Phantasm

Written by Mikaela Nicole B. Tiu

The room was heavy, with grey walls and a single monotonous chandelier that did not work through electricity; rather, you’d have to light a flame in each of its jewel-bearing candles. She took everything in with a single breath, promptly dropping her luggage upon the grey-carpeted flooring.

Camille Gilinsky had recently arrived in the extravagant, yet freaky, Victorian home her eccentric Aunt Nicole unfortunately owned before she was ushered to the single extra bedroom in the second floor.
Aunt Nicole left her to examine the room she would be staying for the next 2 months, muttering something about cooking pasta. The girl, sixteen years of age, slowly trod in her new yet old room. The closet held dark blue wooden walls and a soft coating of dust around it. She assumed that was the only thing that hadn’t been cleaned properly; however, the moment Camille plopped on the dark, stormy blue coloured sheets on the bed, a cloud of dust puffed out, she immediately thought otherwise.

It was the reason why she abruptly found a faded photograph under the bed, dirty and piled under a century-old shoestring and, oh, another blanket of dust, after she cleaned around the expanse.

The picture held a nice family of three, parents looking positively beaming while their only child between them gave no smile, leaving a cold, stony look on his face. The narrowing of his eyes, including the full blackish tint of it, made quite a contrast against the fading photograph that surely looked as if it was taken a century ago. Behind them was the house Camille was standing in right now.

So they were the original owners.

“Camille, dinner time!” Her Aunt’s voice reached her before the squint of fear did. Giving it a last look, she tossed the picture on her newly-dusted bed sheets and walked down to her Aunt’s cooking.

She decided against asking her Aunt, who in the whole duration of dinner explained her plan in purchasing a hundred pairs of rubber gloves, you know, just in case. Aunt Nicole had watched a documentary about global warming when she was eight, thus believing in a theory that the sun would be exploding in the very near future.

So, yes, she did not ask her Aunt.

She went back up to her room, before her Aunt could talk to her about anymore of her plans, with the photograph in her mind.

It was gone.

The bed was in its clean entirety, no creases and dirt, just how she left it an hour ago; the photo, however, was nowhere to be seen. That night, Camille couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts kept traveling back to the missing photograph. She knew she had placed it on the bed before she left! The little window beside the slightly cracked mirror was stiffly shut, so she knew no air could have gone in.

Tossing and turning, her skin felt itchy from the thinly-clothed blanket. The pillow, although big and squishy, had no foam in some parts, causing her to go insane.

The clock on her phone was around midnight, and the room couldn’t be any scarier than it was now. The moonlight was the only source of light, but it made all objects look haunted instead of normal. Her eyelids were seconds away from slipping into darkness when footsteps came from above.

Pak… Pak… Pak…

Her body turned hot then cold. Someone was upstairs. But there couldn’t be, as her sensitive ears could still hear Aunt Nicole’s deep snoring from the next room. Camille was usually frightened by spiders and cockroaches, but her worst fear was having an intruder in the house and you’re the only one awake to hear it.

She waited again for another set of steps. There was none.

Something was pushing her to go up the steps and whack the entity like the determined self she has always been. Thus, her hands reached for the nearest object, a worn-out soccer ball that earlier today she found in the closet.

The door squeaked as she slowly stepped out, engulfed in darkness. Aunt Nicole’s door was closed, but the snores were slightly deafening. Her pulse quickened when the body went forward the staircase that led up to the last and top floor of the Victorian house. Wood was its material, the staircase that is, but you could notice the little carvings it held that tells a story of grandeur and aristocracy. The stairs were clearly not modern, but it was indeed something to look at.

She paused in the middle with her hands tightly wrapped around the squishy material of the old soccer ball when she realized that there was someone up there, and she had nothing to protect herself. Well, she had the soccer ball but it would only anger the intruder by being thrown at.

She climbed, but paused again when she found herself staring at a hallway with thick chandeliers coupled with a dark, eerie feeling surrounding it. Brown chests with a single S on the buckle, which she assumed to be the family crest of the previous owners, collected dust from the stuffy air the third floor held. And at the end of it all was a single door.




The door was ajar, moonlight trickling out. She started slowly stepping on the wooden flooring, but her step produced a groan from the floorboards.

