THE AIR WAS left hanging as the tour guide exited the castle, leaving the keys on the bench by the front door. Arthur and Evelyn shared a sigh while the other two more experienced ghost hunters began to set up. Evelyn was handed a hand-held camera as she moved two rooms down to grab the bags, Arthur too busy placing a GoPro on one of the highest shelves in the entrance to help.
"Hey, Sam and Colby fans. It's Evelyn Bradshaw here," the blonde joked, impersonating vloggers from over a decade ago. She continued talking, lengthening out her introduction like most old youtubers happened to do, before she entered the room. Immediately, she swiveled on her feet. "and that's- nope. No, no, no, no, no thank you. What the fuck!"
She walked back into the room between the space with the bags and the space with her friends, the door hanging open as she stared back into where she was just entering. "Arthur fucking Frederick, get your ass in here right now." She held the camera tight in her hands, eyes wide as she straightened out her lips.
The man in question jogged into the room with confusion, his eyes instantly finding her own. "You okay?" He asked quickly, giving her a once-over.
"Did you open the bags?" She asked with a tilt of her head - a fear-filled movement. Arthur furrowed his brows.
"No . . . please don't tell me they're open," he mumbled as he quickly walked forward, peering his head into the room. As soon as he'd seen their duffle bags with the material zipped wide open, he turned back to look at her with his chin hanging to the floor. "Shut up! You did that."
"Me?" Evelyn laughed, placing a mock hand of shock to her chest. "Dude, do you think I'd be freaking out like this if I did it?"
He gestured for the camera as he tried to shake away his beaming grin, zooming the focus into the open bags. "Do you think there's a ghost in there?" Evelyn shoved his shoulder as she walked past him, erupting a laugh from within his once-tense self. She moved into the room and zipped the bags back up, making an effort to glare into the camera.
"Sam and Colby, if you're watching this, I may never talk to you again when I leave," she argued, the camera slightly shaking from Arthur's silent laughter in the back. "God, what did I put in this bag?"
"Here," Arthur smiled as he turned off the camera, watching the blonde struggle to maintain her own luggage. "Let me take it."
"Thank you," she said sincerely as she handed it to him, sighing with relief as it fell into his hands.
"You sure there isn't a dead body in here?"
"Arthur!"
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IT WAS DARK, everywhere. The halls, the windows, the outdoor grounds, and even the lights. They were so dim Evelyn couldn't even make out the small dimple in the middle of Arthur's chin. She looked away, staring out the window on the second floor at nothing in particular. She couldn't see a single silhouette in the distance.
She'd gotten tired of the torches turning on and off on their own. All of it formed a small pool in the lowest point of her stomach. She knew she was sensitive to this area of paranormal investigations, which was why she'd never voluntarily been part of one before - solely because she was a scaredy cat. Subtly, she pinched the skin of her thigh. Snap out of it, she told herself, be part of their video, you're boring. She put on a smile.
"Do you still want to talk to us?" Colby asked loudly, camera and his eyes pointed directly at the two-dollar torch resting on the coffee table. It immediately switched on.
"That's enough for me," Arthur breathed out as he stood up. Evelyn followed after him as Colby pointed the camera at them, catching the girl hum as she bounced on her feet and shook her hands wildly.
"I swear to god, if this bitch comes after me tonight-"
"Evelyn!" Arthur whisper-shouted. She looked at the man worriedly.
"What?" She muttered beneath her breath, eyes portraying her inner caution.
"Don't bad mouth the ghosts," he whispered. Sam laughed in the background as Colby began to smile.
"Oh, sorry, ghost. I'll bring you flowers when I come here next," she said as she walked forward and picked up the torch, a smile gracing her lips.
"Are you coming back?" Sam asked genuinely. Evelyn scoffed with a mixture of a laugh, Arthur already smiling as he read her mind. He knew her following words before she even said them.
"No," she grinned. It was as she moved back around the coffee table, about to pass Arthur, when the torch flicked back on again. The catch was, she hadn't done anything.
Immediately she dropped it to the floor with a gasp as Arthur sucked in a breath behind her. Colby instantly panned the camera to the floor as it brightened, Sam shouting out phrases filled with dude and oh my god.
As soon as she'd dropped it, Evelyn had stepped back, her jacket pressing against Arthur's shirt. She turned around while keeping her sight on the torch, her hands wrapping around his right arm. His other arm instantly moved around his body to lay against her waist. He held himself back from hugging her entirely while she stopped herself from burying her head in his chest.
"What the fuck just happened?" Arthur asked as he stared at Sam with wide eyes, lips parted in confusion and shock as to what had just occurred. "Did you turn it on?" He looked down at her, watching as she hurriedly shook her head.
"No, I swear I didn't twist it," the blonde uttered, her grip on his arm never faltering in the slightest. Arthur's thumb ran up and down against her waist, causing her to shift her focus, thankfully.
