Is There A Ghost

Chapter One: Kate

Kate Howard's eyes opened to a street that she had driven down before, but she couldn't remember the name of it. The sun shone brightly above her, its beams cascading down to earth and making the pavement beneath her feet shine. She felt warm and safe, and around her, things were going about as they normally did in Port Charles. People were walking their dogs, mothers were keeping watchful eyes on their children—in fact, everything seemed brighter and more pleasant than the usual down-and-out mood of the town she called home. Kate was enveloped with a feeling that nothing could go wrong, that even if her life wasn't perfect, today was going to be a beautiful one.

But the sunny day, full of love and laughter, quickly changed. The skies darkened, revealing thick clouds that opened and let rain fall everywhere. The people around her vanished, and she was all alone, her feeling of hopelessness gone with the sun. She knew that she must be soaked, but she couldn't feel it. All she could feel was loss and despair, like there was no purpose of moving forward.

A sound in the distance caught her attention. Her feet began moving of their own accord towards an alley that hadn't been there a second ago. The sound that Kate had heard continued on a loop, almost like a broken record, and as she kept walking, she started to realize what it was. It was a gunshot, one that would be imprinted in her brain for the rest of her life.

The alley dissolved quickly, and was replaced by a memory that Kate knew she would never lose. She was in the warehouse, watching Sonny and Michael bond over something that wasn't criminal. In her heart she felt hope, that Sonny would be able to give up his life of crime and teach his son real values. Michael was grinning from ear to ear as he maneuvered the lever. The moment was perfect. Why did it have to end so soon?

Just like he had before, Sonny glanced up into the rafters of the warehouse and his face dropped immediately at what he saw. Without thinking, he flung himself on top of Kate as the familiar gunshot sounded in the room.

Kate took a moment to collect her thoughts when she realized what had happened. Sonny's weight was off of her and he was bending over someone on the other side of the warehouse. Kate picked herself up and came over, but what she saw next ended what had once been a memory. Instead of Michael's body bleeding at her feet, it was Claudia's.

This sudden change in a part of her life that she knew so well shocked Kate to her very core. What was Claudia doing here? It was Michael who was supposed to have been shot. And it was Claudia's fault. Why had the events changed?

Kate looked up at the rafters to see where the shot had come from. In her memory, she hadn't seen a face, but in this twisted version of events, she did. But it wasn't Ian who looked down on the scene. It was Claudia.

Everything around her went black, the distorted memory gone. As Kate stood there in the darkness, she contemplated what she had just seen. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out; Claudia had sealed her own fate by hiring Ian to shoot Sonny. The bullet in Michael's head had become her death sentence.

The darkness evaporated into another familiar scene: a corridor in General Hospital. It was empty, except for Sonny, standing at the end of the hall, his hands in his pockets and an unreadable expression on his face. Kate looked down and saw that she was holding a DVD case with a mysterious disk inside. Her brain told her that she was on a mission, that she needed to get this DVD to Sonny before anyone else's lives were ruined. But when she took a step forward, Sonny didn't become any closer. In fact, it was as if he was moving farther away. She took another step. The same thing happened. She broke into a brisk walk, and then a run. Nothing was working. Sonny would never know. Michael would never get the justice he deserved.

Even though Kate knew it was futile, she continued running, Sonny still out of her reach. She felt a presence appear next to her and beg, "Please, Kate, give Sonny the DVD. Let him kill me." Kate stopped running and turned around to see Claudia standing in front of her, a picture of death, literally. She was wearing the same silver dress that she had worn the night of her birthday, her dark hair matted with blood. Her brown eyes were wild with desperation and loss. The hospital hallway dissolved around them, teleporting them to Kate's bedroom. Kate sat on her bed, while Claudia stood at the foot of it, continuing her pleading.

"Why didn't you give Sonny the DVD? He would've killed me on the spot. I wouldn't have had to suffer. I wouldn't have had to feel my baby die inside of me. I could've died before having to look into Michael's eyes every day and knowing what I did to him. And now he has to carry my murder on his shoulders. You could've stopped this. Why didn't you tell Sonny sooner? Why, Kate? Why?"

Kate couldn't take it anymore. She didn't care that Claudia was dead; if anything, it had actually done the world good. But she had let everyone else suffer by not telling Sonny about the DVD sooner. Sonny had had to live with Claudia for months. Michael had endured more than anyone his age should have to, all at the hands of Claudia. And that innocent little baby had been brought into this world, only to be taken from it just as quickly. If she had just acted sooner…

"You could've made so many lives better, but you didn't. Why, Kate? Why make me and everyone else suffer? What held you back? Why didn't you finish me when you had the chance?"

*

Kate awoke suddenly, her head pounding and her heart racing. Her room was pitch black. The clock on her bedside table said 10:29. 10:29. Claudia's birthday.

Kate whipped her neck around towards the end of the bed, but no one stood there. She was alone, or so she thought.

It couldn't possibly be 10:29. She hadn't gone to bed until after eleven. Her clock must just be wrong. That had to be it. It was impossible for that to be the time.

But as Kate sat there, staring at the clock, she started to realize that the time remained the same. She had sat there for more than a few minutes, but the glowing red numbers didn't change. Kate shook her head, trying not to freak herself out. It was late, and she had just had a nightmare. It was just her lack of sleep getting to her.

But even as she said this to herself, laying her head back on the pillow and closing her eyes tight, she could've sworn, out of the corner of her eye, that she saw a familiar DVD sitting on her bedside table, the numbers from the clock illuminating the disk in the night.