldn't. His right eye widened as his brow raised slightly.
Bella tried to move forward but her body refused to yield to command. She realized that she couldn't feel her legs. Like all nerves in her body had been completely removed, leaving her numb and motionless.
Completely disconnected from her body.
Bella found the man, a few feet from them. He looked calm. Too calm as he stood emotionless. His hazel eyes, unblinking.
Am I going nuts?
What is this?
Trying to focus on anything other than this confusing turn of events, she noticed the setting was familiar. The large window. The smudge-less floors. The bed side table with the car key. The wardrobe pushed to the side.
The smell of burnt oranges. Bella could almost hear giggles and laughs from a memory deep within the corner of her mind.
Alarm flooded within her veins.
Right there in the divan bed at the centre of the room, her daddy lay motionless. Bella could see his tousled dark hair which now had plenty of greying strands. The stubble brushing his jaw. His built physique barely hidden in the loose singlet and shorts.
The bulb's light highlighted his slimmer face.
His chest rose and fell.
He was alive?
He was alive!
Her eyes burnt but no tears came out. Bella tried again. To shout. To wake him. To tell him that she was finally here.
After all these years.
Despite her tries, her mouth didn't budge like it had been glued shut, unyielding to her commands.
But, isn't he supposed to be dead?
Her heart skipped a beat. How is he still alive?
His light snores. The way his leg tilted from side to side as he slept. There was still life in him.
Bella racked her memory. She remembered seeing him last as a burnt corpse. All the terrible days that followed after. Her tongue bristled from being too dry.
So how did he-
Suddenly, the room grew colder. The temperature dropped after a beat.
Then another.
And another.
She noticed him, curling into himself as if to fend the cold. Apprehension gripped her so hard that she would have fallen over in a rush to meet him if not that she was frozen to the spot. Her eyes trailed to the window.
It was still locked.
Before she could blink, something phased through the window so fast that she could barely catch onto it. In the next second, a figure appeared in the centre of the room.
A few feet away from her daddy's bed.
Bella's heart stopped.
The figure looked absolutely horrifying.
She looked about 12. Her hair looked matted as though it hadn't been combed in ages. Her skin was now a wrinkled grey, lined with black throbbing veins that covered almost the entirety of her body. The tattered dress she wore gathered at the knees with a few rips at the hem.
But that was nothing compared to her eyes. They were black. Lifeless. Soulless.
Bella watched, with bated breath, as the girl raised her hand. An old matchbox morphed out of existence with an identical matchstick right beside it.
The figure carried the match and struck it against the box.
1.
2.
3.
Then, her father erupted in vivid orange flames. Her breath caught in her throat. Her father writhed in the mist of the flames, the orange waves eating his body. It devoured everything in its path.
His back arched. Then his tormented screams ransacked the room. Smoke hung like a cloud over the room, circling like a growing tornado.
Her eyes burnt but no tears were forthcoming. The flames vanished as soon as they came.
And then, all that was left was a burnt corpse.
Horrified, Bella dragged her gaze back to where the figure had been standing. She,too, was gone.
And there, right on the window, was a thin sheen of ice.
Her head exploded with a headache.
The world ripped away, light seeping through the growing fissures that fractured the cold scene. Another wave of heat hit her in an avalanche.
Before she knew it, the world of silver and greys welcomed her into their warm-cold embrace.
***
Bella jerked up with a scream. Her clothes were soaked. Her mind raced. Her lips trembled as she fought to keep herself together.
He died again?!
She tried to calm herself.
Breathe-
That girl killed him! Who was she? Was she even human? What was she?!
Fear smothered her. The image of him writhing in the flames flashed in her mind. Bella curled into herself.
That wasn't how a person was supposed to die.
With her pulse rising, she couldn't keep off the chills that spread up her toes. Up her legs. Then to her entire body. Her lungs constricted and breathing suddenly became difficult.
Those black eyes....
They felt like a wormhole. A black hole. Leeching on the life that it couldn't have. Couldn't retain. Couldn't own.
Bella suddenly felt like she wanted to vomit.
"Hey." A hand pressed her shoulder. She jerked away. She looked up to see Miles' concerned face.
Bella swallowed. "Here, let m-e he-lp you up." She studied his outstretched hand for a second too long before accepting it.
She leaned against Miles, to keep her shaky frame upright.
"What w-as that?" Miles asked. Bella's sluggish mind finally drew back to the man that had supposedly caused this. He looked sympathetic.
"I'm sorry. I can't imagine how traumatic that would have been. But that's the only way that you would have believed me."
"And in answer to your question, that was a Reliving. Simply put, it allows humans to see how the deceased died exactly the same way ghostreaders see it."
"So, that thing killed him?" Her voice sounded unlike her own. Hoarse. Completely drained.
That thing didn't touch him. That thing's match didn't even light. Normally, matches were supposed to light.
This one's didn't. And yet he.....
Bella shuddered.
"Unfortunately, yes."
"What was that thi-ng anyway? D-on't tell me-was that sup-posed to be the ghost?And what's a ghostrea-der?"
The man looked between the two of them. "Breadsticks. You're both going to have to sit down for this one."