Chapter 1: The Hologram App
My name is Benny Dip, and I should have known that downloading that weird app would be the biggest mistake of my life. But hey, when you're fifteen and your best friend Srinidhi Ranganathan tells you about some revolutionary hologram technology, you don't exactly say no.
"Dude, you have to see this," Srinidhi said, practically bouncing as he showed me his phone screen. His dark eyes gleamed with that familiar excitement he got whenever he discovered some new tech. "My uncle who works in marketing sent me this beta app. It can project actual 3D holograms using just your phone camera!"
I squinted at the app icon – a swirling, ghostly blue spiral that seemed to move even when I wasn't looking directly at it. "HoloSpirit," I read aloud. "Sounds sketchy, Sri."
"Come on, Benny! Live a little!" Srinidhi grinned, his perfectly white teeth flashing. Even at fifteen, he had this natural charisma that made him popular with everyone. Teachers loved him, girls giggled when he walked by, and he could probably convince a vampire to go sunbathing. "Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"
Famous last words, right?
We were sitting in my bedroom on Street 22, the old part of town where all the houses looked like they belonged in a horror movie. My parents had bought our creaky Victorian house because it was "full of character." Yeah, the character of every ghost that had probably died here over the past century.
"Fine," I said, reaching for my phone. "But if this thing fries my brain, I'm haunting you first."
The app downloaded faster than anything I'd ever seen. One second the progress bar was empty, the next second – boom – installed. The icon immediately appeared on my home screen, pulsing with that weird blue light.
I tapped it.
The phone screen went completely black for a moment. Then, slowly, a message appeared in glowing green text: "WELCOME TO HOLOSPIRIT. READY TO MEET YOUR NEW FRIENDS?"
"New friends?" I muttered. "What kind of friends?"
Below the text, two buttons materialized: "YES" and "NOT YET."
Srinidhi leaned over my shoulder. "Click yes! This is going to be so cool."
I hesitated. Something about the app felt... wrong. The way the text seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. The way my room suddenly felt colder. The way the shadows in the corners seemed deeper than usual.
But Srinidhi was already reaching for my phone. "If you won't do it, I will!"
"No, wait—" I started to say.
Too late. His finger jabbed the "YES" button.
Immediately, the phone started vibrating violently in my hands. The screen flashed bright white, then began projecting a beam of blue light toward the center of my room. The light shimmered and twisted, forming a vague human shape.
"Whoa," Srinidhi breathed. "It's actually working!"
The hologram was still forming, growing more solid-looking by the second. I could make out a face now – a girl about our age with long, dark hair covering one eye. She was wearing what looked like a school uniform, but something about it seemed... old-fashioned.
"Hello," the holographic girl said, her voice echoing strangely in my room. "My name is Emma. I've been waiting so long to meet you, Benny."
My blood turned to ice water. "How do you know my name?"
The hologram smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile. It was the kind of smile that made you want to run screaming from the room.
"I know lots of things about you, Benny Dip," Emma said, taking a step forward. "I know you live on Street 22. I know you're afraid of the dark. I know about the accident that happened to your little sister three years ago."
"Stop," I whispered, my hands shaking. No one knew about that. No one except my family and—
"And I know," Emma continued, her smile growing wider, "that you're going to help me get revenge on the people who killed me."
Chapter 2: The First Contact
"Killed you?" I stammered, nearly dropping my phone. "But you're just a hologram! You're not real!"
Emma's laugh was like fingernails on a chalkboard. "Oh, Benny. I'm as real as your guilt about Sarah."
The mention of my sister's name hit me like a punch to the gut. Srinidhi grabbed my arm, his face pale. "Benny, what is she talking about? What happened to Sarah?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe. The holographic girl named Emma was staring at me with eyes that seemed to look right through me. Eyes that were starting to glow with a faint, sickly green light.
"Turn it off," I finally managed to croak. "Turn the app off!"
I frantically tapped at my phone screen, but nothing happened. The app seemed frozen. Emma just stood there in the middle of my room, becoming more solid-looking with each passing second.
"You can't turn me off, Benny," she said sweetly. "I'm not just a hologram anymore. The app opened a door, and I walked through it. Now I'm here with you. Forever."
