Seeing Ghosts

Seeing Ghosts is a spooky story about a guy who pretends he can see spirits in order to impress a girl he has a crush on.

I always had an interest in ghost stories and unexplained mysteries. A few months ago, I joined the Paranormal Club at my high school. It was a group of students who got together once a week, after class, to discuss the paranormal.

One of the students who attended the meetings was a cute Asian girl. I thought she was very attractive. Although I had never spoken to her before, I developed a big crush on her. She had delicate features and long, straight black hair that stretched down to her waist. When I saw her for the first time, she reminded me of a Japanese doll.

A lot of other guys found her attractive as well. At the meetings, I noticed some of them secretly eyeing her up. However, the girl was very quiet and rarely said a word. Most of the time, she looked unhappy and depressed. She never tried to contribute anything during the meetings and whenever someone tried to talk to her, she would just nod or give one-word replies.

After a while, people stopped trying to make conversation with her and instead, just began to ignore her. I felt kind of sorry for her.

One day, when I was shopping in the city, I happened to see the cute Asian girl. She was standing at the entrance to a narrow alley that ran between two tall buildings and she seemed to be talking to someone. She looked very happy. I couldn’t see who it was because my view was obstructed by the wall of the building.

As I approached her, I noticed something very strange. There was nobody in the alleyway. She was just talking to empty space. However, she kept stopping to listen and occasionally even laughed, just as if she was having a conversation with someone.

When I saw the strange way she was behaving, I was convinced that she must be out of her mind. My first instinct was to just ignore her and keep on walking. However, curiosity got the better of me and I still had a crush on her, even if she was crazy, so I decided to stop and talk to her.

Perhaps that was my first mistake.

A girl who talks to empty space, in an empty alleyway… A girl who is a member of a paranormal group… My brain suddenly put two and two together. Perhaps she thinks she is talking to a ghost… I thought that this might be the perfect chance for me to befriend her.

I greeted her with a smile and asked, “Who’s that person you’re talking to?”

She turned around to face me and at first, she was shocked. Then, she asked, “You can see them too?”

“Of course I can,” I said, playing along. “I can see them, but I just can’t hear what they’re saying.”

I pretended that I could see whoever it was she thought she was talking to. She seemed to be delighted that someone else could see them as well. After that, we chatted with each other for a while and she seemed very different to when I had met her before. She was really excited and told me her life story.

Ever since she was a child, she said, she had been able to talk to ghosts. When she told her parents, they refused to believe her. When she kept on insisting that she could communicate with the spirit world, her parents considered putting her in a mental hospital. After that, she stopped telling anyone about her paranormal experiences and kept it a secret.

She told me she was very happy to finally meet someone with the same ability as herself. Of course, I didn’t have that ability at all, but I didn’t want to tell her the truth in case she lost interest in me. Instead, I kept on lying to her and she kept on believing my lies.

From that day on, we started hanging out together all the time. The other students in the Paranormal Club were surprised to see how well I was getting along with her. The guys in the group were very jealous. I liked hanging around with her, but I didn’t believe anything she said about seeing ghosts. However, all that stuff didn’t matter. I finally had a cute girlfriend I could show off to everybody. I felt a sense of superiority about it.

But then, one day, she told me something that really creeped me out.

“You must like him a lot,” she said.

“Huh? Who?” I asked.

“The man I was talking to in the alleyway,” she replied. “The one who’s been following you ever since. He’s behind you right now. He says he’ll be with you forever.”

Of course there was no one behind me. I realized that she was talking about a ghost.

“Oh… Oh yeah, this guy,” I laughed. “Yeah, we’re friends now. I really like having him around.”

As usual, I told her a bunch of lies and pretended I could see the “ghost”.

Then she smiled and let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad,” she said. “At first, I thought you might be possessed, but if you are fine with it, then there’s nothing to worry about…”

For the first time, a chill ran down my spine.

Shortly after that, I got sick and my health started to decline. I went to the doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Still, day by day, I became thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. I began to despair that I would ever get well.

I had to stop going to school and spent all my time in bed. I was so weak, I could barely get up and I slept most of the day.

The cute Asian girl came to see me every day. She was so kind to me that I eventually had to confess that I had been lying to her all along. I broke down and told her that I really couldn’t see any ghosts. It was all just a big lie.

“Oh… Really?” she said, shocked. “It was all a lie… You can’t really see them? Well… um… well then… Oh God…”

As she spoke, her eyes grew wide and all the color drained from her face.

She muttered under her breath, “Then it’s already too late for you…”

After that, she started crying and left.

She still comes to visit me sometimes, but she refuses to talk about anything paranormal. She won’t even look me in the eye.

And my health just keeps getting worse and worse…

And all of the doctors are baffled…

And I don’t know what to do…

And I think it’s already too late for me…