Stories They Must Complete

Some hauntings don’t rattle chains. They wait in your notifications.

🕯️🌫️🚶‍♂️📖✨

I gathered with Elvis and the rest of the group, ready to grace ghostly lanes with gentle tiptoes. 

Our guide, Mann, was a fellow who engaged...though without unnecessary pomp. 

The buildings around the park were old. The streets, narrow.  Lamps hummed in a slightly strangled way, as if they hadn't enough Strepsils.  

And we followed behind Mann like obedient shadows.

Mann launched into his spooky stories. But...they were...oddly personal.

Someone chortled suddenly. Uncomfortably.

The air thinned as the guide came to each stop.

The stories narrowed, like a zoom camera.

Oddly familiar - and tied to each group member. 

A woman who declined her mother's last call - that same woman was now frantically tapping her mobile's keypad. 

Then, there was the tale of the man who chose profit over humanity. That same man was shoving company leaflets. 

Then, there was the teen who caught footage of people falling off their bikes. He was filming a boy skidding past on a skateboard, yielding to the pavement.

Then Mann stopped with an abrupt flourish. He swiveled around from his position in front to face the group.

"These stories aren't recorded hauntings. They're our regrets. Our behaviours. Choices that replay in a Youtube loop long after we've made them. Check your phones.

Each group member scrolled through their message feeds and looked up, sheepish. 

With a missed notification. An unread message.       

"These spirits don't flood buildings. They're ours. Our neglected responsibilities."

Suddenly, we weren't afraid of darkness. Our fear? What awaited us at home.

The silence was loud. Clanking. 

Reminding.

And regret swarmed in, dark, hungry flies.

It crept over us quickly, a dangerous blanket. We dispersed, trying vainly to avoid it.

Mann again.  With a new group of ghost tourists. 

With their stories. Stories they must complete. 

🕯️🌫️🚶‍♂️📖✨

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.