Rose’s Ghost

Rose had always been driven, but her world collapsed when she found her lover, Mark, had betrayed her with a common friend. Her anguish and wrath ate her, driving a ravenous want for retribution. Rose struggled to let go even after they split up and Mark went on.

Mark discovered happiness with his new partner, Jessica, years later. Far from the metropolis where their terrible memories persisted, they moved into a comfortable house in a peaceful suburb. For them, life seemed ideal, full of laughing and forward goals. Rose wasn’t done, though.

She started to linger over them. It began gently with little, unexplainable events. Jessica would discover her stuff either moved or lost. In the depths of night, lights flashed. She woke from deep sleep with whispered sounds, incoherent but full of hate. Mark tried to comfort her by explaining the incidents as the result of the peculiarities of an old dwelling.

Still, Jessica wasn’t sure. She discovered a picture of Rose put under their bedroom door one evening. Her eyes in the picture seemed to watch Jessica with terrible clarity. She showed Mark, who brushed it off as a nasty joke from someone with past knowledge, panicked.

Jessica started to glimpse Rose’s spectral form as the haunting grew increasingly powerful. She showed up in mirrors, in reflections, and occasionally just at their foot of bed. Rose’s presence was icy and threatening; her face was contorted with hate and grief. Mark couldn’t see the phantom tormentor, hence Jessica’s appeals to him went unheavedly.

The evenings got colder and darker. Unnatural lengthening shadows crawled up the walls like black fingers. Doors locked on their own caught Jessica in rooms where the temperature fell to a chilling frost, her breath clearly audible in the air. The murmurs became cries, then screams — agonizing, blood-curdling sounds filling the house at all hours. Things crashed into walls from shelves. Mirrors broke, warped reflections into hideous, horrific pictures.

Night were agonizing ordeals for Jessica. She would wake to Rose looming over her, her touch as frigid as death itself, eyes flickering with a ghostly fire. Her dreams were terrible; she became sleepless, anxious, and desperate. Mark also started to feel Rose’s fury weighing him. He felt abrupt shills, heard voices calling his name, and saw brief shadows at the brink of his sight. The body had vanished.

Desperate, Jessica investigated Rose’s background. She discovered Rose, driven by revenge, had experimented with the occult in her last days. Equipped with this understanding, Jessica consulted a medium. Together, they found Rose’s unresolved anger and sense of betrayal tied her spirit.

Hoping to free Rose from the suffering she inflicted on others and herself, the medium carried out a ceremony to speak with her. Rose’s spirit showed her suffering, sadness, and incapacity to go on in a heart-wrenching sessance. Feeling great pity, Jessica talked to Rose, pledging to cherish her narrative and remember her suffering so she can provide her the peace she so sorely needed.

The séance was really forceful. Rose’s spirit came fully, her look even more horrible up close. Her eyes seemed to draw the light from the room, hollow, dark pits. Her hands were claw-like and reaching, her mouth contorted in an endless snarling. The air turned frigid; frost developed on the walls and windows. Her voice faltered as she yelled, her breath clear in the frigid air.

Tears running down her cheeks, Jessica asked Rose for pardon. Admitting her mistakes and expressing her strongest remorse, she related the circumstances for their split. Rose’s fury peaked and the room rocked, but gradually the tension relaxed. Rose’s spectral shape relaxed, her eyes lost their terrible brightness.

Rose gazed at Mark one more time, tears welling up in her eyes, then vanished into the air, producing a terrible quiet. The home seemed lighter, as if a dark cloud had raised, the hauntings stopped.

Though relieved, Mark and Jessica underwent lifelong transformation. They lived with Rose’s suffering as a sobering reminder of how strong feelings can transcend even death. Their cautious and respectful of the past carried the lesson that some wounds, if not healed, can remain long beyond their time.