Chase's Book of YT One-Shots

Closet (RoyalChaos)

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From then on, I spoke to him more often. I found out his name was Anthony, but I had issues with not accidentally addressing him as Chilled. He thought the nickname was funny, and let me use it.

He told me he was fifteen, two years older than me, and that this was his house before it was mine. He didn't leave the closet a lot, but he described how his room had looked before it was mine. The next day I reorganized my room so it more fit the image while he watched me, and teased me for it. I brushed off his teasing without much effort, and left it because I could see that it made him smile sometimes to look around.

I found out quickly I was the only one who could see him; beyond my mother completely overlooking him that one day, my dad gave me strange looks more than once if he passed my room while I was talking. I didn't have a good excuse for him at any point, so I tried to keep my voice down or talking to a minimum if I wasn't home alone.

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"Why are you a ghost?"

It was a question that slipped out before I could stop it. It was months later and I was approaching fourteen, but Chilled didn't age. I had wondered before if our friendship would change when I surpassed him in physical age, but I didn't like those thoughts. Chilled had climbed his way up into the slot of 'best friend' quicker than I had ever anticipated, and I didn't really want that to stop.

He frowned, a sight I didn't like because it didn't seem to fit his face and his eyes didn't look right either. I was shut inside the closet on a Saturday, while my parents were out a few hours to do some errands. The closet was comfier than it should have been, maybe because I was in it so often. I watched his face anxiously, preparing to take the question back. Some questions, Chilled refused to answer. Some questions made him upset. I never addressed those questions again.

"I have no idea," he said bitterly, and though the bitterness wasn't directed at me I still flinched. He saw the motion and his expression softened immediately. I'd made him feel bad I think.

I opened my arms after a second, the gesture clear, and he hesitated before rotating himself and letting me hug him. He wasn't perfectly corporeal, and if I put too much force on him I could pass limbs through. He said it was the worst feeling because it seemed like it should hurt, but instead he just felt motion inside him and it was unnatural. I was careful to keep my grip on him light.

"Sorry, was that a bad question?" I asked, wince evident in my tone. He shook his head, a smile lighting when he acknowledged my worry over his emotions.

"No, just... a question I want answers for, too."

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I spent two months researching, which for a newly fourteen year old was highly impressive if I do say so myself.

I looked back on information on my house, finding that a fifteen year old boy and his parents had in fact been the previous owners of this house, until the son had died and parents had decided to sell. It was hardly that I hadn't believed him, but I'd needed some form of physical evidence that Chilled had been real and existed. Was real, and did exist.

Then, I looked up as much lore on ghosts as I could find, and as you can imagine there was a lot. Some people claimed they were stuck because they'd chosen to be; some said they remained as long as there was something for them in the mortal world; some said if they killed themselves or died violently they'd be stuck forever. I ignored the last one to the best of my ability.

Chilled saw me research a lot of this and regularly advised me to stop, stating I wouldn't find anything. I ignored him too.

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