Phasmophobia:
A Spectre’s Cry
CHAPTER 1: AFTERLIFE
October 3, 2022 England
A quarter to midnight. Mary was sitting on her sofa, drifting away into a deep sleep in front of the television she hadn’t been watching for the last half an hour. The distant noises and voices on the television were keeping her comforted on nights like these.
Mary Minsden was now twenty-three years old and finished her degree in psychology a couple of months ago. She lived alone in her small apartment. After tirelessly applying to every job-offer she could find, none of them had answered back yet. It was almost like a curse.
‘Hah, who would even believe in such things as a curse’, she laughed to herself.
Mary closed her eyes and right before falling asleep, the ear shattering noise of her doorbell shot her fully awake.
She stood up from the sofa and stumbled over to her door. She already knew who it was, there’s only a few people who had access to her apartment, and it was almost that day too.
There was really only one who actively tries to remember this day of the year.
She opened the door to her apartment, and saw the exact person she was expecting.
‘Bradley, it is…’, Mary looked at her wristwatch, ‘ten minutes before midnight.’
He was silent. Mary gestured to him to come inside, feeling sorry for the guy.
‘I’m… sorry’, he said.
He stepped inside and took a chair from the dinner table to sit on.
‘Look, Brad, I know this day is important to you, but at some point, you’ll need to move on. Just like the rest of us have.’
‘Can we visit her, just… one more time?’
Mary looked at him with a visibly concerned expression. It was hard to believe Bradley Langham was now twenty-four, and still acting like this whenever the time came around to mourn her.
He had said the same for the past three years now, and everytime, everyone gave in and went back there with him.
‘Those were things our minds made up when we were younger… and scared. We all have grown up, it’s time for you to do the same.’
‘Are you still trying to force yourself to believe that? I know she is still here, she has to be.’
Bradley got hit the hardest of the old group. She was his one and only after all. But to go to these lengths…
‘Ok, I get it already. I’ll convince the rest, again.’
‘Thank you so much, Mary, I knew I could always rely on you!’
‘But, if nothing happens again, then this is the last time for real.’
He seemed to hesitate a bit before calling it a deal.
Mary knew that somewhere, buried deep in her heart, she longed to see her friend again too. But it was not only that which had convinced her. It was also the only thing that kept the group together.
After they each had a glass of water, Mary sent Bradley on his way home. He looked happy, and filled with determination as he left her room. It even brought a small smile to Mary’s face too. He thanked Mary again as he left her apartment.
Mary was glad to see Bradley had somewhat returned to his usual self, brave, extroverted, a generic ‘cool guy’. It took a while for him to recover after what had happened, Mary even worried he would never be the same anymore. The event caused a full one-eighty in his personality at first.
Mary waved Bradley goodbye, closed her front door and shut off the lights. Then she went to bed.
In bed, Mary thought everything over once again. She tried to forget about it, and she did, until this day inevitably arrived again, year after year. Whenever she remembered, it always kept her awake at night.
It was hard to find peace with what had gone down. She imagined it must be even harder for Agnes. She had passed so suddenly, so… mysteriously. That was seven years ago. She was only sixteen.
As Mary finally drifted into a deep sleep, the nightmares came back to haunt her. And they were far from over.
7 years ago; October 11, 2015
Agnes laid stretched out on the sofa, watching a random cartoon she found on television while zapping. It wasn’t even a series she enjoyed. She was bored out of her mind, with nothing to do, and for lack of a better thing, this was her only option. She didn’t want to go to bed yet either. Having the whole house for herself the whole night… she could do whatever she wanted to.
Her parents went out to some sort of event, a birthday party of a distant family member or something. As Agnes needed to go to school in the morning, they left her at home, and told her to “not stay up too late”. Which is exactly what she ended up doing.
Agnes grabbed her phone and looked at the time. Her phone displayed “11:45 PM”. Soon, Sunday 11th of October will end. The 12th would start, bringing a new school week with it, which Agnes absolutely did not look forward to. The only good thing about school is that she can see and talk to her friends there.
Nonchalantly, Agnes threw her phone to the side, pointing her attention back to the screen in front of her. She heard a crash, which sounded suspiciously close. Agnes realised she had thrown her phone a little too hard, resulting in it falling to the floor and cracking the screen.
Agnes, too lazy and tired to stand up, just kept watching the dumb cartoon playing on the television. At that point Agnes thought; “Being home alone and staying up late is more boring than I thought. I should’ve just gone to sleep.”