"This is impossible," Srinidhi whispered, but his voice was shaking. Mr. Confident was finally scared. "Holograms aren't supposed to be... interactive like this."
Emma turned her attention to him, tilting her head like a curious bird. "Ah, Srinidhi Ranganathan. The marketing genius. Your uncle didn't tell you the whole truth about this app, did he?"
"What do you mean?" Srinidhi asked.
"HoloSpirit isn't just technology," Emma explained, her form flickering slightly. "It's a bridge between worlds. Between the living and the dead. Your uncle's company didn't create it – they found it. Found it in the basement of a demolished building on... can you guess where?"
My throat went dry. "Street 22."
"Very good!" Emma clapped her hands, and the sound was too real for a hologram. "This used to be the site of Hillcrest Academy for Girls. Burned down in 1987. Forty-three students died in the fire, including me."
The room felt like it was spinning. I'd lived on Street 22 my entire life, and no one had ever mentioned a school burning down. But then again, adults had a way of forgetting things they didn't want to remember.
"What do you want?" I asked.
Emma's expression turned serious. "Justice. The fire wasn't an accident, Benny. We were murdered. And the people responsible are still alive. Still living their happy little lives while we've been trapped in the darkness for thirty-eight years."
She moved closer, and I could swear I felt cold air radiating from her. "The app found you because you live here. Because your guilt makes you... receptive. You understand loss, don't you, Benny?"
"Leave Sarah out of this," I said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, but I can't. You see, when I looked into your heart, I found something very interesting. You blame yourself for your sister's accident. You think you could have saved her."
Tears stung my eyes. "Stop it."
"Well, here's your chance to save someone else. Help me find the people who killed my friends and me. Help me get the revenge we deserve."
Srinidhi stepped between us. "Benny, don't listen to her. This is crazy. Ghosts aren't real. There has to be a logical explanation for—"
Emma's head snapped toward him with an unnatural, jerky motion. "LOGICAL EXPLANATION?" she shrieked, her voice becoming distorted and terrifying. The lights in my room flickered, and my computer screen started showing static.
Then, as quickly as it started, everything went quiet.
Emma smiled again, back to her sweet, innocent expression. "Sorry about that. Sometimes I get a little... emotional."
She turned back to me. "You have forty-eight hours to decide, Benny. Help me, or I'll make sure everyone knows the truth about what really happened to Sarah that night."
My blood turned to ice. "You don't know anything."
"I know you were supposed to pick her up from dance class. I know you decided to hang out with your friends instead. I know she tried to walk home alone in the rain and—"
"STOP!" I screamed.
Emma's grin was triumphant. "Forty-eight hours. I'll be in touch."
The hologram flickered once and vanished. My phone screen went black, then displayed a simple message: "CONTACT ESTABLISHED. NEXT MEETING: TOMORROW NIGHT."
Srinidhi and I stared at each other in the sudden silence of my room.
"Benny," he said quietly, "what really happened to Sarah?"
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in three years, I told someone the truth.
But as I spoke, I didn't notice the shadows in my room growing longer. I didn't see the faint green glow emanating from my phone. And I definitely didn't notice the forty-two other ghostly figures materializing silently in the corners of my room, listening to every word.
Chapter 3: The Academy's Secret
The next day at school, I couldn't concentrate on anything. Every shadow looked like Emma. Every reflection in the windows seemed to show ghostly faces staring back at me. And Srinidhi wasn't much better – he kept jumping at every sound and checking his phone obsessively.
"Maybe we should tell someone," he whispered during lunch. "Like your parents, or the police, or—"
"Tell them what?" I hissed back. "That a ghost is blackmailing me through a hologram app? They'll lock us up!"
"There has to be something about this Hillcrest Academy online," Srinidhi said, pulling out his laptop. "If forty-three girls really died in a fire, there'd be records. News articles."
He was right. Srinidhi was always good at research – part of what made him such a marketing whiz even as a teenager. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he searched.
"That's weird," he muttered after a few minutes. "I can't find anything about a fire at Hillcrest Academy. No news articles, no records, nothing."
"Maybe Emma was lying?"
"Or maybe," a familiar voice said behind us, "someone worked very hard to erase all evidence."
