My Bestfriend Was a Ghost Hunter, I Wish I Never Went.
“Come on.” The voice was distant but still clear. “You’re dragging your feet. You didn’t have to come. You wanted to. So let’s go.” Her voice had irritation to it, almost offensive. I groaned and steadied my pace, walking only a bit faster. “I’m coming, Celine. Jesus Christ.” I snapped back. The gravel under my feet was starting to kick up with dirt and small rocks as I quickened my pace even more. When I finally came around the long, winding driveway I saw it. It wasn’t some huge mansion or asylum. It wasn’t an old, rickety cabin either. Just a two story, forgotten suburban home. It didn’t scream “haunted” or “scary”. It seemed like a normal, abandoned home. Paint was chipping, weeds had overtaken the surrounding landscape, and the stairs leading to front door no doubt had mold growing within the wood. The roof wasn’t in terrible shape, but it was obviously missing more than a few shingles. There was no doubt there was water damage somewhere. I took out my camera and positioned it to fit the entire house into the frame. That’s when I saw her, Celine. She was upstairs looking at me through the window farthest to the right. She wasn’t smiling or waving. She was crying. Her pained, tear stained face stared back at me through my lens. Her mouth moved, and though I couldn’t hear her, what she said was obvious. “I’m so, so sorry.” I winced and pulled my camera away from my face. “Well, what do you think?” A once annoyed Celine now had lightened her tone. She sounded cheerful and full of hope. “We’re only here for 24 hours. We should get started.” I tried to match her tone, but I just couldn’t. I was always the skeptic. Science could explain anything. At least, that’s what I had always told myself. ~ Celine has been my best friend since middle school. She was 2 years older than me, but we somehow found friendship when we attended the same high school lecture about the aspects of the human brain. It was optional. There were 5 students there, including us. Afterwards, we got to talking about why we were there. Our interests similar, but the complete opposite. She confessed she was wanted to know more about to the spirit world and how we can access it, how we could possibly open our brains to so much more. I, on the other hand, wanted to know the physics behind such phenomenon. I wanted answers, not more questions. I wanted to know what tricks the brain into thinking there is something known as a ghost. I wanted, no, I needed to know. Is there life after death? Where does our energy go, since energy cannot be created nor destroyed. When I graduated college with a PhD in quantum and particle physics, I felt like I knew everything but I knew nothing. So many questions left unanswered. Years of studying ahead of me, after years of studying. Celine never went to college, she worked at old office firm, and found peace in the normal repetition the job had to offer. She always maintained a child like wonder. I hated that about her as much as I envied it. I spent my entire life trying to know, and she spent hers on trying to wonder. I sometimes wanted to forget my studies, and become just as oblivious. It was the too late for that now, and I knew that. Yet, that’s how I ended up at this stupid, fucking house. About a week ago, Celine had called me to tell me about some old house that had some wacky, unbelievable ghost story attached to it. This was normal for her, and while I usually debunk the details in my head, one thing she said stuck out. “You know? Objects moving. Apparitions appearing then suddenly disappearing, the usual. In 1947, it was said that an entire family just vanished. Then in 2002, same deal. Except this time, it was just a couple of kids. There’s something in there that keeps you, won’t spit you out. Like a piece of gum being chewed on by a stubborn soldier. I asked-“ I cut her off.“Celine, you know it’s not possible to just disappear. You’re acting like Houdini lives in that house, which were only illusions. It was never magic.” I tried to keep my tone light.“Well, whatever, professor.” Celine’s agitation always stung like the bitter cold was blowing against my face. “I’m going. I know you don’t have work so I thought, you know. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t come, I’m going alone.” Her words again stinging my skin like a swarm of bees. I’m used to her going on the escapades in her free time, but she always went with likeminded people. I’d get the summary version whenever she got back. She’d never gone anywhere alone. Just the thought of it made me recoil. “Celine..” I said calmly. “I.. I just. You know I don’t believe in this stuff.”