GHOST GAME
The Whisper Code - Chapter 2
A Horror, Mystery, and Psychological Thriller Novel.
The night was unnaturally still. Not even the hum of streetlights dared to break the silence outside Lena's dorm window. She sat cross legged on the bed, her laptop screen glowing faint blue against her face.
The Ghost Game app was still open, its interface shifting every few seconds lines of binary flickering like a pulse.
Player: LENA
Round 3: Whisper your secret before the timer ends.
Her hands trembled. Every time she played, something inside her seemed to rot a little more.
Tonight, the challenge felt different. The game no longer used her microphone it whispered to her.
A voice, soft and broken, slithered through the speakers:
"Why did you leave me, Lena?"
Her blood froze, It was her sister's voice Clara.
"No…" she muttered, slamming her laptop shut.
The whisper echoed one last time before fading into silence. But when she lifted her head, her reflection on the black screen smiled back, even though she wasn't smiling.
A message appeared this time, handwritten across her dorm mirror in faint condensation:
Confess before sunrise.
Lena grabbed her phone, her heartbeat erratic. She texted the group chat.
LENA:
Anyone else heard the voice tonight?
KAI:
The app's acting weird. Sam said it spoke his name too.
SAM:
Not funny. My lights went off by themselves. And the sound… it said something about the lake.
The lake.
Where her sister died.
Lena's throat tightened. None of them were supposed to know about that,
Not unless she opened her drawer, taking out Clara's old phone, cracked and dead since the day she'd drowned. She pressed the power button. Nothing.
Then the screen flickered once then twice.
A notification appeared on the dead phone:
Round 3: Completed.
Next player : KAI.
Her laptop turned on by itself, showing the game's interface again.
But this time, the "Players" list had eight names, not seven.
At the bottom, a new one glowed faintly:
CLARA - Online.
Lena screamed.
The Lake Never Sleeps
The autumn night pressed cold and heavy against Lena's skin as she trudged toward the lake. Mist curled along the surface like a living thing. Each step crunched over frost hardened leaves, echoing through the empty park.
She wasn't alone.
Kai and Sam had insisted on coming. Both were pale, jittery, and muttering about the strange notifications they had received earlier:
Round 4: Face the truth, or the water takes you.
The water. Lena's stomach churned. Her sister Clara had died in this lake two years ago. Drowned. Everyone called it an accident, but Lena had always suspected otherwise.
"Are we seriously doing this?" Sam's voice shook.
"This isn't a game anymore. Something's… watching us."
Kai whispered, "The app says our secrets are here… and that it knows the truth about Clara."
Lena didn't answer. She couldn't. Her heart pounded so hard she was sure the lake itself could hear it.
The fog thickened as they approached the shore. The moon, thin and crescent, reflected off the still water. And then she saw it: faint ripples on the surface, forming words.
"YOU LIED."
Her breath hitched. The letters weren't written on paper or carved into stone they were moving, fluid, glowing faintly red beneath the water.
"Lena…" Kai grabbed her arm.
"We should leave. Now."
Before she could respond, a figure appeared across the lake a girl in a wet, tattered dress. Her hair clung to her pale face. Her lips didn't move, but the voice came from everywhere at once:
"Why did you let me go?"
Lena's knees buckled.
"Clara…?"
The girl raised a finger, pointing directly at Lena. Sam screamed as the temperature dropped, their breath turning to frost. The app on all their phones activated at the same time:
Round 4: Confess your betrayal to survive.
Timer: 00:17:42
Lena's chest tightened. Every memory she had tried to bury surged forward, the ignored calls, the unread messages, the nights she had avoided her sister's cries.
Confess.
Her phone buzzed violently. Words appeared on the screen in bright red.
FAILURE TO CONFESS : ELIMINATION!
The girl at the lake smiled. Not with warmth, but with malice. And then she disappeared sinking slowly beneath the misty surface, leaving only a ripple… and a smell of wet earth and rot.
Sam clutched Lena's arm.
"We're… we're dead, aren't we?"
Lena swallowed. She could feel her sister's eyes in every shadow, her whispers in every gust of wind. One truth remained: to survive, she had to speak the secret she had hidden from everyone.
And the lake… it was waiting.
The Second Death
The dorm was quiet, but the air felt heavier than before. The shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls, moving with a mind of their own. Lena, Kai, and Sam huddled together in the common room, each staring at their phones.
Round 5: Truths are revealed in blood.
The notification had appeared simultaneously on all of their devices. The app pulsed like a heartbeat, red light creeping across the screens.