‘I could die of boredom!’, she said out loud.
“When are my parents coming home again?”, Agnes thought. “Yeah, I should just head to bed.”
Agnes tried reaching out to the television’s remote control, but she couldn’t move her arm. She tried getting up, but she couldn’t move her legs. It felt as if her body had already gone to sleep, but her mind did not.
“I’m so tired”, she thought.
She must have fallen asleep somewhere after that thought, completely drifting away into a faraway place. Not knowing what she’d wake up to the next day…
Agnes woke up from a deep sleep. How long had she been out for?
With her eyes half opened she stood up and stretched her body. She felt nothing, no aching muscles after laying still for so long, no cracking joints, no stiffness. And that wasn’t the only thing that felt off. She felt a constant slow breeze of cold air, like it blew through her.
As Agnes became more aware of her surroundings, she noticed the sun was already shining outside. She heard something more grim too, someone’s crying from the kitchen. She went over to the opened doorway and stepped inside of the room.
What she saw was her father comforting her mother, who was crying in her husband’s arms. She looked awful, as if she’d been crying for an entire three days.
‘Mom?’, Agnes asked. But there was no reaction. Her own voice sounded muffled, as if she was trying to speak underwater.
She tried reaching out to her parents, but they still did not seem to notice her presence. What happened for them to be in this state of sadness, of… grief.
As Agnes wanted to lay her hand on her fathers shoulder, she noticed her arm and hand were… almost translucent, giving off a faint blue glow. It startled her and she pulled back her arm, and ran off to the bathroom.
Her world started to crumble around her. When trying to open the bathroom’s door, she found it to be impossible. She tried and tried, grasping the door handle, but every time her hand just phased through it.
Panicked, she ran to the mirror in the entrance hall instead. She hesitated for a brief moment before stepping up to the mirror. Nothing could have mentally prepared her for what she saw.
When Agnes stepped up to the mirror, standing right in front of it, she only saw the opposite wall.
Agnes burst out in a mix of emotions. Confusion, worry, devastation, fear. She collapsed on the floor, not feeling an impact at all. Just the same cold feeling throughout her entire body.
As she lay there, for multiple hours probably, she heard her parents moving around the house. As they went upstairs, they passed Agnes in the entrance hall, still not noticing her presence.
Slowly, as she calmed down and accepted her new reality, all the pieces started to fit together. Even though many questions still haunted her mind, Agnes started to realize what was happening to her. The conclusion she came to was; She had died.
All the ghost stories she had heard and read about, suddenly got confirmed too. Agnes was now one of them. Was this the afterlife? This can’t be right. What about Heaven? Or Hell?
Wait. Agnes stopped when she realized a very important detail. When did she die? And how? It was probably the night she was alone. That’s the last thing she remembers. She couldn’t just have died in her sleep then right? Agnes was perfectly healthy. Did she get murdered in her sleep?
Agnes stood up and went back to the living room, to the couch where she had been laying. She looked at the digital clock. It displayed “10;30 PM, Tuesday, Oct 13th”. Two days had already passed before she woke up in her current form.
She inspected the couch and living room to the best of her abilities, she still could not grab or interact with objects. She found nothing that would indicate her cause of death. But still, something didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. Her death or this form she was in now.
‘This has to be a dream’, she suddenly said. Once again shocked at how hollow her voice was.
She tried slapping herself in the face, as pop culture taught her to do whenever you are stuck in a dream. It didn’t solve much though, she only felt her cold hand on her cold cheek.
Not knowing where to go, or what to do next, she went up to her room. Luckily her door stood open, since she can’t open it herself now. Agnes sighed and sat down on her bed, without displacing a single fold in her bedsheets.
Agnes had become a ghost, stuck in a weird limbo, inside her own house. She would proceed to roam the house until…
October 17, 2015
It was Mary’s idea. The group of four decided to go visit her close friend’s parents. On this Saturday evening around 7:30 PM, Mary, together with Bradley, William and Fanny, went to Agnes’ home. None of them felt ready to go to the actual place where their friend used to live… and recently came to die. None of them were over the shock yet. But they had each other to find comfort in, and wanted to share that with Agnes’ parents.
On the porch, the small group hesitated for a bit.
Mary took the lead and said; ‘It’s gonna be fine.’ Partly to convince herself too.
She rang the doorbell and a few moments later, mr. Tedworth, Agnes’ father, opened the door for them.