“Exactly why you should come. Even if all you do is rain on my parade, maybe you can get some of those answers you look for in every corner of the universe.” I could tell she was smiling, even through just a call on the phone.God damnit, Celine. Why? Why did you have to say that? “Fine. Yeah, I’ll go okay? Only because I can’t stand the thought of you there alone.” I basically said through a tense, clenched jaw.“Perfect! You won’t regret this, Beth. I promise you won’t! I’ll pick you up Friday, we’ll settle in and drive to the house from the hotel on Saturday. It’ll be our own little investigation!” She was now beaming with excitement.“Oops.” She said “I mean Dr. Bethany Jevson.” Her voice snarky. I smiled “See you Friday. I love you.”She said it back, and hung up the phone. ~ Friday came faster than I wanted it to. She came perfectly on time, bags already loaded. She was so eager to get going I didn’t even have time to help load my own things into her 2015 Subaru Forester. She did it in record timing. Honestly a little impressed, I smiled. “Let me go grab my camera.” “You’re actually bringing that with you?” Celine asked, surprised.“Duh. I don’t just solve equations and challenge theories. I have other hobbies.”I said this knowing it was only a half truth. “The camera is the lens into the soul right? It only seems fitting.” She gave me that look. The look that says “You’re crazy, but you’re right.” I got that look a lot, but from her it felt endearing. It was warm, like a hug but with words instead of physical touch. Then she smiled. “Well, alright then. Grab it and let’s go.” The hotel she picked was about 4 hours away, and the house was about an hour away from that. Time seemed to fly right by on our way there. She told me about the bores of her job with a smile, and countless rumors of other locations she’d been studying in her spare time. As two only children, she was the closest thing I ever had to a sister. Two polar opposites intertwined for life. We didn’t see eye to eye on almost anything. She loved and accepted me though, and I did the same for her. We made jokes, listened to music, and before I knew it we were unloading our luggage up to our shared room. We ordered room service and reminisced on stupid highschool memories. After some time watching an old 80’s movie, we were fast asleep. Morning rolled around fast. It felt right in the moment, but as I sit here writing this, it feels like the whole thing was put in fast forward. I guess I did feel the same way in the moment, but I pushed it far back. I wanted Celine to be happy. The last thing I wanted was a gut feeling to ruin this little adventure of hers. I should have said something. I should have told her no, I should have said… No. I’m not going to sit here and write could haves, should haves, or would haves. It’s pointless. Celine was feeling sluggish. No doubt from the bottle of wine we shared the night prior. Though not feeling well, she put on a happy face. I could tell she was still incredibly, slightly irrationally excited. “Are you ready?” I heard her call out from outside the bathroom door. “Yeah, I’m good to go.” I opened the door and smiled.“Can you drive? I kind of feel like shit.” She held up the keys and laughed. “Sure. I’ll drive. Just don’t mess up the directions, okay?” I grabbed the keys out of her hands. “Seriously. Don’t mess them up.” I raised my right eyebrow at her and grabbed my camera. “Everything we need is in my backpack. We’re all set.” Celine gave a slight pat on her backpack.“Alright then.” I said. “Let’s go.” ~ The drive was relatively quick. It really only took about 45 minutes, and the whole time was spent with Celine giving me more details on the house. It was run of mill haunting ideations. Something I’ve seen in many movies and read in plenty of novels. None of it shook me, as I silently explained away everything she said with science. I’d occasionally nod or give her a reassuring smile indicating that I was still listening. Then she asked me what I wanted to hear. “The people that disappeared, what do you think about it. Don’t go all scientist on me, just, what do you think.” Her voice uncertain, almost scared. Something I didn’t hear from her often. Celine was fearless despite her childlike demeanor. “Celine, they probably moved without telling anyone. The kids, I hate to be a realist but they either got lost in the woods out here or they were murdered-“ Before I could finish she cut me off.