"I don't think it likes you," Colby laughed as he zoomed the camera onto Evelyn's face. She smiled sarcastically in his direction.
"No, I think it loves me," she grinned. Suddenly, the torch light switched off, causing them all to try and lighten the atmosphere with their quiet laughter.
Colby switched the camera off for just a moment. "All jokes aside, you good? I know how scary that can be," he said, sharing a worried look with Sam.
Evelyn smiled as she let go of Arthur's arm, his other hand falling back to his side as he hid his frown at the loss of contact with a clearing of his throat. "No, no, I'm good . . . now. That is super creepy though, like I genuinely didn't touch anything."
"Yeah, we believe you," Sam nodded. "This stuff happens all the time, dude."
"Great . . . that's reassuring," Arthur said as he pressed his lips together, the corners of his mouth lifting as he made eye-contact with Evelyn. She smiled.
"Okay, I'm thinking, we go down to the inner pantry and try the Estes Method, and maybe just do another lap of the castle, then go to bed. It's getting late already and we'll get a shit ton of footage overnight."
"What's the Estes Method?" Arthur and Evelyn asked at the same time. Colby looked between the two.
"That was really fuckin' creepy," he said as he wagged a finger in-between the friends. They merely laughed.
"The Estes Method," Sam began as they walked out of the room, towards the main staircase. "is something we can use to talk to the spirits here. Basically, we place a blindfold over the participant and give them headphones connected to a spirit box . . . do you know what those are?"
Arthur and Evelyn nodded. "Sick. Well, imagine that's blasting. So essentially, you can't use any of your senses, so we ask you questions, and you just respond with whatever you hear the spirit box say."
"How do you know what the question is?" Arthur asked with furrowed brows.
"You don't. That's the whole point, it's the spirit's that know."
"So, you wouldn't know if any of it actually made sense?" Evelyn questioned.
Colby grinned. "Nope," he said, popping the p. "It's fun though, usually works pretty well."
"Can I have a go?" Evelyn asked. Her question even surprised Arthur, who immediately looked down at her with wide eyes and a slight smile.
He flicked her shoulder. "Where'd Evelyn Bradshaw go?" She only shot him a look filled with amusement.
"Yeah, definitely! It'll make some banging content!" Sam grinned.
"Banging? Who uses the word banging?" Colby said with furrowed brows, his beam shooting through the darkness as the small group descended the stairs.
"Me when I go down on your mum," Arthur snickered before hopping quickly down the stairs. Colby shouted out and quickly followed after him as Sam turned the camera back on.
"What idiots," Evelyn laughed as she shook her head, sharing a look with the other blond person in the castle.
"What absolute trash bags," Sam said into the camera, muffling his laughter with the sleeve of his jumper.
"Mr Television," Evelyn sang as she jumped off the final step, Sam filming her every move. Unknowingly, she passed through the very doorway the other two had gone through, only to let out a harrowing scream as the two men she was looking for jumped out from behind the wall.
Arthur immediately began to laugh as she fell into him, her palms covering her face while he wrapped his arms around her back. He continued to guffaw with his head tilted to the roof, Colby and Sam laughing in the background. Evelyn couldn't help but let out the tiniest hint of laughter into Arthur's chest due to the amount of it filling her ears. She pulled away with mock annoyance.
"You're such a douche," she mumbled as she shook her head, trying to restrain her smile. Her efforts fell futile, just like Arthur's arm and the physical contact they once had as he let it fall back to his side. Her skin went cold at the loss.
"You better sleep with one eye open tonight," Sam joked while nudging Arthur's side. The camera panned to him wincing inwardly as he scratched his temple. Sam laughed.
"Alright! Here we are at the Inner Pantry . . . where the white pantry ghost is said to live," Colby introduced with wiggling fingers and raised brows. "Now, on her own accord, so no, you guys, we did not peer pressure her into this, Evelyn is going to undergo the Estes Method. Hopefully, we'll get some information about this ghost's story."
Sam and Colby did their usual thing where they casually invited said ghost into the conversation while Arthur and Evelyn stood behind them, sharing nervous looks and moving smiles. The blonde was suddenly regretting volunteering to place herself in such a senseless position.
"Alright, we're all set, Evelyn," Sam said as he held out the headphones. She gratefully took them from them, muttering an audible thanks, before sitting down and placing the blindfold over her forehead.
"Do I just start saying whatever I hear?" Evelyn asked. She got nods in return.
"Whenever you're ready," Colby nodded.
She shared a small glance and a smile with Arthur before he reached over and lowered the blindfold. "Bye, Lynn." She was plunged into darkness.
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EVELYN HATED THE dark. She always felt lost in it, as if someone or something had removed her soul from her body so she was forced to watch, lifelessly from the shadows, as her feet willed her empty-self to move towards the seemingly non-existent light. As soon as the bright rays hit her once more, her heart would return and she would shake the numbing feeling away.
