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Write a ghost story where there’s more going on than it first appears.

Posted in Mystery on Jul 27, 2021

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✍️ 225 stories

The Girl in the Goethe House

Winner of Contest #64 🏆

I pass under the words “GOETHE FAMILY ESTATE” and grapple with a queer feeling of unease. The archway is flanked by faceless statues, their features worn smooth by wind and rain. The path to my right leads down the hill, past rows of uniform headstones, to the old convent. Ahead of me stands the Goethe Manor House.The convent was closed decades ago, and the Goethe House has been abandoned for over a century. The only building on the estate that is still occupied is half a mile away; the former Catholic girls’ school, now converted to a nursi...

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The Wandering Medallion

Submitted to Contest #64

When Graham’s heart cancer had forced its removal, it was it for him, except for a last chance at life: a highly experimental prosthetic heart. And for four months, it has worked, constantly transmitting commands in response to his body’s natural nervous signals to a computer. It, in turn, would regulate the BPM. Monitors constantly beeped, showing the peaks and dips in his artificial pulse. Four months and one day since the surgery, the lock to the door of Graham and his Grandparents’ dwelling was picked. The valuables off of the shelv...

168 likes 52 comments 52
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Leave

Submitted to Contest #64

Jessica woke because of the cold. Icy tendrils of damp were clawing at her arms and the chattering of her teeth was enough to make her jaw ache. Beside her, Jackson slept soundly. The duvet was tucked round her shoulders and his face was relaxed and innocently boyish. The cold that seemed to be seeping into her very bones didn’t appear to be affecting him in the slightest. Jessica remembered her mother talking about fevers so hot they tricked you into thinking that the burning you felt was ice. She certainly felt like she wasn’t complet...

88 likes 85 comments 85
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THE TWIST

Submitted to Contest #64

I ran briskly through the backdoor of our house as I managed to escape from my mum. Where is this naughty girl? I heard my mum asked from the living room. I had worn three cardigans with my teddy bear hung round my neck fully prepared for work.I forgot to introduce myself. I am Clara Bernard a junior nurse in Amelia Lewis Hospital (ALH). I am the intelligent one but the clumsiest nurse in the hospital. I was supposed to be a senior nurse but due to my clumsy nature, I am still in my present position. Some even see me as a psycho. My mum Mrs....

81 likes 122 comments 122
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The Prison

Submitted to Contest #64

She needed money and she needed it very badly. She lived alone, with no parents to tell her what to do. She was free. But nothing in life is free. All things come at a cost, even freedom itself.~~~~~~~~~~In a world like this, it was normal to see a fourteen-year-old kid like her living by themselves. The leaders of her city tried to make fair laws, but they couldn’t. This city had way too much crime. They couldn’t even get parents to take care of their children anymore. So here she was, struggling for money so she could pay for her house.She...

77 likes 20 comments 20
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acrobat

Submitted to Contest #64

Derek is an empirical, sciency person who listens to only facts. But I guess death makes believers of us all. I thought he never listened to me either, yet certainly some things have gone through. How else would he remember where to hire a paranormal investigator?  Paranormal Investigator: Where do you notice the greatest level of activity? Derek: By the closet, definitely. That’s where she kept all her paintings.   (What a smart, observant boy my husband is!)  PI: Are the paintings still in there?  D: Yeah.&...

64 likes 10 comments 10
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Brown Jade

Submitted to Contest #64

An instant after Dennis Wing uttered the words zōng yù to the check-in clerk at Heathrow Airport, a hush like a tidal wave of silence washed over the whole of the departure lounge, reducing the bustling character of the international terminal to the stillness of a crypt. A few more moments passed before Dennis registered that everything around him had slowed to a snail’s pace. He looked around warily to see strangers averting their gazes from his direction. Hands shielding children’s eyes as parents guided them away. Dennis returned his atte...