“Okay then where are the remains then? Animals ate them? All of them. Everybody?” She said, agitated. “Well, no, just the kids that went missing. I wasn’t there. But there’s a reasonable explanation. I just don’t know it yet.” She never liked when I explained things away, but knew that’s always how I’d answer.A few minutes of silence went by, and then the long, winding driveway came into view.“Time to walk.” She said. ~ I drug my feet the whole way to the house. Celine’s cheers on encouragement slowly faded to agitation. But when I finally saw the blue, peeling, weed infested, dust filled home, I felt nothing. No bad feelings, no good feelings. No intuition. Nothing. It was just an old house. Until I saw Celine in the window. Her face desperate, wet with tears. When I first saw it I just shrugged it off as a trick of the lens and maybe a bit of underlying fear. But when I heard her cheerful voice behind me, I came crashing back to reality.“Well?” She asked me again. “Well we should get inside and get your stuff set up. We have a few of those body cams and an EVP recorder. And those other ghost hunting things you think you need.” I was walking and talking at the same time, but didn’t realize it until we were at the front door. “You catch on so quick.” She smiled.“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just go inside.” The confidence in my tone took her by surprise. She shook her head and turned the handle. The door was unlocked and opened easy, something you wouldn’t have guessed from looking at the outside. It was falling apart similarly to the outside, but felt sturdy. When you walked in, you were immediately greeted by stairs off the to the right. A hallway running beside the stairs split off into three different rooms. Immediately to the left was the living area. Completed by a few armchairs and a three seat sofa, a coffee table, a fire place, an old bookcase, and other Knick knacks. It was old, everything was old. But otherwise it looked like somebody lived here. The kitchen was the same, basically untouched, but dusty and old. The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, almost under the stairs. There was medicine in the cabinets still. I became engrossed in the books that stand untouched in the bookcase when I felt a tug on my shoulder. “I want to go upstairs.” It was Celine. “Okay, but you have to check some of these out later. It’s incredible.” I smiled. “Every theory known to man is on this shelf. Possibly answers, but definitely more questions. I’ll have to sift through everything.” I closed a book I already had read before. “Let’s go upstairs then.” When we reached the landing, it broke in both directions, making the hallway seem eerily bigger than it truly was. “I’ll go left, you go right.” Celine bursted with confidence. Being a skeptic, despite seeing what I saw when we first walked up, I wasn’t scared. If Celine was scared, she sure didn’t show it. I peered to the right.“Celine, there’s only one door to the right. I-“ She was already gone. She went into one the four doors on the left side of the house. “Guess I’ll go check it out then.” Finishing the rest of the thought under my breath. It was easy to open, but closed like the rest of the doors. The room swirled with dust and smelt of mildew. An old bed centered the room. The bed was made with a floral quilted blanket, sheets tucked in, and the pillows were neat and tidy. Across the bed sat an old vanity with an antique chair. A built in closet directly to my left. And beside the window across the room sat a huge, victorian style mirror. It didn’t fit in with everything else. Every piece of this house felt old, antique, and vintage. This mirror was older than that. Older than the actual house. I was instantly attracted. As I made my way over, I peered through the old-timey floral curtains and stopped in my tracks. It was the window I saw Celine in, but this time I saw myself, camera in position. Celine was behind me trying to get my attention. She was once again crying, but I held my position. Her cries turned to desperate wailing. I never broke my position. It was deafening. But still, I never broke my stance. Seemingly hell bent on capturing what I saw on the other side of the camera. When I pulled out my camera, I turned to look back and it was once again an empty driveway. “What the hell..” I whispered under my breath. Maybe I really was losing it. No. Spirits aren’t real. None of this is real. Maybe my brain wants it be. Maybe I do want to prove there’s something bigger than us that we