I slept dreamlessly through the night and woke up to brilliant sunlight.

Perhaps being on the road for a month had taken its toll on me, for my exhaustion had outweighed my fear. Frankly, I was surprised I'd fallen asleep at all under such eerie circumstances.

Emboldened by sunlight, I cleared my throat and called out to Mabel as I had in the past, "Mabel?"

No one else was in the bedroom.

I got out of bed and checked the other rooms. The kitchen was a filthy mess, the utensils covered in dust. The trash in the corner had grown moldy, its odor disgustingly pungent.

The food that had been on the dining table last night was tossed in a corner of the wall, and cobwebs dangled from it.

The apartment looked exactly as I'd left it when I went on the road a month ago.

Had last night been a hallucination?

No! It couldn't be. I could clearly recall her cold hands; I'd never forget her icy touch! How could I have imagined all that?

I collapsed on the ground like a sack of potatoes that had just been dropped, then lifted my gaze to Mabel's memorial portrait.

She was smiling gently at me through the frame. But without realizing it, I thought I saw her smile grow more sinister and blood spill from her eyes, just as they had on the day she died.

A ghost! She'd come back to haunt me as a ghost!

A scream escaped me. I rubbed my eyes, gathering the last of my strength as I burst out of the room.

"Damn it! Are you trying to kill yourself?"

I'd taken off so fast that I ended up colliding with my downstairs neighbor, Hilda, who'd just returned from a grocery run. She rubbed her arm as she snapped at me, "Why the hell are you running so fast? Did you see a ghost in broad daylight?"

Yes, that was exactly what happened!

I grabbed Hilda as if she were my saving grace.

"Hilda!" I stared at her, my voice full of panic as I asked with my last shred of hope, "You live right under my apartment, so you'd know! D-Did any living person come by my place yesterday? My wife… Did my wife show up?"

Hilda retorted scornfully, "Living person? What, were you expecting a ghost? Besides, where'd a bachelor like you get a wife? Mrs. Lloyd and I were downstairs playing poker the whole day yesterday and didn't see any woman show up."

I went still. It was as if a bucket of icy water had been tipped over my head.

They didn't know I was married at one point. If anyone showed up, they would have noticed right away.

And yet, Hilda made it clear that she hadn't seen or heard anything or anyone.

The midday sun was blazing, yet the cold sweat that had broken out over my forehead ran down my face like rivulets.

I didn't believe in ghosts or the occult, but it was hard not to after everything I'd gone through. Could the apartment be haunted?

I stood in place for a long while before snapping out of my daze. After some thought, I decided to hit the supermarket for two packs of cigarettes.

I then headed over to the management office.

"Haunted?"

The man in the management office grinned as he took the cigarette I offered, only to go from happy to confused after hearing my story.

"Yes. Have you heard about any hauntings at Block A6-1, Apartment 302?" I asked in a measured voice, trying my best to get to the truth without sounding overly invested.

"Nope."

He took a drag of his cigarette, then fixed me with a long look.

"To think a 6-foot-tall man like you would believe in such nonsense!" He spat on the ground and eyed me with contempt. "Why would you be afraid of ghosts if you hadn't done something wrong? What are you getting up to?"

His admonishment rendered me speechless. I had no choice but to give him a sheepish, apologetic smile.

I had no idea if I'd live past tonight.

I dared not return home even as the day darkened, but hotels were too expensive, and I couldn't bring myself to pay the tab.

Just as I was debating my choices, my phone rang.

It was Tony. I never really knew his last name because he never told me.

"Hey, Caden. You busy? Care to come out for a drink?"

It was already 8:00 pm when I met up with Tony.

He was my saving grace, the one who'd hooked me up with the trucker job. We'd met over a month ago at a dinner party. A few party-goers had conspired to get him drunk.

I couldn't stand their antics and downed a few drinks on his behalf, sparing him. When he sobered up, he thanked me for looking out for him.

He hooked me up with a new job after hearing my story. Given that I'd moved to Belford without money or connections, he offered me a place to stay in his vacant apartment, which was the one I lived in now.

He was always in a jovial mood when I saw him, but when he registered my arrival, he greeted me with a plain, "Hey."

But the pleasantries didn't last. "I let you have the apartment for free, Caden. You could stay or leave for all I care, but why'd you go to the management complaining about ghosts? How the hell am I supposed to put that apartment up for lease after this?"

I knew Tony was unhappy. It was all I could do to appease him and wait out his tirade. When he'd calmed down, I smiled bitterly and gave him a run-down of what I went through last time.

When I finished speaking, I scratched my head. "Pretty wild, huh? I didn't think I'd see a ghost in this day and age. I had a damn hard time believing it myself."

But Tony didn't mock me in the slightest, and instead leveled a long, hard look at me. "I heard a few stories about Mabel's death. Could someone have set this haunting up as a prank on you?"

Tony's words struck me where it hurt. Mabel had fallen from the stairs after missing a step and died from her injuries. The cops had come and ruled out the possibility of a homicide, yet rumors of my having anything to do with her death still went around.

"I believe you're innocent, but I suggest you find out whether Mabel had a twin sister or something. Maybe one of her family members fell for a rumor and decided to avenge her by staging a haunting."