"This… this isn't just a game anymore,"
Sam whispered, voice trembling.
"It's… watching us. Following us. We can't leave."
Kai ran a hand through his hair.
"We can't tell anyone. The cops won't believe us. They thought Maya's death was suicide."
Lena's stomach knotted. She couldn't stop thinking about the lake, about Clara's pale face in the mist. The guilt clawed at her chest like a living thing.
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed from the hallway. The lights flickered, plunging the room into darkness for a heartbeat. When the fluorescent bulbs returned, Sam was gone.
"Sam?!" Lena screamed, heart racing.
Kai grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward the hallway. The dorm was empty. Only Sam's phone remained on the floor, its screen lit with a single message.
You lied.
Lena's fingers hovered over the device. The app was open.
The timer counted down: 02:12:45.
A chill ran down her spine. She looked toward the stairwell and froze. Sam's shadow moved unnaturally against the wall, stretching and twisting, until it broke free from any human shape. It lunged toward the door and disappeared.
A loud scream followed, echoing through the building. Lena's ears rang, her knees buckled, and Kai grabbed her.
From Sam's phone, a video started playing automatically. It showed Sam, terrified, running through the hallways. Then the camera tilted up. A pale figure, featureless except for a twisted smile, loomed behind him. The last frame froze on his wide, panicked eyes.
Then the screen went black.
Lena couldn't breathe. Kai whispered hoarsely.
"We… we have to keep playing. It's the only way to survive."
But Lena shook her head.
"No… there's no surviving this. It's not just a game. It's… something else. Something alive. Something… hungry."
Her phone buzzed violently. A new notification blinked red.
Round 6 begins in 15 minutes.
Remaining players: 3.
And then, across the room, the air shifted. Lena felt it before she saw it a presence. Something cold, watching.
"Confess… or join them."
Her breath caught. Her reflection in the darkened window smiled at her again. This time, it wasn't her.
Delusions
The room felt smaller. Shadows clung to the corners like living things, stretching and twisting as if they had minds of their own. Lena sat on the floor, back pressed against the wall, eyes fixed on her phone screen. It pulsed faintly in the darkness, counting down the next round.
Round 6 Truths will shatter your mind.
Kai paced nervously. Every step echoed, though the dorm was empty. His phone had started glitching hours ago faces of dead players appearing in the background of photos he'd taken, eyes following him.
"Lena…" Kai's voice trembled.
"It's… it's everywhere. I can't… I can't tell what's real anymore."
Lena didn't respond. She could hear it too the whispers. Soft at first, then louder, more insistent. They slithered through the room, through the walls, through her head:
You lied. You left her. You betrayed her.
Her chest tightened, tears stinging her eyes. "Clara…" she whispered.
"I didn't… I didn't know what to do. I didn't… answer."
The distorted voice from the app spoke again, but now it came from nowhere and everywhere.
Confess. Or join them.
Her reflection in the darkened window shifted. It wasn't Lena anymore. It was Clara
smiling, accusing, pale and wet-eyed. The image reached out as if pressing against the glass.
Kai froze, staring at his own reflection.
"It… it's me…" he stammered.
His reflection grinned back with fangs, dripping with dark liquid. Then his phone buzzed violently. A notification.
Round 6: Failure detected. Player at risk.
Lena screamed, pounding the floor with her fists.
"Stop! Stop talking! Stop!"
The walls began to bleed shadows. The lights flickered violently. Lena could hear footsteps circling, slow and deliberate. Each whisper became louder, more personal:
You lied to me.
You betrayed her.
You're next.
Kai lunged for the window, trying to smash it open, but the glass rippled like water, refusing to break. Lena grabbed his arm.
"We can't leave… not yet. Not until we confess."
Suddenly, the app activated on their phones, all of them glowing red:
Round 6 Final Confession
Speak your sin or become them.
Lena's mind spun. The memories she had buried ignoring Clara's calls, leaving her alone, not stopping her torment flooded in. She felt her sanity slipping, her reality dissolving into a nightmare.
Then she heard it.,,footsteps behind her. Not Kai's. Not anyone she knew.
Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
I'm here…
She turned. Nothing.
But the air shifted, icy and sharp. A hand brushed her shoulder a hand that wasn't there. Lena screamed as her vision blurred, shadows swallowing the room. The app's countdown hit zero.
A new message appeared:
Player eliminated.
Lena blinked. Kai was gone. Just like that. The room was empty, but the faint outline of him remained, pressed against the wall like a shadow.
She sank to the floor, sobbing, knowing that she had only just begun to fight the game…