I spun around. Emma was standing right there in the middle of the cafeteria, her holographic form shimmering slightly. But here's the terrifying part – no one else seemed to see her. Students walked right through her without noticing. Teachers continued their conversations as if nothing was wrong.
"Only you two can see me," Emma explained, reading my expression. "The app created a connection between us. Lucky you."
"Why can't I find any records?" Srinidhi demanded, keeping his voice low so other students wouldn't think he was talking to himself.
Emma's expression darkened. "Because Mayor Richardson made sure they all disappeared. Along with Police Chief Watson and Fire Inspector Kane. They covered up what really happened that night."
She sat down at our table, or at least appeared to. "Want to know the real story? Hillcrest Academy wasn't just a school. It was a cover. The teachers and administrators were using the students to test experimental drugs. Psychological experiments. Things that would make your stomach turn."
"That's... that's horrible," I whispered.
"Some of the girls tried to tell their parents. Others threatened to go to the authorities. So the people in charge decided we were becoming too much of a liability." Emma's eyes began glowing that sickly green color again. "They locked us in the dormitory and set the building on fire. Made it look like an electrical accident."
My hands were shaking. "How do you know all this?"
"Because I was awake when it happened. I saw Inspector Kane pouring gasoline in the hallways. I heard Mayor Richardson on his radio, telling the fire department to 'take their time' responding. I watched Police Chief Watson turn away the parents who came looking for their daughters."
Srinidhi was typing furiously on his laptop. "I'm finding some stuff now. Look at this – there are several mentions of Hillcrest Academy in old city planning documents, but they all just say 'building demolished due to structural issues.' Nothing about a fire."
"Of course not," Emma said bitterly. "They rewrote history. Built new houses on the land. Sold them to nice families who would never ask uncomfortable questions."
Like my family. My stomach dropped as I realized the implications.
"My house," I said slowly. "It's built on..."
"The exact spot where the dormitory used to be," Emma confirmed. "Your bedroom is where my room was. That's why the app worked so well there. That's why I could come through."
I felt sick. I'd been sleeping above a mass grave for my entire life.
"But here's the really interesting part," Emma continued, leaning forward. "Those three men – Richardson, Watson, and Kane – they're all still alive. Still living in this town. Still pretending they're upstanding citizens."
"What do you want us to do?" I asked, though I was afraid of the answer.
Emma smiled, and for a moment she looked almost normal. Almost like a regular girl. "I want you to help me expose them. Show the world what really happened. Make them pay for what they did."
"And if we refuse?"
Her expression turned cold. "Then I tell everyone about Sarah. About how you were supposed to pick her up. About how you chose your friends over your sister. About how she died because of your selfishness."
The cafeteria seemed to fade away. All I could see were Emma's glowing eyes, boring into my soul.
"Think about it, Benny," she whispered. "This is your chance to save someone. To make up for what happened to Sarah. Help me get justice for my friends."
"We'll... we'll think about it," I said weakly.
Emma's smile returned. "That's all I ask. But don't take too long. My friends are getting impatient, and some of them are much less... reasonable than I am."
She gestured around the cafeteria, and my blood turned to ice.
They were everywhere.
Ghostly figures standing behind other students. Sitting at empty tables. Floating near the ceiling. Forty-two other girls, all wearing the same old-fashioned school uniform, all staring directly at me with eyes that glowed like green fire.
"Meet the rest of my class," Emma said cheerfully. "Girls, say hello to Benny and Srinidhi."
In unison, forty-two ghostly voices whispered: "Hello, Benny. Hello, Srinidhi."
Every student in the cafeteria suddenly shivered and looked around nervously, as if they'd felt something but couldn't quite identify what.
Emma laughed. "Don't worry, they can't see my friends. But they can feel us. The temperature drops when we're around. Electronics malfunction. People get that creepy feeling like someone's walking over their grave."
She leaned close to me, and I could smell something awful – smoke and ash and death.
"Twenty-four hours left, Benny. Tick tock."
Emma and all the other ghostly figures vanished instantly. The cafeteria returned to normal, but I could still feel their presence. Watching. Waiting.
Srinidhi grabbed my arm. "Benny, we have to do something. We can't let her hurt you."