Waking up in the castle, in the middle of the night, carried a similar feeling. Her eyes flew open at the sound of something in the distance, the blonde taking a mere second or two to remember where she was before she slowly pushed herself up, her weight resting on the bottom of her palms. Her eyes were wide as she looked around the pitch black room, shadows forming due to her pounding mind, only for them to disappear moments later after she told them to go away.
"Arthur," she whispered shakily, only gaining a disturbed murmur in response. She looked to the side, the man being close enough for her to see even through the darkness. His back was facing the wall, his arms curled beneath his head as he let out a slow breath. His body was inches away from her own, but the difference was the lack of stress he held. Evelyn was worried beyond belief.
She sucked in a breath, moving to the side to grab her phone off the old nightstand beside the bed without removing her sight from her surroundings. She clicked it on, a bright two fifty-two in the morning lighting up the majority of the screen. She sighed, before the noise sounded again.
A desolate, eerie creak filled the hallway just outside their room. Sam and Colby were situated on the floor above them, so she doubted they could hear it, but Evelyn was convinced the GoPro standing in the corner of their room would capture it. That was what convinced her to stand up, flick the torch on her phone on, and exit the room.
Creak. She could feel the freezing stone of the floor from between her fuzzy socks. She took numerous light, quiet steps until she reached the door, carefully pulling it open in an attempt to quieten the hinges. Creak. There it was again, just down the hallway. She peered out from the gap she'd created in the door, pointing her flashlight in both directions. Nothing, just shadows of the candlesticks and the paintings on the wall. Creak. Her head flicked to the left, eyeing the open doorways of countless rooms. She sucked in a breath before finally pushing herself out of the room. She was left alone in the hallway, if she disregarded the spirits she knew would be haunting the grounds around her.
She slowly made her way down the hallway, following the continuous, symmetrical sound. She didn't pause at the doorways she passed when she could still hear the sound from further down. She couldn't bring herself to look. The girl was too scared they'd be something standing there, a pair of eyes watching her demonically, in turn irrevocably scarring her. She shivered at the thought.
She paused in her footing as the creaking continued, another sound having been added to the mix. Her breath got caught in her throat, stuck and squeezed tight, as footsteps pattered along the floor directly above her. She could've sworn she heard a quiet giggle before the noise disappeared altogether, leaving just the creak coming closer down the hall. She, once again, ignored everything and continued on her way into the never-ending darkness.
After minutes of the blonde walking aimlessly down the hall, she stopped herself in the centre of the lengthy strip. Creak. It was right beside her now, daunting, calling out her name. She held her breath as she slowly turned around, creeping closer to the open doorway before forcing her hand up, shining her phone light across the room. Her breath left her throat in an instant, her knees almost buckling beneath her. Everything she initially believed flew out the window, one thought recurring through her whizzing mind. They're real.
The chandelier that was dangling from the ceiling of the room was swinging around violently. It almost hit one of the walls before swinging back and just grazing the other. Evelyn couldn't explain it. There was nobody there, no wind at all. Hell, even if there was wind, it couldn't cause the extreme swinging the chandelier was enduring then. She could only think of one other thing as she struggled to breathe, watching the lighting continue swinging around the room. She held up her phone higher, turned it on, and began to film.
However, as soon as she pressed record, the chandelier slowed to a stop. By the time she'd fully pressed the button, it was only lightly swinging from side to side.
"What the fuck," she whispered under her breath as she let her eyes stray from her phone screen, staring up at the still chandelier from the doorway with confusion, before the door slammed shut right in front of her. She almost dropped her phone as she jumped back, her flash shaking as she let out a quiet squeal. She didn't wait around much longer, the video she'd been recording pausing as she moved, while she sprinted back down the hall with wide eyes and a pounding heart.
She could've sworn a gust of wind brushed past her as she dodged back into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. The commotion startled poor Arthur from his sleep, the man sitting straight up with furrowed brows and squinted eyes full of concern.
"Lyyn . . . is that you?" He asked as he rubbed his eyes, leaving them in front of his face to try and shield them from the light on her phone. She reached to the side as she heavily breathed against the door, flicking the light on the roof on thankfully. She switched her phone light off before placing it on the table to her left, a stray tear slipping out of the corner of her eye. She instantly wiped it away. "Evelyn? What happened?"
Arthur stood up and quickly paced around the length of the bed, moving closer to the frightened girl. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she flinched away, causing him to take a step back with furrowed brows. He turned to watch the still door silently, almost expecting something to jump out at him. Nothing of the sort occurred.
"There was something out there," she whispered shakily as she turned around. She took one look at the man before she threw herself onto him, burying her head in his neck as her arms latched tightly around the one thing she knew was real - that thing being him. "I believe them now. They're real, Arthur. Ghosts are real."