Chapter 9.

Although the circumstantial evidence connecting the two events weren’t necessarily the strongest; in fact, it could just be a coincidence. Despite that, it really felt likely that I’d stumbled across the location where the guy from the thread a month ago allegedly met the rumored ghost girlfriend and died.

Either way, what’s in the past was in the past. I still didn’t believe the so-called ghost girlfriend was real and I was more inclined to believe it was really suicide like the cops thought. I didn’t want to be too cocky though, so I still took precautions to dispose of the VHS cassette tape in the manner that I had, but that was just me being paranoid. I’m skeptical of them existing, but I’d rather not invite them to disturb my peaceful and quiet lifestyle in the off chance they really existed.

When I finished my thorough clean up of the place, satisfied by my work, I climbed into my bed and peacefully visited the world of dreams. I was completely unworried about any spooky ghost girls that may or may not exist and be out for anyone’s life.

When I fell asleep, I expected to have nice and peaceful dreams with how I handled the situation. However, rather than a peaceful dream, it was a somewhat ominous one instead.

In the dream, I opened my eyes and the first thing that came into view was a gravestone. When I looked around, I easily recognized where I was. It was the mansion that belonged to my first ex-girlfriend. When I examined the gravestone, I realized the name written on it was scratched out and indiscernible.

When I moved my face nearer to try and inspect it more closely, a hand shot out of the ground which nearly led my heart to leap out of my chest from the unexpected disturbance. The shock of the sudden jump scare kicked me out of the dream and I found myself on top of my bed, cold sweating and hyperventilating when I woke up like I’d just finished a marathon.

After some time passed while warily looking about my room, nothing further happened as one might have expected. Only the dead silence of the night returned my anxious state of mind. I let out a sigh of relief and got up to take a shower to get rid of the uncomfortable sticky sensation on my skin left behind by the cold sweat. When I got out of bed, my foot landed on something cold and hard. Confused by the foreign object below, I glanced at the ground and my heart immediately dropped to the ground.

Nope! Just, nope! It was the remote control for the TV. That’s definitely not a VHS cassette tape! It’s just a remote control, a remote. I’m not hallucinating or anything, that is without a doubt a remote control!

I looked up, walked over quickly to the bathroom, flipped the light switch, then stripped my clothes before I turned on the hot water, and jumped into the tub.

It was just late at night and I was just a bit spooked after what I went through, that was all there was to it. It was just my imagination, my mind playing tricks on me. When I leave the washroom, there definitely will not be a VHS cassette tape by my bed. I closed my eyes and continually repeated the same words over and over again to try to brainwash myself.

All I could hear was the pitter-patter of the drops of water landing on top of my head before they rolled down my body and went down the drain. I inhaled and let the warm steam enter my lungs as I simultaneously felt the sticky sweat being washed away as my entire body was cleansed and warmed.

At least, that was how I felt until I noticed the light that permeated through my closed eyelids flickered on and off along with the sound of a dying bulb in the background. Nope. Not opening these eyes. Absolutely not! I know what happens in the movies. As long as I don’t see it, nothing will be there. The moment I opened my eyes, it would surely be there.

Damn it, spooky ghosts are just like Schrödinger’s cat! Thou shalt not observeth the unobservable! Thou doth not exist unless mine eyes land upon thy ghastly figure! What the hell, the power of mother fucking Christ compels you! I felt the need to emphasize this, but, I am still an atheist. I don’t know why I had the strange urge to reassure myself of this fact.

Stuck with my internal dilemmas in mind; like this, the light and I entered into a heated deadlock. If I opened my eyes, I would lose. If the light stopped flickering first, it would lose.

…

Ten minutes later.

Ah, screw it, stop being a damn pansy! I'm a freaking atheist, what do I even care about a stupid flickering light?! After I had enough of that nonsensical deadlock, I’d clearly grown impatient; I opened my eyes and found there was nothing spooky to be found after all. There was only a flickering light bulb that needed tightening. The flickering light was likely just a result of the steam condensing and interfering with the circuitry or contacts. After I rotated it a bit, like magic, the flickering stopped.

Really, when you’re in a somewhat new, unfamiliar environment, just about anything can scare you and leave you jumpy. I am a man of science though, how could I possibly be spooked by something like a flickering light bulb? I’m still immature for a man at the age of thirty if that freaked me out as much as it did. I’ve still got a lot to learn on my long arduous journey towards becoming the king of atheists.

When I exited the bathroom, I glanced at the area beside my bed and realized there really was nothing there after all. Haaaah. I must have been hallucinating earlier as I clearly wasn’t in the right state of mind; I was likely still just a bit groggy after just having just woken up from a nightmare. Such mistakes weren’t unheard of or impossible after all.

I’ve read about studies where under enough stress, the brain could create sensations so real that they can fool any of your five senses; whether it be touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell, it isn't an impossible feat to deceive any of them. For example, someone was once shown a knife then blindfolded and they were told they were about to be cut. The scientist simply brushed the knife against their arms, yet they experienced pain to the extent that they truly believed they had been physically cut.

That could easily explain the unusual sensation I felt when I thought I stepped on a VHS cassette tape earlier. As for what I saw, it was surely just a hallucination. On a subconscious level, the brain was known to only experience and recognize what it wanted to.

Once I reasoned everything out logically, it all made perfect sense. The stress I faced recently was definitely enough to cause such problems.

Despite my calm analysis of the situation, I was now in no mood to simply go to sleep though, so I did the only thing any normal person would do. I grabbed my laptop and started surfing the web.

Since I wanted to talk to someone about the situation, I decided to pay a visit to the message board I’d stumbled upon when I first discovered the thread that, which I presently suspected, belonged to the now-deceased tenant. I was slightly curious about how people would react to such a far fetched story. The discovery of Anon’s room, as well as the fact that someone who was lurking in that thread actually moved into his former residence; I’m sure there would be people interested to learn of such a juicy clickbait topic like this.