GHOST GAME
Chapter 3 - Breakdown Heartfelt
Lena hadn't slept in two days. Maybe three. Time didn't exist anymore only the shadows, the whispers, and the game.
The dorm was silent now. Kai was gone, Sam was gone. Everyone was gone. But she could still hear them sometimes… faintly… crying behind the walls.
Her phone glowed on the floor, the red symbol pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.
Round 7: Face the reflection of your guilt.
Lena laughed, a hollow, trembling sound.
"You think I haven't already?"
She crawled toward the mirror. Her reflection looked tired, hollow eyed, pale. But as she stared longer, it began to move on its own smiling when she wasn't.
"You can't save them," her reflection whispered.
"You couldn't even save me."
Her blood ran cold. "Clara…"
"You ignored my messages."
"You let me drown."
"And now you play this game to feel less guilty."
Lena screamed, smashing the mirror with her bare hands. Glass scattered across the floor, blood dripping from her palms. But when she looked down, her reflection was still there broken across every shard each piece smiling up at her.
Confess or perish.
Her phone buzzed violently. The countdown appeared again. 00:10:00
Lena backed away, trembling.
"Fine! You want the truth?" she shouted.
"I hated you! You never listened! You always made me feel like a villain for being alive while you were drowning in your own darkness!"
She fell to her knees, sobbing.
"But I didn't mean to let you die…"
The whisper grew louder distorted, layered, as if coming from a thousand mouths at once.
The game forgives no lies.
The lights flickered. The walls rippled. The floor beneath her began to crack open like a heartbeat, revealing an endless black void. The voices of her dead friends echoed from below, chanting.
"Confess. Confess. Confess."
Lena screamed again, clutching her head, as the blood from her hands dripped onto the phone screen. The moment the droplets hit, the red symbol changed morphing into a human eye.
It blinked.
Then it spoke.
"Your confession is accepted."
Everything went silent.
The void sealed shut, the whispers faded. Lena lay on the floor, trembling and covered in blood.
She thought it was over.
Until her phone screen lit up one last time
Round 8 unlocked.
The Final Player
Lena woke up to the sound of static.
Her phone screen flickered beside her, the red symbol spinning endlessly. The dorm room looked… different. Too clean. Too still. No blood on the floor, no shattered glass. Only silence.
For a moment, she thought it was a dream. But then she saw it etched faintly into the wall above her bed:
Round 8: The Final Player must end the game.
She stared, trembling. "End… the game?" she whispered.
The air shifted. The temperature dropped until her breath turned white. Then, from the corner of the room, a shadow began to form
a girl in a soaked white dress, her long hair dripping, her eyes hollow and dark.
Clara.
"You started what I couldn't finish," she said softly.
"Now you must play it alone."
Lena shook her head, tears brimming.
"No. I didn't start this. You did! You downloaded the app, you"
"I tried to make them confess," Clara interrupted, her voice echoing.
"But they mocked me. Laughed at me. Drove me to the edge."
Lena's throat tightened. "So you cursed it…"
Clara's head tilted. A faint smile crept across her pale lips.
"I didn't curse it, Lena. It cursed me. And when I died, it found a new host."
Lena's phone vibrated violently. A new message appeared:
Welcome, new creator.
The game must live on.
"No," Lena whispered, backing away.
"No, no, no"
The phone's camera activated on its own, the front lens flashing red. Her reflection on the screen twisted into Clara's face, smiling with teeth that were too sharp.
"Every game needs a host," Clara said. "It's your turn now."
The walls pulsed as if alive, symbols burning through the paint. The air filled with whispers voices of the dead players calling her name again and again.
Lena… Lena… Lena…
She dropped the phone. It crawled toward her like an insect, vibrating violently across the floor until it reached her feet. The timer appeared again:
Final Round begins in 03:33:00
Her hands shook uncontrollably. She tried to smash the phone but it wouldn't break. The screen healed itself, pulsing brighter with each heartbeat.