60 likes 15 comments 15
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The Ghost Writer

Submitted to Contest #64

Trigger warning: suicide   As Beth climbed the thirteen flights of stairs to the fourteenth floor, she rehearsed in her mind what she was going to say to Devon when she broke the news to him that she was leaving him.    With each step, her resolve to finally follow through on this, now 8-month endeavor of ceasing her six-year relationship with Devon, a failed and failed again writer who was never quite able to write that breakthrough novel he always talked about.    Over the course of the six years, escalating fierce...

55 likes 24 comments 24
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A Strange day in July

Submitted to Contest #64

A Strange day in July By: Haripriya(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This title was from the book ” The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Also the line ” He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back“)“Whoa!” exclaimed Edith.    “Yeah! This is really cool!” replied Ernest. The twins were excited to move to Alabama. Little did they know that they were in for a treat. “We have our own pond in our backyard!” exclaimed Ernest.  “That could be a perfect place for my li...

55 likes 5 comments 5
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My Zoey

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

I wrap her tiny body in my arms. A snot bubble around her nose bursts as she sneezes gently into my sleeve. I bundle her up in her sleeper and place her in her crib. She fusses when I set her down, but within a few minutes, she relaxes into a slow, rhythmic breathing.     Standing over the crib, I smile. It’s been a long day filled with baby boogies, watery eyes, and sick crying. I haven’t been able to calm her all day, but these quiet moments where I can just watch my beautiful baby girl are worth it. The butterflies in...

55 likes 42 comments 42
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Ceaseless Cycle

Submitted to Contest #64

Red. Red like blood. Blood red. Dripping down the walls, spinning, spinning, never stop spinning. She grabs her cheeks and holds them hostage in her bloody fingers; her nails sliding down like blades. She screams gleefully, laughs, and slaps her legs raw. Her cheeks now have blood marks on them. Fire. Covered in the fire. Red, bloody fire. Blood vessels burst open in her legs and blood rushes to the surface of her pale skin.  “What a great friend!” she screams, banging her fists against the icy cement ...

54 likes 247 comments 247
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destiny comes to town

Submitted to Contest #64

“Hey. I’m Destiny.”“Destiny? Cool name. I like it.”“Thanks. And your's is…?”“Amelia.”“Nice to meet you.”“So. Um. Do you like it here?”“It’s…okay. I like the new house. And the high school seems pretty decent. But I––I kind of miss my friends back home.”“Oh––right. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must be like––to move right in the middle of…what school year are you again?”“Eleventh.”“Oh––me, too!”“Really? Thank God. At least I'll know a familiar face once school starts.”“I'm sorry about your friends, though.”"It's okay. I mean, it's not,...

51 likes 38 comments 38
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One, Carry the Five

Submitted to Contest #64

    May I share something with you?          My mother’s ghost haunts me, but rarely does it appear before me late at night or frighten me. Usually, as when she was still alive, her presence comforts me. Do you think that’s strange? Well then, try this on for size: her ghost began to haunt me even before she died on August 23, 2013. Perhaps I owe you an explanation.          Even years before my father spent most of his time away from our...

49 likes 4 comments 4
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Linden Drive

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

I sometimes feel that I knew you once, that the memory of your voice has haunted me for what feels like centuries, ringing in harmony with the silence of death. Yes, I think that I did know you, that this house was ours, but I cannot recall what our names were or even the shape of your face. Everything fades in death; even the sharpest memory becomes muddled and thin, mist on the moorland. Dying is being wrapped in an unending blanket of fog, watching the shape of the world as it happens without you but not seeing anything clearly. I wi...

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Ghostly Meeting

Submitted to Contest #64

Rain lashed against the windows, and the strong wind howled down the chimneys. It was cozy inside the library but the inhabitants still shivered as a breeze blew across the room. The fire had long ago died.Despite the thick curtains, they could all sense the thick fog surrounding them, almost as if the moor was penetrating into the house.Madame Kiri coughed and cleared her throat. It turned into a racking, chesty hack which she tried to stifle with the sleeve of her dress. The rich embroidery on the material was quickly dampened.“Now then," ...

46 likes 18 comments 18
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