as a species have not yet been able to do so. I came here for answers and it’s giving me more riddles. Equations I’ll have to solve. Once I finally pulled myself out of whatever that was, is when I finally pulled myself in front the mirror. It was, at first, just a regular ol’ mirror. Massive in size with beautiful woodwork that constructed itself as its frame. “I have to capture this.” I thought. Before I could even reach for my camera, my reflection started to change. At first it looked like a normal mirror turning into a funhouse joke. Then all of a sudden, I was staring at my 8 year old self. “Why, Beth? Why did you let me die.” “Why did you let go of me, Beth.” My eyes swelled with tears. “I didn’t let go. I never did. We just grew up.” Isaid through the voice of a broken woman. “Why did you kill me, Beth?” The once sad voice of my innocent self turned to pure hatred and anger. “You KILLED me. You HATE me.” I winced at the tone, which had turned into screaming. And just like that, my reflection had changed again. It was my mother. “Darling, why are you looking for answers in the dark? Are you playing hide and seek?” Her voice was mellow. “Oh, my love, you know what you have to do. All the answers lie within. All you have to do, is rip your heart out.”I jumped. “No, no, this isn’t real. You’re not real.” Suddenly I could hear my name getting closer and closer. One a distant call, now an alarming plea. I felt a hand touch my back. It was Celine.“Beth, What the Hell? I’ve been trying to get your attention for 25 minutes. You just stood there, slack jawed. I couldn’t reach you. Are you okay.” Her voice was shaken. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess this old mirror sucked me in. I mean, look how old it is.” I tried to hide what I really felt behind a smile. “Yeah. That looks really old. It’s actually kind of cool.” She said, still concerned. “We should move on, did you find anything interesting?” I said as confident as I could.“Actually, yeah I did. I found a basement.”“A basement? You went back downstairs?”“No!” She exclaimed. “Actually, it starts upstairs.”I raised my eyebrow. “What? What do you mean it starts upstairs?” She grabbed my arm and started to pull. “Let’s go. I’ll show you.” She opened up a door and we were greeted with a set of long, spiral stairs. It started at the top floor, but by the time we reached the bottom we were completely underground. There was obviously no electricity, so I used one of those heavy duty flashlights and she used a similar one. “Check this out.” She said. I could tell she was excited. The basement was a square. Not too big but not small enough to trigger claustrophobia. I followed her to the middle and shined my flashlight in all directions. “What the hell is this?” I asked her.“It’s a room full of mirrors. Actually, they’re all the same mirror. Like the one in the bedroom. They say mirrors are gateways to the spirit world and-“ I cut her off. “Nope. This place is just a mind game. Stare at yourself long enough and you’ll see anything. Especially in the dark.” I sighed. “I’m going back up.” “Fine. I’m gonna set up a camera here and try to communicate using EVP.” She said, I could tell she was annoyed.“Be careful, Celine. Don’t trip on anything or stare at yourself too long.” I rolled my eyes and made my way back up. To be completely honest, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I was convinced I was seeing things and I honestly worried for my mental health. I’ve always been a logical thinker. I’ve always explained away the otherwise unexplainable. I couldn’t explain this other than it being a hallucination, or something I couldn’t understand. Both, frankly, scared me to my very core. It rattled me. I wanted to call every professor I knew, but for right now, I’m in Celine’s world. And I had to toughen up and be reasonable. When I finally made my way to second floor, I immediately went back down the stairs that made sense. I noticed that directly beside the stairs, to the right when you walk in the door, was another room. It was the dining area. The room was quite large, with a big rectangular table that had 8 chairs evenly spaced around it.