"Stop!" she screamed.
"I'm not your host!"
But the voice replied, cold and final
You confessed. You are chosen.
The lights burst, plunging the room into darkness. Lena's scream tore through the night.
When the lights flickered back on, the bed was empty. Only her phone remained, lying on the floor.
A new notification appeared on the screen.
Round 1: Say your name.
Players: 7
Host: LENA
And somewhere in another city, seven new phones buzzed at the same time.
Final Player: LENA.
New Game
Rain poured outside, tapping against the café window like impatient fingers.
Elena Cruz sat across from her friends, scrolling through her phone. It was a quiet evening, the kind that felt peaceful… until her screen flickered.
"Ugh, my phone's lagging again," she muttered. Then a strange notification appeared.
You've been invited to play: Ghost Game.
Join? (YES / NO)
She frowned. "What the hell is this? Some new horror app?"
Her friend Noah laughed.
"Probably one of those creepy AR challenges. Don't click random links, you'll get hacked."
But something about the logo caught her attention a faint, spinning red circle… almost like an eye. Without thinking, she tapped YES.
The screen went black for a second. Then a message appeared:
Welcome, Player 1.
Round 1 begins at 3:33 AM.
Say your name.
Elena blinked. "That's… weird."
Her friends leaned closer.
"Say your name? That's it?"
She laughed nervously.
"Fine. Elena Cruz."
The app flashed red, then displayed.
Confirmed.
Seven players connected.
Host: LENA.
The cafe lights flickered. Everyone froze.
Noah frowned. "Did you hear that?"
A faint whisper drifted through the air, too soft to make out but it came from Elena's phone. She turned the volume down, but the voice grew louder.
Welcome to the game.
Suddenly, her front camera activated, showing her reflection. But behind her, in the screen, someone was standing a dark figure, drenched and smiling.
Elena spun around. Nothing.
Round 1: Confess your first lie.
Her heart pounded. "This isn't funny."
Noah's phone buzzed next. Then Jamie's. Then everyone at the table. The same notification appeared, glowing red across all their screens.
You've been invited to Ghost Game.
The café lights flickered again, and the entire building shuddered. Every screen glowed red. Outside, thunder cracked across the sky.
From the phone's speaker, the voice whispered:
"Say your names…"
And one by one, they did.
Until the last person spoke and the café went completely dark.
The final thing Elena saw was her own reflection in the phone screen… smiling without her permission.
The Mirror's Secret
The storm outside had stopped, but inside the mansion, chaos still lingered. The lights flickered weakly as the group gathered around the old mirror in the main hall the same mirror that seemed to breathe when someone got too close.
Lina ran her fingers across the frame, feeling the carvings of strange symbols that hadn't been there before.
"It's changing again…" she whispered.
"Don't touch it," Kai warned, pulling her back.
"Every time someone does, something happens. We're already missing two people."
Rina looked up, her voice trembling.
"Maybe the mirror is… showing us what it wants."
They stared as fog swirled inside the glass. Then, one by one, their reflections vanished except for Lina's.
Her reflection smiled back… but she wasn't smiling.
"Lina…" Rina said carefully, stepping closer.
"Move away."
But the reflection began to speak.
"You can't leave until the game ends."
The voice echoed around the hall, and suddenly the mirror cracked. The sound was sharp, like a scream trapped inside. Pieces fell but instead of shattering, they hung mid-air, glowing faintly.
From within the cracks, a shadow emerged a tall figure in a tattered cloak, its eyes glowing white.
"The tenth player has entered," it hissed.
Everyone froze.
"What tenth player? There are only nine of us!" Kai shouted.
The shadow turned its gaze toward the door. Slowly, it creaked open on its own. Cold wind swept in, carrying faint laughter.
Then… footsteps.
Someone was coming.
But when the figure stepped into the light, the group gasped it was Elena, the friend who had disappeared two nights ago.
Her face was pale, her eyes blank.