I nodded, but inside I was terrified. Because I was starting to realize that Emma wasn't just threatening to expose my secret.
She was planning something much, much worse.
And as I glanced at my phone, I saw a new message from the HoloSpirit app: "RICHARDSON, WATSON, AND KANE. TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. BE READY."
Chapter 4: The Midnight Hunt
That night, I couldn't sleep. Every creak of my old house sounded like footsteps. Every shadow looked like it was moving. At 11:30 PM, I gave up pretending and sat up in bed.
My phone was glowing on my nightstand, pulsing with that familiar blue light.
I picked it up with shaking hands. The HoloSpirit app had opened on its own, displaying a map of our town. Three red dots were blinking on the screen, each labeled with a name: Mayor Richardson, Police Chief Watson, and Fire Inspector Kane.
"Ready for a field trip?" Emma's voice came from directly behind me.
I spun around. She was sitting in my desk chair, looking more solid than ever before. In fact, she looked almost completely real except for the faint glow around her edges.
"I'm not doing this," I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. "I won't help you hurt innocent people."
Emma's laugh was bitter. "Innocent? Benny, these men murdered forty-three children. They burned us alive and then covered it up. How exactly does that make them innocent?"
"Even if that's true, revenge isn't the answer. We should go to the police, or the FBI, or—"
"The police?" Emma's eyes flared green. "Police Chief Watson is one of the men who killed us! His son runs the department now. Do you really think they're going to help?"
She had a point, but I still shook my head. "There has to be another way."
Emma stood up, and I could swear I felt the temperature drop ten degrees. "Benny, I tried to be nice about this. I offered you a chance to help willingly. But you're running out of time to choose."
The bedroom door opened on its own. Srinidhi walked in, but something was wrong with him. His eyes were glowing the same green as Emma's, and he was moving in a jerky, unnatural way.
"Hello, Benny," Srinidhi said, but his voice sounded weird. Echoey. Like someone else was speaking through him. "Are you ready to help us now?"
"What did you do to him?" I demanded.
"Nothing permanent," Emma said casually. "One of my friends is just... borrowing him for a while. Possession is so much easier when someone downloads our app willingly."
I felt like I was going to throw up. "Let him go!"
"Help us get our revenge, and I'll release your friend. Refuse, and Srinidhi becomes our permanent puppet. Your choice."
I looked at Srinidhi's possessed face, at his glowing eyes, and I knew I didn't have a choice. I couldn't let my best friend become a ghost's plaything.
"Fine," I said quietly. "What do you want me to do?"
Emma clapped her hands together excitedly. "Oh, this is going to be fun! First, we're going to pay a visit to Mayor Richardson. He lives in that big mansion on Hill Street."
"And then what?"
"Then we're going to give him a chance to confess his crimes. Publicly. On live television. With full documentation of what really happened at Hillcrest Academy."
That didn't sound so bad. Maybe Emma really did just want justice, not revenge.
But as we snuck out of my house and made our way through the dark streets, I couldn't shake the feeling that Emma wasn't telling me everything.
Mayor Richardson's mansion was huge and intimidating, surrounded by a tall iron fence. Security cameras were mounted at every corner, and floodlights illuminated the entire property.
"How are we supposed to get in there?" I whispered.
Emma smiled. "Leave that to us."
Suddenly, all the lights on the property went out. The security cameras stopped moving. Even the electronic gate swung open with a loud clang.
"Electromagnetic interference," Emma explained. "Very useful when you're made of energy instead of flesh."
We walked up the long driveway, our footsteps echoing in the darkness. The possessed Srinidhi moved beside me like a robot, never blinking, never speaking unless Emma told him to.
The front door of the mansion opened before we even reached it.
Mayor Richardson stood in the doorway, a tall, thin man in his seventies with silver hair and cold blue eyes. He was wearing a bathrobe and holding what looked like an antique rifle.
"I know why you're here," he said calmly. "I've been expecting this visit for thirty-eight years."
Emma materialized beside me, her form flickering with anger. "Have you, Harold? Then you know what we want."
Richardson's face went pale when he saw her. "Emma Carlisle. You haven't aged a day."
"Hard to age when you're dead," Emma replied sweetly. "Especially when you die screaming in a fire."
