Hello and welcome to the revised first chapter of this story! For once I actually posted when I said I was going to, so yay for me.
Not much to say other than that I, clearly, don't own Spirit Camera or any of the Fatal Frame series. If I did, the mew games would be in America by now
I had moved into a brand new apartment, nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it was mine. I had saved up for months, working as a grocery store clerk, to be able to afford the down payment for the place, and still have enough to treat myself to something afterwards. I shared a bottle of peach schnapps with my mom as she helped me unpack some of my belongings and put them on shelves, while we blasted whatever was on my ipad through the speaker mount. She had simultaneously dreaded my moving out of the house, and was incredibly proud that I had earned enough to move out in the first place. Half a bottle later, she hugged me tightly and kissed my cheek, telling me how happy she was. I bid her goodnight, and she blew me a kiss before she walked to her car and drove away.
For the next few weeks, everything was going fine. Between juggling work hours and trying to finish my homework for college, I was living a normal life in a nice little complex. The only oddity was that the lady who lived a few doors down from me screamed during the night, glass-shattering screams that made me dread having to walk past her door to collect my laundry. There was a notice of complaint tapped to her door, but I had never once seen her actually come out. At the end of that month, things got weird.
I was walking home from work (my apartment was only a block away from the grocery store), and noticed the gathering of police cars and an ambulance parked in the lot outside that woman's apartment. Curiosity got the better of me and I ventured over to the do-not-cross line, the other tenants talking in silent whispers to each other over what had happened. Nearby, a trembling young woman was being interrogated by one of the officers, balled up tissues held tightly in her hands. I was about to ask one of the officers what had happened, but my question was answered when the paramedics asked for the crowd to clear a path. They were holding a body bag. I felt a cold chill run up my spine and ducked away from the crowd, into the safety of my own apartment. I got a call a few hours later from my mom, frantically telling me that she heard the news, and asking if I was okay. I dismissed her fears and threw myself into my studies, wanting to forget about dead ladies.
The young woman who the police had been interrogating had been convicted for murder, and was currently awaiting trial. It was one of those things that so rarely happened that everyone I knew bombarded me with questions. I lived a few doors down; after all, I must have seen something, right? I was actually one of the people the police interviewed, just for the sake of being thorough.
The lady had relatives, since I had seen people going into her apartment, and coming out with whatever hadn't been nailed down. It wasn't something I concerned myself with, since a family reclaiming their relative's possessions wasn't something particularly strange. What was strange was that one night, while I was trying to make heads or tails of my chemistry homework, someone banged heavily on my door. I opened it after the third thunderous bang, just in time to see someone running away as fast as possible. I noticed that he had left a shoebox on my doorstep, hastily sealed shut with some packing tape. I picked it up and shook it. It wasn't a pair of new shoes, and if that man was trying to do the dog poop in the bag trick, he was doing it wrong. I shrugged and brought it inside, peeling off the tape and pulling off the lid. Inside was a notebook, just a little smaller than average, with a purple faded cover. Next to that was a camera that, somehow, managed to look modern and antiquated at the same time. I was far from a photographer (that was my brother's expertise), but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Heck, the camera even had additional rolls of film! Apparently that stuff was expensive.
After fiddling with it, I managed to turn it on and take a picture of my living room. My brother would probably roll his eyes at the fact I hadn't spent at least a minute making sure everything was perfect. I looked down at the display screen and frowned at the dark, cloudy blots that appeared in the picture. I tried rubbing one away with my thumb to no avail, and sighed.
"Of course a free camera would be broken." I dropped it on the counter and diverted my attention to the notebook that came with it. My brow creased in confusion as I flipped through the pages. Old photographs, notes, random pictures; was this a scrap book that old lady was working on? If that was the case, why were some people's faces torn out? Then again, why was I trying to make sense about a woman who, for all I knew, screamed at the TV because her show wasn't on? I huffed and closed the note book, feeling incredibly that the family just left unwanted belonging at a neighbor's door. Not that I was expecting anything fantastic, like the key to some sort trove of goodies hidden somewhere, but something I could use at least. "Maybe Joel would want this," I mused, picking up the camera again. Maybe he could even find a way to fix it, since this was exactly the kind of thing he did in his spare time. He had once spent three whole weeks restoring a WW2 era, bolt-action rifle, all by himself and out of his own pocket. It shot like a dream, but kicked like a mule.
A few hours later, after effectively melting my brain trying to cram three chapters of knowledge into my head, I was ready to sleep through what was left of the night, and into the afternoon. I was half asleep before I was even in bed, and my only lucid concern was that my dreams would be haunted by skeletons quizzing me on their anatomy. That or, even more horrific, giant talking cells would demand that I describe their individual parts in no less than one thousand words each. I had dreamed of similar things in the past; such is the subconscious of a college student stressing over classes.
What awaited me in my dreams was something worse.
Let this be known about me; I have claustrophobia. That said, waking up all alone in a dark, narrow hallway did absolutely nothing for my anxiety. I curled up and looked around frantically, trying to convince myself that the walls weren't getting any closer than they already were. After calming myself down, I noticed that there was there was something resting under my hand, the notebook. I flipped to the first page, for some reason I still don't know, and felt a cold chill run through me when I saw words appear on the page. The writing looked like it had been done with an unsteady hand that was pushing down too hard, causing the ink to bleed onto the page.
"I've been waiting."
I flipped the front cover shut without a second thought. I swallowed thickly and got to my feet, holding the notebook tightly to my chest as I ventured down the hall. The floor was an aged, brown wood, covered in so much dust that it almost looked grey. The only thing keeping the hall lit were the thin candles up on the walls, but their flames looked so feeble, it seemed like they would blow out of I so much as breathed on them. I turned a corner at the end of the hall, trying to ignore the feeling that I wouldn't be able to extend both my arms out all the way in such a narrow space. I bit my lip to prevent myself from hyperventilating as I walked faster down the hall, brushing past one of the tables on the way.
Crash!
I shrieked and curled back up into a ball, holding my head down. When nothing came out of the darkness to grab me, I shakily looked over my shoulder to see what had fallen. A vase. A tiny, slender little vase. If I wasn't so on edge, I would have laughed at myself for getting startled over such a little thing tipping over. I sighed heavily and looked forward, only to yelp and fall back onto my behind. A young woman was wal- no, floating- down the next hall, dressed in a white gown with her head bowed somberly.
Another note about me: I hate ghosts, so I really didn't want to follow after her. Unfortunately for me, that was the only way I could go. I gathered whatever was left of my courage, and dignity, and walked to the end of the hall, glancing carefully around the corner where the ghost girl had gone. She wasn't suddenly charging at me, with her face distorted to look like something out of hell, so I sighed heavily in relief. I noticed that there was a door left slightly open down this hall. A way out? God, I hoped so. If nothing else, it was a room that was wider than my arms. I licked my lips and walked towards the door, reaching a trembling hand out to push it open. A gust of cold air hit my face, and I swore I heard the echo of a woman's laughter.
"Come to me," she beckoned sweetly. Her voice had a wispy, mysterious quality to it; chilling and alluring at the same time. I pushed the door open.
"Don't do it! She's in there!" Another voice called out, breaking me out of the trance I found myself in. I looked to my left, just in time to see that ghost girl rush towards me, dark eyes wide with fear. My head spun as she reached out to pull my hand away from the door. Everything became dark and cold, and I fell.