“That’s a big table for a family of 4.” I thought to myself. “They probably held dinner parties.”There were plates set along with silverware and napkins, like someone was getting ready for a feast. But there was no food. Only dust. The weirdest part of the room was that other than the furniture, it was empty. No decorations. No knick knacks. Only a big Victorian mirror facing the dinner table. As though the people that were here watched themselves eat. It was, to say the least, weird as hell. I wasn’t up to see myself in that mirror, so I took a photo, and quickly left. That’s when I heard Celine scream. It was a million miles away at first. Like she was the house itself, or she was a million miles away from it. I couldn’t tell if she was below me, above me, around me. I frantically ran up the stairs and stood at the top of where the basement started.“Celine?”No answer.“CELINE?” My voice was desperate.“Please answer me Celine. Please..” My voice started to trail off.“I’m outside.” Her voice was distant, but closer this time. I bolted down the stairs and whipped open the door, except I didn’t see Celine. I saw the house. Mirrored. There was no outside. “Celine? Where are you? I can’t get out.” My voice was in full panic. I ran through the front door probably 12 times before my knees hit the floor. The bookcase that once held hundreds of books was empty. The dining table had turned into nothing but a plank of rotted wood. The furniture deteriorated every pass through.“Celine..” I started to cry.“I’m upstairs.” It was Celine’s voice. I bolted up the stairs and realized there was only one door now. The door to the right.I slammed the door open, and there she was. Looking out the window. I could tell she was crying. “Celine.. hey.. what’s wrong? What happened?”Her face started to turn to look at me. She was now turning her head 180 degrees. Tears stained her face, but this time she was smiling. “I’m not crazy. Ghosts ARE REAL. They even let me join them. Take my hand.” Her voice was hers, but somebody else’s. Her once blue eyes now a deep brown, almost black. Her face had lost all of its color. “Come here, Beth. Come here. Beth. BETH. BETH. BETHANY.” Each word came out more distorted than the last. Finally she broke into an insane laugh. “Don’t you want to know everything?” Her smile now so wide it almost reached her eyes.I slammed the door. No way was I going back down those stairs. At the same time, Celine was the most important thing right now. So I did, only to find the necklace she wore everyday. It was a dainty, golden cross that was given to her by her late grandmother. There was no Celine. There never will be. She made her choice. I walked back up the stairs and reentered the only room the house had left for me. When I walked in, I expected to see Celine again, but instead I was greeted with utter silence. I walked to the window except this time, somebody I didn’t know was behind the camera, and my parents were crying. I walked back over to the mirror. “JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT.” I screamed at myself. “JUST TELL ME.” Soon, instead of my reflection, it was Celine.“I brought you here so you could solvesomething YOU wanted. This was never about me. You never cared about MY dreams. What I WANTED. I brought you here to make YOU happy. Ungrateful.” Her words were like daggers.“Celine.. that’s not true. I LOVE you.” My voice pleading. And then just like that I was staring at my younger self again. “You KILLED me Beth. Why? Was it worth it, giving everything up just so you could know a fraction of knowledge? Was it worth killing me? Was it worth losing your innocence so you could put Dr in front of your name?” I stood there. Too stunned to speak.Then I saw my father. “I raised a stick in the mud daughter. Why couldn’t we play dolls? Why couldn’t we have played catch? Book after book. Family after knowledge. You’ve never loved anyone but yourself.” Then finally, I saw my favorite professor. “My poor, sweet Beth. You’re so close to the truth. You’ve gotten so far. I’m so proud of you. All you have to do is take my hand, and I can show you every answer to every equation in the universe. Take my hand. Take it. I can show you.” His spindly fingers came through the glass like it was water. So to whoever this finds, this is my last entry. I finally found the answers I’d been looking for my whole life. I’m sorry Celine, mom and dad, my younger self. Because at the end of the day, I am selfish. I did kill my younger self’s innocence in the name of knowledge. Knowing something bigger than me. My professor is going to show me. This house has taught me I knew absolutely nothing. I never did. I spent my whole life chasing a metaphorical ghost. But now, now I can finally prove everyone wrong. This is real. THIS is knowledge. All I have to do is reach for his hand, and I will know everything. Credit: Spoopykayy Reddit Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.