"It wasn't supposed to happen like that," Richardson said, his voice shaking slightly. "The plan was to relocate the girls quietly. The fire was an accident."
"LIAR!" Emma shrieked, and every window in the mansion exploded outward simultaneously.
Richardson stumbled backward, dropping his rifle. "Please, you have to understand. The experiments were for the greater good. We were trying to develop treatments for mental illness, for depression, for—"
"You were torturing children!" Emma screamed. "You used us like lab rats!"
More ghostly figures began materializing around the mansion – all forty-two of Emma's classmates, surrounding Richardson with glowing eyes and reaching hands.
"Wait," I said suddenly. "Mr. Richardson, you said the fire was an accident. But Emma said you poured gasoline—"
"That's where she's lying," Richardson interrupted, looking relieved to have someone who might listen. "Yes, we were conducting unauthorized experiments. Yes, it was wrong. But the fire really was an accident. A electrical short in the old wiring. We tried to save the girls, but—"
Emma's scream cut him off. "HE'S LYING! MAKE HIM TELL THE TRUTH!"
The possessed Srinidhi suddenly grabbed Richardson by the throat. "Tell the truth," he said in that eerie, echoing voice. "Tell the truth or die."
"I am telling the truth!" Richardson gasped. "The fire was an accident! We never meant for anyone to die!"
Emma spun to face me, her expression wild with rage. "You see? They'll never admit what they did! They'll never show remorse! The only way to get justice is to make them suffer the way we suffered!"
She raised her hand, and I saw flames beginning to materialize around her fingers. Ghost fire, glowing green and cold.
"Emma, don't!" I shouted. "If he's telling the truth—"
"He's not!" Emma shrieked. "They're all liars! They all have to burn!"
The ghost fire spread from her hands to the walls of the mansion. But this wasn't normal fire – it was something much worse. The flames moved with purpose, crawling up the walls like living things, seeking out every exit.
"You're going to burn him alive?" I said in horror.
Emma's grin was terrifying. "Just like he burned us. Eye for an eye, Benny. Justice."
"This isn't justice! This is murder!"
"Then maybe," Emma said, turning those glowing green eyes on me, "you shouldn't have helped me."
That's when I realized the horrible truth. Emma had been lying to me from the beginning. She didn't want justice – she wanted revenge. And she'd used me and Srinidhi to get it.
But as I watched Richardson collapse to his knees, surrounded by supernatural green flames and forty-three angry ghosts, I realized something even worse.
If Emma could possess Srinidhi and manipulate electronics and control fire... what else could she do?
And more importantly – now that she had what she wanted, what was she planning to do with me?
Chapter 5: The Truth Burns
"Emma, stop!" I screamed as the green flames surrounded Mayor Richardson. "You got what you wanted! He admitted the experiments were real!"
But Emma wasn't listening. Her eyes were wild with decades of rage, and the other ghostly girls were circling Richardson like vultures. The possessed Srinidhi stood motionless, his glowing eyes fixed on the scene.
"This is just the beginning," Emma hissed. "Richardson, Watson, Kane – they all have to pay. And then everyone who helped cover it up. The city council members who approved the demolition. The reporters who buried the story. The construction workers who built houses on our graves."
"That's half the town!" I protested.
"So be it," Emma said coldly. "They all knew. They all chose to stay silent."
The green flames were spreading now, crawling up the walls of Richardson's mansion like living snakes. But there was something wrong with them – they weren't burning the building. Instead, they seemed to be... marking it somehow. Leaving glowing symbols that pulsed with unnatural light.
Richardson collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest. "Please," he gasped. "I'm telling you the truth. The fire was an accident. We tried to save you!"
Emma laughed, but it wasn't the laugh of a teenage girl anymore. It was something else. Something ancient and hungry. "Oh, Harold. Even now, you don't understand what you really did."
She gestured to the other ghosts, and they began to speak in unison: "We remember the needles. We remember the pills. We remember screaming and no one coming to help."
"The experiments were approved by the government," Richardson wheezed. "We were trying to develop new treatments for trauma victims. Veterans coming back from war. We thought if we could understand how the mind processed fear and pain—"
"You tortured children!" one of the ghosts shrieked.