On the wall sat one picture. Looking oddly familiar, Camille took a step forward before her skin prickled with sudden goose bumps.

The picture was the one she previously left on her bed.

How did it end up here? Who took it? The picture even had the same rips at the corners, the fading colour shading it all. It all looked very similar as the one sh—

The little boy was smirking.

Not smiling anymore like the last time she had seen it, smirking.

She turned her head towards the door. Her blood ran cold. Someone stood at the threshold of the now-opened door. He smiled with dead eyes. “Hello.” His voice comes out raspy, as if he was locked away in a prison for many and many years. He probably was.

She’s was shaking now, the heart in her chest thumping wildly. Her fingers were prickling, her eyes were wide.

“Do not be afraid. I do not mean you any harm.”

Still, her beating heart couldn’t slow down.

“W-who are you?” She managed, a distance away from the boy. For all she knew, this entity had superpowers and could teleport beside her immediately. The boy, however, stayed under the door, feet barely moving.

“Harry. My name is Harry.” It was slow… and dark… and creepy.

His eyes, dark under the gaze of the moonlight, looked down until they her arms, her numb and trembling arms that still held the soccer ball.

She stared down at it, feeling dumb before realizing. “Is… Is this yours?”

He simply nodded. His name was Harry. He loved the colour green. That was all. That was all he could say. But Camille was a curious spirit. She wanted more.

“Why are you here? Why do you stay here?” Her voice had echoed the third floor before she could stop herself. They still stayed in the same place: the boy under the door and the girl standing a distance away from him. She wondered why he did not bother walking out and walking away from the house.

She had thought he would have said something confusing, but simply, he said. “I am stuck.”

The moon was beaming bright now, showing pale skin as pure as milk. Now she could see him clearly, but this raised the hair on her skin even more. His eyes weren’t black chasms of death, they were brilliant green and she couldn’t determine if they were too beautiful or too life defying. They pierced her skin like shards of glass. Perfect ringlets of brown curls stayed on his head like a permanent hairspray. A brown overcoat wrapped around his body, paired up with dark boots. He looked perfect for a cold night out in New York City, in the 40’s. He was a doll.

“Stuck? What do you mean?” She questioned hurriedly. She wanted to know more about him, the ghost, and the entity that lived above her.

“I am cursed to stay here for the rest of time. I do not die, I do not sleep, and I do not eat. What am I? I am a ghost bewitched here for doing a crime I had regrettably done in my past life. I am a phantom that lives above this house. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“…I wish I could help you.”

“You wouldn’t want to.”

“I do.” Down the hallway, the mother in the photo had no head, just scarlet blood dripping down her neck. The boy still smirked. After three nights, Camille saw a man standing outside her window. Black Victorian robes with a mask on his face that shimmered in the darkness. Her Aunt Nicole was currently hosting a masquerade for the 30th of October. She doubted he was an invited guest.

She had swiftly forgotten the mysterious man when she found him staring at her again from her Aunt’s garden, in which lay the gigantic garden maze. He walked away when they connected eyes. She followed him. He told her promptly he was Harry’s father and he knew a way to free him.

Once again Camille was exploding with curiosity and innocence; obviously marking her as an easy target to fool. The gullible and determined girl wanted to help her ghost acquaintance so badly, she did not notice the curled corners of the man’s lips. “Harry! Harry!” She ran up the steps towards the haunted room at the end of the hallway, pushing back her fear down her throat because Harry was finally going to be free! “Your father is outside the window!”

Harry stared straight past her and towards the door. She didn’t notice, and instead, walked in the room and towards the little window that faced the garden and the wide, smiling moon. Peering out of the window, she saw the man staring blankly at her with his mask on.

The clock struck midnight. Camille, her eyes still fixed on the man outside, motioned Harry to look out as well.

She turned around.

He. Wasn’t. There.

She ran to the open door… but she could not cross it to enter the hallway. Her heart was beating wildly now, ears prickling at the thought of Harry having betrayed her. A transparent barricade seemed to block her path. Her skin was hot, then cold. Her heart was beating so loudly it could come out her throat. Outside, a suited man and his young curly-haired son frolicked away on the cobblestone road, towards the moon.