‘It’s you all! What are you doing here this late?’, he said surprised and with wavering emotions in his voice.
They had not relayed their plan to the Tedworth family, so naturally he would be surprised.
‘We wanted to visit, to show our support…’, said Mary.
‘… And to be with her one last time… maybe…’, added Bradley hesitantly.
‘Well come in, It’s gonna get cold outside.’
They followed mr. Tedworth inside, to the living room. It was a large spacious room with a big sofa facing a flatscreen TV and behind the sofa a table. They each took a seat around that table.
‘Can you wait here? I’ll get my wife’, said mr. Tedworth.
No one said anything while mr. Tedworth was away. No one knew what to say in the first place. All of their thoughts went to Agnes.
A few moments later, mr. Tedworth came back into the living room with mrs. Tedworth by his side. Mary noticed she looked terrible. With huge bags under her eyes and her long brown hair, messy and uncared for, she could tell mrs. Tedworth had not closed an eye since her daughter passed, which was understandable. Mary has not been able to sleep lately either, thoughts of Agnes and joyful memories of the past would haunt her mind all night. She could only imagine what it would be like for the parents.
‘So sweet of all of you to come by’, she said, holding back a sniffle. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘We wanted to show our respect in person… and visit at least once more’, said Mary.
Mary knew Agnes the longest out of the four of them. They had known each other since kindergarten, and always stuck together since. The amount of times Mary had visited Agnes’ house, for birthday parties, sleepovers, you name it… was practically uncountable. They had become like sisters to each other. Especially since both were an only child in their families.
Mary reached into her bag, and took out the card she had made, the others followed her lead and did the same. They also each brought a flower to go with the card. Agnes had always been strangely intrigued by flowers and flower language.
One by one, they gave their cards and flowers to Agnes’ parents, in silence. Mrs. Tedworth thanked all of them separately and walked over to a near sideboard, on top of which, room had been made to put pictures, candles and flowers, for Agnes. She carefully placed their cards on top of it, together with the white Chrysanthemums, a flower given to say farewell.
Mrs. Tedworth then called them all in for a group hug, and Mary could no longer hold back her tears.
Agnes sat in her room, staring blankly at the four walls keeping her imprisoned. At least she felt somewhat at ease here. The vibrant purple and pink paint she had chosen to paint her room in when she was younger, lost it’s liveliness in this dark limbo. All color seemed to have been drained away. But it wasn’t all black and white either. The colors were still there, she knew, but the light couldn’t penetrate the fabric of space in this reality. At least that’s how she would describe it.
She heard the doorbell ring, distantly and muted. She didn’t think much of it, as a lot of people came by each day, ever since… she died. It probably took a lot of paperwork to take care of all the… post-mortem matters.
She started to feel sorry for her parents. This whole ordeal must be giving them a whole lot of trouble, and she felt responsible for it. They’d have to organize a whole funeral too. Agnes’ funeral. The idea of her own body being buried deep under a layer of dirt made her very uncomfortable.
Agnes heard the door open and her dad talk. Then she heard a very familiar voice talk back to him. When she heard her dad letting the familiar voices inside, she peeked out of her room, down into the main hallway. Agnes teared up as she saw her four best friends enter her home. But, too afraid to try and confront them, she stayed back in her room.
She listened to their voices, sporadic and muted. She heard her father get her mother in the bedroom at the other side of the hallway from her room.
‘Agnes’ friends are here, they came to visit’, he said.
Her mother must have been barely listening and barely awake. She had slept maybe a few hours at most the last five days. Her mother was a wreck, it pained Agnes to see her like that, unable to shake the feeling of guilt. Luckily, her father was still there for her. Without him… Agnes didn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened to her mother.
‘Hey, if you are not ready for it, it’s okay if you want to stay here’, her father said.
‘No… No, I should go meet them, they came all this way after all’, her mother replied.
‘Alright, let me help you up.’
Agnes heard her parents leave the room and go downstairs. Her mother is a strong woman. Agnes wondered if she would have become strong like her. Maybe then she would be able to muster enough strength to go downstairs too and face her friends. But she couldn’t… not yet.
It was when Agnes heard crying that she broke out of her trance. She didn’t specifically recognize who it was, but it sure was not just her mother.
Agnes finally gathered all her courage to leave her room. She slowly stepped down the stairs, encouraging herself to keep going down. “No turning back now”,”I need to see them”, “I need to be with them”, were some of the things she told herself.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and at a slow, unsure pace, she walked over to the living room.