I nodded quietly. Last night's incident had been sudden, and I'd been too scared and anxious to notice details beyond the obvious. There was no telling if the creature from last night had been a human or a ghost.

As I considered this, Tony's words began to make sense.

After all, there were no such things as ghosts in this world.

Mabel had been abandoned by her parents at a young age and grew up in an orphanage. I didn't know much about her past, let alone whether she had a younger sister.

I stayed at Tony's house for a night, then returned to Ashdale the next morning.

Mabel would drop by the orphanage in Ashdale once a month before she passed. She said she'd grown up and gotten so much charity during her time there. It was only right, she claimed, that she gave it back to society now that she was capable.

She invited me to tag along on every trip, but unfortunately, I'd only been here once before we were married.

The elderly orphanage director, Agatha Harmon, scowled at the sight of me. Upon hearing the reason for my visit, she grew even more reticent.

"Look, Agatha, Mabel slipped and fell by accident. Don't hold that out against me!" I tried to explain, knowing Mabel's death was like an open wound to Agatha.

"Slipped and fell to her death? That's rich, coming from you!"

Venerable as she was, Agatha almost never let her anger get the better of her. And yet, a simple sentence from me was all it took for her to break character.

She pointed at my nose, looking like she'd want nothing more than to bite my face off.

The seconds ticked by, and my patience wore thin. I settled for my last resort. "Agatha, according to the rules and regulations, I, as Mabel's next of kin, have the right to look at my spouse's records, right?"

Agatha's face went white, then darkened like a storm cloud. She had always been proper, and Mabel said she was a stickler for rules. So, as much as she hated my guts, she still tossed the orphanage records at me.

I lunged for it, my knees hitting the ground. I stayed like that and flipped through the pages until I found Mabel's name. The information on the page spelled out the answer to my question in clear, unambiguous letters: "Only child. No siblings."

After leaving the orphanage, Agatha told someone to throw out the gift that I'd brought for her.

"Monsters like you will get your comeuppance sooner or later."

I couldn't be bothered to explain anything to her anymore and just called Tony again, arranging to meet up with him instead.

…

Tony finished his mug of beer and touched a hand to his chin. "That ghost looked exactly like your wife. It's so cursed to think that she wouldn't have a sister."

I smiled bitterly and downed my alcohol as well.

"Caden, why don't you go back for the night tonight?" he suddenly said, explaining that he'd installed a surveillance camera in the room.

"I'll record everything that happens. It's just that the surveillance will be connected to my phone instead of yours. You don't mind, right?"

I shook my head. Tony then tossed me an amulet that was covered in scribbles that I couldn't make heads or tails of. It also smelled rather nice.

He told me that this was an amulet that he'd gotten from a holy shrine in Tessiden, which was famous for these. The amulet was supposed to ward ghosts and spirits away, so I didn't have to be afraid of them anymore as long as I kept the amulet on me at all times.

We continued drinking until late at night. After seeing Tony off, I began walking home timidly.

I kept muttering prayers under my breath as I pushed the door open.

"You're back, honey."

I still saw the same familiar face as I did the day before after opening the door. The lights weren't on either, but this time, I took a good look at her face.

It was probably due to the alcohol, but I realized that I wasn't as afraid as I was the last time I saw her. I could even muster enough courage to look her in the eyes.

"Mabel" was still wearing no makeup like before, but I could see an unnatural blush on her cheeks. It was eerie and looked like the type of makeup that morticians would usually apply to corpses to make them more presentable, even in death.

"What are you looking at, Caden?" she asked, cocking her head to the side until her head nearly touched her shoulder.

I stared at her weird, unnatural pose and gulped. "Nothing. Why didn't you turn on the lights again today?"

"The electricity still isn't working, honey," she said, slowly making her way toward the candles. Her joints would creak loudly with every step she took and every move she made.

I felt my heart leap into my throat. I just kept patting the amulet I wore around my neck to comfort myself.

"T-There's no need for that," I said, stopping her. "This is fine."

"Is it?" she asked, stopping her tracks and turning around to look at me without moving her body. "Is it really fine like this, honey? Can you see me well?"

She kept repeating her question to me, her voice getting louder and louder as bloody tears fell from her eyes.

"Honey, it hurts… It hurts so much… It really, really hurts…"

She suddenly turned around, trying to walk toward me. The closer she got, the louder the creaks in her joints sounded. She then began showing me all the bruises on her arms and legs.

"It hurts, honey! It hurts so much!" she screamed, louder and louder each time. "Ahh!"

I couldn't take it anymore and blacked out, collapsing onto the floor.

A long time later, my consciousness finally returned to me in a blur. Someone was lightly slapping me on the cheeks. I narrowed my eyes and squinted at the person, realizing that it was Tony. He was standing next to me, trying to wake me up.

I sat up with a jolt. It was already the middle of the afternoon the next day. I had ended up sleeping on the floor in that position last night.

I didn't even bother saying anything else. I grabbed Tony fearfully and exclaimed, "She came back! She came back last night!"

Tony patted my hand and told me to calm down. When he saw that I'd calmed down a little, he said slowly, "I believe you, Caden," he said rather hesitantly. "Take a look at this."

He then showed me the surveillance footage from last night.

I was alone. There was nobody else in the video except for me.