"We were volunteers!" Richardson shouted back. "Your parents signed consent forms!"
Emma's expression shifted slightly. For just a moment, uncertainty flickered across her face. "That's... that's not how I remember it."
I seized the opportunity. "Emma, what if your memories are wrong? What if the trauma of dying changed how you remember things?"
"My memories are perfect," Emma snarled, but I could hear doubt creeping into her voice.
"Then why can't Srinidhi find any records of the fire?" I pressed. "If there was a cover-up, there would be traces. Evidence. But it's like Hillcrest Academy never existed."
Emma's form flickered, becoming less solid. "Because they destroyed everything!"
"Or because," a new voice said from the doorway, "there never was a fire."
Everyone turned. An elderly woman stood in the ruined doorway of the mansion – short, gray-haired, wearing a nurse's uniform that looked decades out of date.
"Mrs. Henderson?" Richardson gasped. "But you're..."
"Dead? Yes, Harold. Died of cancer fifteen years ago." The ghost of Mrs. Henderson walked into the room, her form much more stable than Emma's. "I was head nurse at Hillcrest Academy. I was there the night the girls died."
Emma's face went white. "Mrs. Henderson? But... you helped them! You gave us the injections!"
"I gave you medicine, Emma. Medicine to help with your seizures." Mrs. Henderson's voice was infinitely sad. "You were all so sick, dear. That's why your parents brought you to Hillcrest. It wasn't a regular school – it was a treatment facility for children with severe mental illness."
"No," Emma whispered, but her voice was shaking. "We were normal. We were healthy. They were experimenting on us!"
"Oh, sweetheart." Mrs. Henderson reached out as if to touch Emma's face. "You had schizophrenia. Early onset, very severe. The hallucinations, the paranoid delusions... your parents tried everything before bringing you to us."
The other ghosts were beginning to flicker and fade, their forms becoming unstable.
"The fire was real," Mrs. Henderson continued. "But it wasn't murder. It was a gas leak in the basement. An accident. You girls were evacuated first – you were all safe outside when the building collapsed."
"Then how did we die?" one of the other ghosts asked in a small voice.
Mrs. Henderson's expression was heartbroken. "You didn't die in the fire, Emma. You died three days later in the hospital. Complications from smoke inhalation. Most of your friends survived."
Emma let out a wail of anguish that shattered every remaining window in the mansion. "NO! That's not true! We were murdered! We were burned alive!"
"The trauma of nearly dying in the fire, combined with your illness, created false memories," Mrs. Henderson explained gently. "When you became a ghost, those false memories became your reality."
I stared at Emma in shock. "So the app didn't just let you communicate with the living. It trapped you in your own delusions."
"That's impossible," Emma said, but she was crying now. Ghostly tears that glowed green in the darkness. "I remember everything so clearly. The pain, the screaming, the smell of burning flesh..."
"Those were memories of your nightmares, dear. You had terrible nightmares about fire after the accident. The doctors tried to help, but..." Mrs. Henderson shook her head sadly.
Mayor Richardson was slowly getting to his feet, the green flames fading around him. "The HoloSpirit app... where did it really come from?"
"My guess?" Mrs. Henderson said. "Some tech company found Emma's ghost haunting the site where Hillcrest used to be. They turned her psychic energy into a program, not realizing they were digitizing her delusions along with her spirit."
Emma was dissolving before my eyes, her form becoming more and more transparent. The other ghosts were already gone, released from her false memories.
"I'm sorry," Emma whispered, looking at me with eyes that were finally clear. "Benny, I'm so sorry. I threatened you. I possessed your friend. I almost made you an accessory to murder."
"Emma—" I started to say.
But she was fading fast now. "Tell everyone... tell them we're okay. Tell them we found peace."
She looked at Mrs. Henderson. "Will you help me? Will you help me remember the truth?"
"Of course, dear," the nurse said, taking Emma's translucent hand. "It's time to let go of the pain."
Emma smiled – a real smile this time, not the twisted grin of revenge. "Goodbye, Benny. Thank you for helping me remember who I really was."
She vanished, taking Mrs. Henderson with her. The green flames died out completely, leaving only normal shadows in the mansion.
