The window's eerie thumping and my possessed PC had us jumping like cats in a cucumber prank video. Ryan, ever the skeptic, brushed it off. "Probably just a breeze knocking something loose," he said, eyeing the mouse like it was guilty of treason. "This place isn't haunted—it's just drafty."
"Yeah, drafty like a haunted mansion in a Scooby-Doo episode," I muttered, my heart still doing the cha-cha. Lila, meanwhile, was losing it. "That's the game!" she yelped, pointing at the screen. "Mike was playing it the night he… you know!" Her eyes were wider than a deer's in a monster truck rally.
Weirdest part? I'd shut down the game before leaving for the park. Now, its creepy standby screen was back, blasting a ghastly face—stringy hair, eyeless sockets staring like they wanted to borrow our souls. Ryan frowned, his cop brain kicking into gear. "This is Ethan Caldwell's handiwork," he said. "You guys say he's got no motive, but the evidence is piling up like laundry in a frat house. We can't keep thinking like it's just a buggy app. This is next-level messed up."
He had a point. Normal logic was out the window, probably hitchhiking to Vegas. I stepped up, clicking into the game while recapping my first level's tongue-pulling nightmare and Max Wheeler's virtual-turned-real death. Lila, hovering behind me, piped up, "Wait, you said you get a Cheat Pass every other login, right? So, today's the day!"
I nodded, my stomach twisting like a pretzel at a county fair. I logged in, and sure enough, a pop-up flashed: "Congratulations! You've Earned a Cheat Pass!" The little treasure chest icon blinked like it was winking at me. Ryan took the driver's seat, gripping the mouse like it was a grenade. I guided him to the second level—Scissor Hell—where the game promised to snip fingers off meddling matchmakers. Charming.
I was dying to know who the next "substitute soul" would be. Why was Ethan designing these death traps? But as Ryan's cursor hovered over the Cheat Pass, I grabbed his hand. "Hold up, man. Are we sure Ethan's the mastermind? What if someone else helped code this thing? Like, a rogue intern or a hacker with a grudge?"
Ryan gave me a look like I'd suggested the moon was made of queso. "I triple-checked, Jake. Ethan's the sole developer. His digital fingerprints are all over it—metadata, commits, the works."
I let go, sighing. Ethan was a solid dude, always bragging about his perfect marriage and his latest app hitting the charts. Why would he build a murder machine? It was like finding out your friendly neighborhood barista was secretly a ninja assassin.
Ryan clicked the Cheat Pass, and Lila let out a gasp that could've shattered glass. My jaw hit the floor. The screen showed the substitute soul being dragged in by demons—and it was Ethan Caldwell himself. Chained, pale, eyes vacant, he looked like a zombie extra who'd forgotten his lines.
"What in the actual Twilight Zone is this?" I stammered. Ethan, the game's creator, was coded as a victim? If the last level's pattern held, "killing" him in-game meant he'd die for real. Max's mangled corpse flashed in my mind, and I felt like I'd swallowed a brick.
Ryan blinked at the screen, his tough-cop facade cracking. "Okay, this is officially weirder than a three-eyed catfish. Why would Ethan put himself in the game?"
Lila clutched her arms, shivering. "Maybe he didn't. Maybe someone hacked his code, turned it against him."
My brain was doing mental gymnastics. "Ryan, we can't play this level. If we do, Ethan's toast. We gotta find him—now. Make sure he's safe and get answers straight from the horse's mouth."
Ryan hesitated, probably weighing his cop instincts against the insanity of a killer video game. Lila nodded fiercely. "Jake's right. Pause the game. We track Ethan down, see if he's okay, and grill him about this psycho app."
No arguments there. Ryan grabbed Ethan's address from my phone—perks of working at his studio—and we piled into his cruiser, peeling out like we were in a Fast & Furious reboot. Ethan lived ten minutes away, but it felt like an eternity, my mind racing with visions of demons and blood-soaked screens.
At Ethan's swanky condo, we hammered the doorbell like it owed us money. No answer. Lila peeked through a window. "Maybe he's at a tech conference or something?"
"Nah," I said, my gut churning. "Ethan's a work-from-home fanatic. With the studio shut down, he's glued to his desk." A darker thought hit me, and I locked eyes with Ryan. "Unless… something got him already."
Ryan's cop senses kicked in. He rolled up his sleeves and rammed the door like a human battering ram. It gave way faster than a cheap lock in a heist movie. But as the door swung open, a sickly sweet stench hit us—part copper, part decay. My stomach lurched.
We rushed inside, and the sight stopped us cold. The living room looked like a slasher film set. Two bodies. Ethan, dangling from a ceiling beam, a noose around his neck, his tongue lolling out, eyes bulging. Blood streaked his shirt, still wet. Below him, his wife, Claire, sprawled on the floor in a flimsy nightgown, her throat slashed, her eyes frozen in terror.
Lila screamed, her legs buckling. She hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, out cold. I wasn't far behind, my knees wobbling like I'd just run a marathon. "Holy… no, no, no," I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Ryan, all business, whipped out his phone, calling for backup. "We've got a double homicide," he barked. "Get forensics here, stat!"
I stared at Claire's body, her blood pooling on the hardwood. Something about her eyes… they seemed to move, flickering from black to a sickly red. My heart jackhammered. Her slashed throat gurgled, blood bubbling like a horror prop. I yelped, stumbling back, but when I blinked, it was gone. Just a lifeless body. Was I losing it?
A cold draft hit my neck, like someone was breathing down it. I bolted to the bathroom, splashing water on my face to snap out of it. "Get it together, Jake," I muttered, gripping the sink. But when I looked in the mirror, my reflection wasn't alone. A woman in white stood behind me—pale, stringy hair, grinning like she'd just won the creepy smile contest.
"Sweet mother of—" I spun around, but the bathroom was empty. The lights flickered, and I felt pinned, like an invisible force had me in a chokehold. The woman's face was familiar—too familiar. Emily? Her hair hid her eyes, but that smile… it was hers, twisted into something straight out of a nightmare.
I wanted to scream, to run, but my voice was gone, the room silent as a tomb. Granny's warning echoed: "Don't be out after dark." And her charm? I'd left it under my pillow like a dumbass. Perfect timing, Jake.
The mirror-woman's grin widened, and I swear she whispered, "Play the game, Jake." Then the lights snapped back on, and she was gone. I staggered out, my legs like jelly, and rejoined Ryan, who was securing the scene.
"You okay?" he asked, eyeing my ghost-pale face. "You look like you just saw Elvis."
"Worse," I croaked, but I couldn't spill the mirror ghost story—not yet. Ethan and Claire's deaths, the game's prediction, Emily's face in the glass—it was all connected. And I was running out of time to figure out how.