"Welcome back," whispered the shadow.
"The game has claimed another soul."
Lina's reflection smiled again, and this time, it blinked.
The Tenth Player
No one dared to move. The silence in the hall was thick broken only by the faint sound of water dripping from Elena's hair.
She looked like herself… yet somehow wrong. Her head tilted slightly, her lips forming an unnatural grin.
"E–Elena?" Lina whispered, voice trembling.
Elena turned toward her slowly.
"You shouldn't have called me back."
Her voice wasn't hers it was layered, like two people speaking at once. One calm and familiar, the other… cold and hollow.
Kai stepped forward, holding the flashlight tightly.
"What do you mean? Where have you been?"
Elena's eyes glowed faintly white, reflecting the flickering lights.
"I was where all lost players go. The mirror doesn't take life it trades it."
The air grew heavier. The words trades it echoed in everyone's minds.
Rina clutched the pendant around her neck. "What does that mean?"
Elena raised a shaking hand and pointed at Lina.
"She knows."
Lina stumbled backward, her heartbeat racing.
"I I don't!"
"Yes, you do," Elena's voice warped, distorting as her expression twisted.
"You touched the mirror. You accepted the mark. That makes you the next host."
Suddenly, the mirror behind them began to hum, its cracks glowing like veins of light. A distorted whisper filled the room:
The game continues until all souls are bound.
The lights flickered off total darkness.
Then, a scream.
When Kai turned on his flashlight again, Elena was gone. In her place, a new message was scrawled on the wall in crimson:
"Player 10 – Bound."
The group stared, frozen.
Rina's hands shook as she whispered.
"There's no way out, is there?"
Kai clenched his jaw.
"There has to be."
But Lina… she felt the cold mark on her wrist start to burn, glowing faintly.
And deep inside the mirror, her reflection smiled again this time whispering her name.
"Lina… your turn."
The Whispering Walls.
The night dragged endlessly. The power was still out, and the house had turned into a prison of echoes. Every sound every creak, every whisper felt alive.
Lina sat in the corner, clutching her knees. Her reflection still burned in her mind. That smile. That voice.
She whispered, "It can't be real… I'm not next. I'm not."
Kai moved quietly around the room, checking the boarded windows. His hands trembled slightly, though he tried to hide it.
"The signal's gone. My phone's dead too. It's like the house is eating the power."
Rina looked up from the floor where she was tracing the mark on the wall the one that had appeared after Elena vanished. The letters were smeared, almost bleeding through the wallpaper.
"Maybe it's not just a house," she said softly.
"Maybe it's part of the game now."
Kai frowned. "You think this place is alive?"
Rina didn't answer. Instead, she placed her ear against the wall. The others watched as her expression slowly changed from curiosity to terror.
"Rina? What is it?" Lina asked.
Rina pulled away, her face pale.
"It's whispering…"
They froze.
"…it's saying our names."
Before anyone could respond, a deep, scraping noise echoed from the hallway like nails dragging across concrete.
Kai grabbed the flashlight, shining it toward the sound. The beam cut through the dark, revealing long red streaks on the wall fresh. Wet.
Then came the whisper again, louder this time, from every direction:
"Confess… or vanish."
The walls seemed to breathe, pulsing as if veins ran through them. The group stumbled back, panic rising.
Lina covered her ears, shaking her head.
"Stop it! Please stop!"
The voices grew frantic, merging into a scream.
"CONFESS!"
The floorboards beneath them split open, revealing a dark void that reeked of decay. A hand pale and cold emerged, clawing at the air.
Kai yanked Lina back just in time as the hand snapped shut where her leg had been. The voice laughed.
Rina sobbed, "It wants us to confess something… but what?"
Lina's heartbeat thundered in her ears. The mark on her wrist burned hotter, as if it wanted her to remember something she'd buried long ago.
And then she heard it her reflection's voice, faint but clear in her mind.
"Tell them the truth, Lina… tell them what really happened to Maya."