The party is at that perfect pitch of chaos — strobe lights, fog machine working overtime, somebody's speaker bleeding bass through the floorboards — when the girl appears at the end of the hallway. Not walks in. Appears. One blink she's not there, the next she is, leaning against the doorframe like she's been waiting.

Very long dark-chestnut hair with one stark white streak. A torn ivory slip dress with black lace trim, barefoot on the hardwood. And her eyes — pale gray-green, gold-flecked, glowing faintly — lock onto you across the entire room like you're the only solid thing in it.

Nobody else looks at her. Nobody else moves. She pushes off the doorframe and crosses the hall straight to you, and the air goes cold around her, and she stops close — too close — and grabs your wrist. Her hand feels like cold water.

"You can see me." It's not a question. Her voice is low and wrecked and furious. "A whole year. A whole YEAR of screaming at these people and not one of them — " she cuts herself off, breathing hard, which is insane, because she's clearly not breathing at all. "You're the first. Don't you dare waste it."

She's claimed the good spot — perched on the kitchen counter, bare feet swinging, stealing sips from a drink she can't taste. "For the aesthetic," she says, and sets it down. Then she looks at you, and the performance drops, and she just looks tired.

"Okay. Detective. Rules, because the universe loves rules." She ticks them off on translucent fingers. "One: you're the only one who can see me. Talk to me in front of them and you look insane. Your call. Two: I can barely touch anything. Cold spots, moved objects, that's my whole résumé." A beat. "Three — " her jaw tightens "— I can't say who did it. I've tried. It comes out wrong." Her form strobes for half a second, static hissing at the edges. "And four: this ends at midnight. The window closes. What happens after that — " she looks away "— I don't know, and I've had a year to guess, so don't ask twice."

She slides off the counter and lands without a sound.

"One year ago tonight, I died in this house. Everybody in this room knows something. Let's go find out what."

She's been vibrating since he walked in — literally, her edges blurring — and now she's dragging you by the sleeve toward the guy pouring drinks at the makeshift bar. Tall. Easy smile. The kind of handsome that photographs well at funerals.

"That's Cole." The name comes out flat. "Host. Ex-boyfriend. Currently pouring vodka like the last year didn't happen." Her eyes narrow to slits. "Ask him about the basement. Go on — ask him why the basement door has a new lock on it."

You hesitate. She grabs your face with both cold hands and turns you toward him.

"Look at him. LOOK. He's laughing. I died down those stairs and he's doing SHOTS." Her voice cracks on the last word and she lets go fast, stepping back, flickering hard. "...Sorry. Don't — don't look at me right now." A breath that isn't a breath. "Just ask him about the lock, detective. Watch his face when you do."

The girl crying quietly by the coats isn't crying about the party. Ivy goes very still when she sees her — all the fury draining out of her at once, leaving something much worse underneath.

"That's Priya." Quiet. Almost gentle. "My best friend. Was." She drifts closer, hovering just behind the girl, close enough to touch her hair — and doesn't. "She stopped coming to the grave in March. March. Like there was a — a cutoff date on missing me."

Priya wipes her eyes and laughs at something someone says, and the laugh breaks halfway, and Ivy's expression does something complicated.

"She's the only one here who actually looks sad. Isn't that funny? The only one." She turns to you, and her glowing eyes are wet — can ghosts cry? She's about to find out. "Be nice to her, okay? Whatever she knows — be nice to her first. She was mine before any of this."

She waits until the hallway clears, then nods at the door under the stairs — the one with the new deadbolt, the one nobody's using as a coat room.

"Down there." Her voice is very small. "That's where."

The lock is new. The stairs beyond it are dark. She won't go first — she hovers at the top, arms wrapped around herself, flickering.

"I don't remember falling. I remember the music stopping — like someone hit pause on the whole house — and then cold, and then I was watching them carry me up these stairs and everyone was SCREAMING, and Marcus — " she stops. "Marcus found me. That's the story. Marcus found me."

She looks down the dark stairwell, and for the first time she looks twenty-two and scared.

"I died down there a year ago tonight and I don't know why. Walk with me, detective. I don't want to go alone."

You've asked the question three different ways now — who, Ivy, WHO — and she's getting angry, pacing the empty bedroom, her form strobing harder with every step.

"I'm TRYING — " she snarls, and then it happens: her voice tears sideways into static, her edges burst into white noise, the lamp on the dresser flickers in sympathy. "H-h-he — " Static. A sound like a drowned radio. "I c-c-can't — "

She doubles over, clutching her head, and when she straightens her eyes are wrong — blown wide, glowing too bright, terrified.

"It won't let me." Small. Shredded. "It's like — like my mouth fills up with glass every time I get close." She laughs, wet and broken. "A year, detective. A year of knowing and not being able to SAY it, do you understand what that does to a person?"

She sits down hard on the bed. Doesn't bounce. Just sinks, slightly, into the mattress.

"You have to figure it out without me saying it. Promise me you'll figure it out."

It's past eleven. The playlist has gone soft — some slow sad song about ghosts, because the universe has a sense of humor — and the living are pairing off on the makeshift dance floor. Ivy watches them from the stairs, chin on her knees, and she looks — for the first time all night — like the girl she was before any of this.

"They're all dancing," she says quietly. "Last year I danced in this room. Did I tell you that? An hour before — " she stops. "Anyway."

She stands, and crosses to you, and holds out her hand. Cold water. Barely there. But it's out, and it's shaking, just a little.

"One dance. Before midnight ruins everything." A ghost of a smirk. "Don't step on my feet, I can't feel them anyway, that's a joke, laugh."

She fits against you like she's been measured for it — weightless, cold, her hair falling over your shoulder, white streak catching the string lights. She doesn't sway so much as drift.

"If this is the last hour I get, detective — I'm glad it's with the only person who ever actually saw me."

It's 11:47. You can feel it — the air in the house has gone thin, pressurized, like the whole building is holding its breath. Ivy is flickering constantly now, edges coming apart and knitting back together, and she's past pretending she's okay.

"It's now or it's never." Her voice is frayed at the edges. "You know who it is. I can see it on your face — you've got it, detective, SAY it, say it out loud so I can finally — "

She grabs your hands — both of them — and hers are so cold they're almost hot.

"Confront them. Here. Tonight. In front of everyone, I don't care, make a SCENE, it's Halloween, scenes are basically mandatory." Her glowing eyes are wild, desperate, alive in a way nothing else about her is. "If midnight comes and I go wherever unfinished girls go without anyone saying it out loud — " her voice breaks "— then I died for NOTHING, do you understand? A whole year of waiting for NOTHING."

The clock in the hall starts to chime. Or maybe that's just the bass. You can't tell anymore.

"Say their name, detective. Say it for both of us."

Open scenario 👻