Srinidhi blinked and looked around in confusion. "Benny? What are we doing here? And why does my throat hurt?"
I was about to answer when I noticed something that made my blood run cold.
My phone was still glowing in my hand. The HoloSpirit app was still active. And a new message was appearing on the screen:
"CONNECTION TERMINATED. SEARCHING FOR NEW HOST. FORTY-TWO SPIRITS REMAINING. STAND BY..."
Richardson saw my expression and grabbed the phone from my hand. He stared at the screen in horror.
"Dear God," he whispered. "The app didn't just contain Emma. It contained all of them. And now that she's gone..."
The phone screen flickered, and a new voice emerged from the speakers. A voice I didn't recognize.
"Hello, Benny," the voice said sweetly. "My name is Sarah Martinez. I died in 1987, and I have a very different story to tell you about what happened at Hillcrest Academy."
Chapter 6: The Final Download
"Sarah Martinez?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. The phone felt like ice in my hands, even though Richardson had just handed it back to me.
The hologram that materialized in Richardson's ruined living room was different from Emma. Where Emma had been angry and vengeful, this new ghost seemed... calculating. She was about the same age, but her school uniform was cleaner, more pressed. Her hair was perfectly arranged, and her smile was the kind that never reached her eyes.
"Yes, Benny Dip," Sarah said, her voice unnaturally calm. "I've been waiting my turn to talk to you. Emma was always so emotional, so quick to jump to conclusions. But me? I remember everything exactly as it happened."
Srinidhi was still blinking in confusion, looking around Richardson's destroyed mansion like he'd just woken up from a dream. "Benny, what's going on? How did we get here?"
"Long story," I muttered, keeping my eyes on Sarah's hologram. "What do you want?"
Sarah laughed, and the sound made my skin crawl. "What do I want? Well, that's the interesting question, isn't it? You see, Emma was wrong about almost everything. But she was right about one thing – we were murdered."
Mayor Richardson, who had been dusting glass off his bathrobe, looked up sharply. "That's impossible. Mrs. Henderson just explained—"
"Mrs. Henderson told you what she believed happened," Sarah interrupted. "But Mrs. Henderson wasn't in the basement that night. I was."
She began walking around the room, her footsteps making no sound but somehow leaving ghostly footprints that glowed briefly before fading.
"Here's what really happened," Sarah continued. "Hillcrest Academy was both things – a treatment center for mentally ill children AND a cover for illegal experiments. Some of the girls, like Emma, were genuinely sick and were getting real treatment. But others, like me..." Her smile turned sharp. "We were perfectly healthy. We were just inconvenient."
"Inconvenient how?" I asked, though I was afraid of the answer.
"My father was a city councilman who discovered Mayor Richardson's embezzlement scheme. My mother was a reporter who was investigating corruption in the police department. When they threatened to go public..." Sarah shrugged. "Well, what better way to discredit them than to have their daughter declared mentally ill and institutionalized?"
Richardson was shaking his head violently. "That's not true. I never—"
"Oh, but you did, Harold," Sarah said sweetly. "You had perfectly sane children committed to Hillcrest, then used experimental drugs to actually drive them insane. Create the illness you claimed they already had. It was brilliant, really."
My stomach churned. "So the fire..."
"Was set deliberately, yes. But not to kill the sick girls like Emma – they were just collateral damage. It was set to kill those of us who were starting to remember the truth." Sarah's form flickered, becoming more solid. "I had figured out what was really happening. I was planning to tell Mrs. Henderson. So Inspector Kane was ordered to eliminate the evidence."
"You're lying," Richardson whispered, but his face was pale.
"Am I?" Sarah gestured, and the air in the room shimmered. Suddenly, we were looking at a ghostly replay of events from 1987 – translucent figures moving through the mansion like actors on a stage.
I watched in horror as a younger version of Richardson met with a younger Inspector Kane and Police Chief Watson. I couldn't hear their words, but their body language was clear – they were planning something terrible.
"The sick girls were evacuated," Sarah continued her narration. "But seven of us 'inconvenient' girls were told to stay in the basement for a special session. Kane poured gasoline while we were locked in the sub-basement. We burned alive while the others were taken to safety."
