Wow @ myself, you managed to do like half the writeober challenge??😂To be fair, this is about what I expected, and I’ve definitely done more writing recently than in a while!! I’ll probably post more of the days I missed over time, but on the final day of October, here’s the finished (well, still unpolished!) version of the ghost story I did a while back. I’m counting this version as Day 30 - Spirit. XD (edit: phew I think I’ve finally worked out how to put a long post under a cut!)
The haunted places are not always the ones you might expect.
I had spent the day visiting the ruins of the abbey: as a medievalist by trade, these trips were a regular occurrence. I truly loved seeing the ancient building stand there: a husk of its former grandeur, yet somehow more richly steeped in power than ever. At least in my eyes.
Darkness was just settling over the landscape as I began packing up my notebooks, preparing to leave. Perfect. I had timed my visit deliberately to catch this moment: the abbey at night really gave meaning to the term “gothic architecture”. Really, it was a great shame that it was not open to visitors much later.
I should have just been glad to get to see it like this at all. After all, who doesn’t love a good spooky sight?
The problem with ghosts though, is that what makes them spooky is the fear of the unknown. When you anticipate that a place will be full of them, they may as well fade into nothing. Perhaps that was why I never really got the supernatural vibes that you would expect from the abbey. Well, you could also put it down to my generally sceptical nature, I suppose. So much for that ghost-hunter aesthetic I aspired towards. A pity too: I really had the perfect coat for the role.
I realised I had been dawdling, and then had to rush to catch my train. Panting, I collapsed onboard just on time. The carriage was warm compared to the biting chill of the evening air. I began to feel drowsy…
I woke with an icy shudder to feel a hand on the small of my back. Disgusted, I turned, prepared to deliver a lecture to a man who thought it was his right to touch me as he pleased. But the harasser was nowhere in sight. Blinking sleep from my eyes, I reached for my thermos of tea, hoping the caffeine would help me to keep alert for the remainder of my journey.
I was right, it did help. But the lukewarm drink was not enough to shake the chill that had taken a hold of me.
My stop came. I joined the throngs of people on the platform. A strange feeling of isolation, however, surrounded me, an invisible wall of ice between me and the crowds. I was adrift. Lost.
That was it: lost. Something about this place felt unfamiliar. Maybe spending so many hours steeped in the history of the abbey had caused my sense of time to become uncalibrated. I thought of a compass needle and how confused it becomes when a magnet is drawn close to it. Perhaps all the time I was spending in the past had begun to confuse my sense of the present? More and more people were arriving. I was invisible to them; the crowd seemed to pass right through me. Their clothing seemed like it belonged in another time? Or perhaps I was the one who did not belong?
Shaking - as if that could rid me of this eerie feeling - I continued on my way home.
Or at least, I intended to.
An arm snaked out of the shadows, pulling me back into the crowd. I whipped round, and found myself face-to-face with a man. I stared, and our eyes met each other. His gaze pierced me. It was as bright as midday, but the brightness was cold, blue, vaporous, supernatural. In that moment, I knew with absolute certainty that he was real.
These strange figures were no mere conjuring of a tired imagination. Neither were they simply a crowd of commuters.
I jerked myself away. A voice called out,
‘Excuse me – I think you dropped your notebook?’
The man running up behind me could not possibly be the same man whose expression had just bored through my soul. He was too warm, too earnest, too much the bearded glasses-wearing hipster type. A hot wave of relief flooded through me and I reached out to take my notebook from his outstretched hand.
But my hand slipped through.
His normal, oh so normal, eyes met mine, a look of pure terror on his face. In the cold fog of his glasses, I glimpsed the reflection of my own eyes: an icy, blinding blue.