Standing in the doorway, Agnes watched the scene before her. She again felt tears coming up, but never did one leave her eye socket. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was just a ghost thing or not. She saw her mother embracing her best friend Mary. Fanny was right beside Mary, joining in the embrace. Bradley and William were standing next to them, visibly trying their best to hold in their tears, believing in the “boys don’t cry” rule. Her father was there too, tapping the shoulders of the two boys.
Behind them, she saw four specific flowers on the sideboard, Agnes immediately recognized them as Chrysanthemums, and the reason they were there.
Step for step, she approached her grieving friends. She didn’t know why, as if it was a reflex. Agnes eventually came face to face with Mary. Time seemed to slow down around her and she could see every tear flowing down Mary’s cheeks. The pain in her expression was unbearable to watch. She wanted to reach out and wipe those tears off her face.
Right before making contact, Agnes stopped. Out of fear of hurting Mary, or because Mary pulled away from her. She saw Mary reach for the cheek Agnes had wanted to touch. Her mother let Mary go and asked; ‘What’s wrong dear? Were you able to let everything out?’
Agnes stepped back, bringing a bit of distance between them again.
Wiping her tears off her face, Mary answered; ‘No… yes, I mean. But…’, she touched her cheek again. ‘I felt a strange cold on my face, it was like…’, she paused, ‘Like someone held an ice cold drink right next to my cheek.’
Everyone looked at Mary.
‘It sounds crazy, I know, it was probably nothing’, said Mary.
Agnes realized it a bit late, but what Mary could have felt there, was her very own presence. She could actually interact with them!
‘Mary? Do you hear me?’, Agnes tried calling out to her. But no reply, let alone any reaction, followed.
‘Maybe… It was a ghost’, said none other than William. It took them all a bit by surprise. William Borley was the joker of the group. A very lighthearted and fun guy to hang around with, but often equally annoying. This time however, he was not making any jokes, he sounded serious for once.
It was because of his remark that everyone played with a certain idea. The idea that Agnes was present with them.
Mary and Fanny just stared at William, to make sure if he wasn’t just joking, but not a single trace of a smile was to be found on his face.
‘No, that can’t be, ghosts aren’t real… right?’, Fanny asked. ‘Don’t make jokes about that in this situation!’, she shouted. It startled Agnes, Fanny rarely raised her voice like that. She was always polite and rather quiet, a bit of an introvert as well.
‘Agnes! Agnes, if you are really here… If you are really still here, please, let us know!’, said Bradley. Agnes could hear the desperation in his voice, holding on the sliver of hope that William gave him. It was strange to see him lose control, usually he was always cool and composed, the natural leader of the group.
Agnes began to realize just how much her absence had changed in her friends. William lost his humour, Fanny got hostile, Bradley became unstable and Mary… Mary became strong and determined. She took the lead of the group, holding it together as best as she could without Agnes. They looked like a machine, about to fall apart but held together by a single thin wire of hope that Agnes was still here, which she was.
Now Agnes just needed to reveal herself, somehow. She needed to prove to them that she was indeed with them, otherwise her friends would eventually break apart, and Agnes would not have that. Most of all, she didn’t want to be responsible for it.
Most of all she couldn’t stand seeing Bradley defeated like this. Agnes decided to answer his call. She got up close behind him and blew in his neck, too shy to touch him, even still, being an invisible ghost and all.
Bradley shivered from the cold sensation in his neck. Agnes moved around him to see the look on his face. Now brighter and filled with determination, and overjoyed that Agnes was actually here.
‘I felt it! The cold in my neck! It was Agnes, I’m sure of it!’, he declared.
‘The others just stared at him and collectively said; ‘No way…’
But their relief wouldn’t last long. All the while her parents were getting worried.
‘Ok, aren’t you too old for make believe?’, her dad asked. Agnes knew he would not easily be convinced. Her mother however… Agnes saw on her face she was trying to deny it, but she too entertained the idea of Agnes still being around, although not physically.
‘I think it’s about time you kids go back home. It’s getting quite late, your parents must be worried’, mr. Tedworth said.
And with that he let the kids out to the front door. Agnes followed them too, keeping her distance. Her friends left the building, wanting to stay just that one bit longer, like they usually would when they came over before.
Right before her father closed the door, she heard William suggest an idea.
‘So… Should we hire ghost hunters or something?’
She couldn’t see or hear the others’ reaction to it. With a soft soft thud, the front door closed, and Agnes was alone again, with her parents.