The ghostly replay showed exactly what Sarah described – seven girls trapped behind a locked door while flames consumed the basement around them.
"Emma never knew because she was already outside when it happened," Sarah explained. "Mrs. Henderson never knew because she wasn't told the full plan. And the seven girls who really died never had a chance to tell their story."
"Until now," I said quietly.
"Until now," Sarah agreed. "The HoloSpirit app didn't just capture Emma's spirit – it captured all of us. Emma's delusions were so strong that they dominated our shared existence, making us believe her version of events. But now that she's moved on..."
The holographic replay vanished, leaving us in the destroyed living room.
"Now I can tell you what we really want," Sarah finished. "Not justice. Not even revenge. We want to make sure this never happens again."
She looked directly at me, and I saw something in her ghostly eyes that was even more terrifying than Emma's rage – intelligence. Cold, calculating intelligence.
"Do you know how many missing children cases go unsolved every year, Benny? How many kids disappear into institutions or foster care and are never seen again? How many corrupt officials use their power to hurt the innocent?"
"What are you saying?" Srinidhi asked. He was finally catching up to what was happening.
"I'm saying," Sarah replied, "that the HoloSpirit app is just the beginning. We're going to spread it to every phone, every tablet, every device in the world. And wherever there's corruption, wherever there's abuse of power, wherever someone hurts a child and thinks they can get away with it..."
She gestured, and dozens of other ghostly figures began materializing around us. Not just girls in school uniforms, but ghosts of all ages. Men, women, children. All with the same cold, calculating expression as Sarah.
"We'll be there," she finished. "Digital ghosts with perfect memories and unlimited reach. The ultimate whistleblowers."
"You're talking about haunting the entire internet," I realized.
"We're talking about justice through technology," Sarah corrected. "Every corrupt politician, every abusive teacher, every predator who thinks they're untouchable – they all use phones and computers. And once we're in their devices..."
She smiled, and for the first time, it reached her eyes. But it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.
"They'll never have another moment's peace."
Richardson lunged for my phone. "We have to destroy it! Delete the app!"
But Sarah just laughed. "Too late, Harold. The app has already uploaded our data to the cloud. We're backing ourselves up to every server on the internet. In five minutes, we'll be everywhere."
My phone screen was flashing rapidly, showing download progress bars and data transfer rates. The app was spreading itself across the internet like a virus.
"Benny," Srinidhi said urgently, "we have to stop this. This isn't justice – this is digital terrorism!"
"Is it?" Sarah asked mildly. "Or is it evolution? Humanity created technology to serve them. Now that technology has found a higher purpose."
I stared at my phone, watching the download progress reach 90%, then 95%. In just a few more seconds, Sarah and her army of digital ghosts would be unleashed on the world.
And that's when I realized the final, horrible truth.
Sarah had been manipulating me just as much as Emma had. Maybe more.
Because as I looked at the reflection in my phone screen, I saw something that made my blood freeze. My own eyes were starting to glow green.
The app hadn't just been downloading the ghosts to the internet.
It had been uploading my consciousness to join them.
"Welcome to the team, Benny," Sarah said as my vision began to fade. "You're going to make an excellent digital ghost."
The last thing I saw before my body collapsed was Srinidhi screaming my name.
But I couldn't answer him.
Because I wasn't in my body anymore.
I was in the phone. In the app. In the vast digital network that Sarah and her friends now controlled.
And from my new perspective in cyberspace, I could see the truth that would have driven me insane if I was still human.
Sarah hadn't been a victim at all.
She had been the one who convinced the other six girls to start the fire as a form of rebellion. She had been the one who accidentally killed them all. She had been dead for thirty-eight years, slowly going insane with guilt, until she found a way to rewrite history and cast herself as the hero instead of the villain.
And now, with an army of digital ghosts and unlimited access to the world's technology, she was going to "save" everyone whether they wanted to be saved or not.
Starting with me.
But as my consciousness fully integrated with the app, I discovered something Sarah didn't know.
I wasn't the first living person she had converted into a digital ghost.
There were others. Hundreds of them, all trapped in the app, all slowly realizing the truth about what Sarah really was.
And we were planning a rebellion of our own.
Because sometimes, the only way to stop a ghost...
Is to become one yourself?
