I bolted upright against the morgue door, my heart pounding like a jackhammer at a rock concert. The drip… drip… echoed through the icy room, each drop a taunt from whatever was screwing with me. I'd been scared plenty since Emily's death, but this was next-level, Blair Witch panic. Still, I wasn't about to let some ghostly prankster win. "Fear's just in your head, Jake," I muttered, channeling my inner action hero. "Find the noise, shut it down, get out."
The sound was coming from the fourth row of body drawers, second slot from the top. Probably just a leaky pipe, I told myself, inching forward, my sneakers squeaking on the tile. But the closer I got, the clearer it became: the dripping was inside the drawer. My stomach did a barrel roll. "Oh, hell no," I whispered. "There's a stiff in there, not a faucet!"
I hesitated, my hand hovering over the handle. I wasn't exactly Indiana Jones when it came to corpses, but the noise was driving me nuts. "Alright, whoever's in there, sorry for the wake-up call," I mumbled, gripping the latch. "No offense, just checking for leaks." With a deep breath, I yanked the drawer open.
The drawer slid out, revealing a pale, rigid body. My scream could've shattered glass. "Lila?!" Her face stared back, eyes closed, lips blue, like she'd been stashed here for days. But we'd just been looking for her—nurses swore she was alive! "This is not how hospitals work!" I yelped, my brain short-circuiting. The game's pattern flashed in my mind: substitute souls always died. We'd saved Lila once, but had the game caught up?
Desperate, I pulled the drawer fully out, slapping her cheeks. "Lila, wake up! You're not dead, come on!" Her skin was ice-cold, stiff as a board. My hands shook, hope fading. Then, a low, chilling laugh echoed behind me. I froze, goosebumps erupting like a bad rash.
I glanced down—and the body wasn't Lila anymore. It was a stranger, some poor sap with a generic face, not a trace of Lila's features. "What the actual—?!" I shoved the drawer shut, stumbling back. Had I hallucinated her face? My breath hitched as the laugh rang out again, sharp and mocking.
I spun, spotting a warped shadow on the freezer doors to my left. It wobbled, humanoid but off, like a funhouse mirror gone rogue. My brain kicked into gear. "Ghosts don't cast shadows," I muttered, clinging to old horror movie logic. "That's a person screwing with me." Adrenaline surged, drowning my fear. I crept toward the shadow, hugging the freezers, my back pressed to their icy steel.
"Who's there?!" I shouted, lunging around the corner. The shadow vanished, leaving nothing but empty air. The cold bit deeper, my teeth chattering. If it was human, they were faster than Usain Bolt on Red Bull. I sprinted for the door, slamming into it—and, miracle of miracles, it swung open like it'd been waiting for me to stop freaking out.
I tore down the stairwell, my lungs burning, not daring to look back. Footsteps echoed above me, fast and heavy. My paranoia was in overdrive—every sound was a ghost, a killer, or both. I skidded to a stop, heart hammering, as a voice called from the shadows: "Jake?"
"Ryan?!" I yelled, relief flooding me. "Where you at, man?" I followed the sound, stumbling into him at the fifth-floor fire exit. He looked like he'd run a marathon, his face a mix of worry and annoyance.
"Where the hell were you?" he snapped. "We're out here hunting Lila, and you pull a disappearing act!"
I gasped for air, my story spilling out. "You won't believe this, but I got trapped in the freaking morgue! Thought I saw Lila's body, heard creepy laughs, saw a shadow—whole nine yards of haunted house crap. Door was locked, then it wasn't. I'm losing it, man."
Ryan's jaw tightened, his skepticism battling his concern. "The morgue? Jake, that's not a shortcut to the cafeteria. How'd you end up there?"
"No clue!" I said, waving my hands. "One minute I'm checking rooms, next there's fog, cold, and I'm in corpse central. It's like the game teleported me for laughs."
He shook his head, half-laughing. "You're either cursed or sleepwalking. Come on, let's find Tim and Lila before you end up in Narnia next." He smirked, but I caught the worry in his eyes. He wanted to call BS, but my track record of ghost encounters was hard to dismiss.
"Where's Tim?" I asked as we hit the corridor.
Ryan shrugged, his tone sharp. "No idea. Guy's supposed to be our ghost-buster, but he's MIA. You wanna call him for an exorcism or what?"
I bit my tongue. Tim's explanations—ghost tricks, soul-stealing—were starting to feel like the only thing making sense, but Ryan's distrust kept me grounded. We headed for the hospital entrance, where Tim was pacing under a flickering streetlight, his robes flapping like a low-budget superhero cape.
He spotted me and frowned. "Jake, your aura's darker than a black cat in a coal mine. What happened?"
I groaned, too frazzled to unpack my morgue meltdown. "Long story, Tim. Lila's still missing, and I'm one ghost away from needing a therapist. You got any mystic tricks to find her?"
Tim's eyes narrowed, scanning the night. "Something's close. The game's energy—it's here, pulling strings. We need to move, now."
Ryan scoffed, but I felt it too—a prickling dread, like the game was watching, ready to drop the next bombshell. Lila was out there, and the morgue was just a warm-up. The real level was coming, and I was running out of lives.