Chapter Text
Tommy was in pain.
Tommy had been in pain all his life, from the beginning when he was born premature, with a hole in his heart and doctors saying he wouldn’t survive the night, just like his mother who died in childbirth, to the end, where he was brutally murdered.
Yeah, Tommy didn’t like to think about either of those times.
People say you don’t feel pain after death, but that was obviously not true in Tommy’s case.
It had been almost two decades since Tommy’s death, and he had managed to keep others from his house for the entirety of that time.
But now Tommy was experiencing pain, which meant someone was here. Again.
They could never leave him alone, could they? They just kept coming back. One family would come to the house, mostly skeptics, and then he would scare them until they sold the house to another skeptic and the process would repeat.
This was Tommy’s house, and he couldn’t give it up.
Something was keeping him here, and Tommy didn’t want anyone else to suffer his fate. He had hoped that by tying up the loose ends he would be able to proceed to the afterlife, but that didn’t work. He was stuck here.
And he was in pain, which was the current pressing matter.
God how his mind wandered sometimes.
Tommy fazed through the walls to look at the person who had come to the house and, ugh , it was a ghost hunter.
As many skeptics came to the house, just as many ghost hunters came.
Tommy never played their games, and they all eventually left, saying that the house wasn’t haunted. Then Tommy would drive the homeowner to madness until they left.
The current homeowner must have called in some ghost hunters to come find and get rid of him.
Ha, it’d take more than that to get rid of him.
Tommy was just about to go back up to the attic to hide and wait for the man to leave when he heard the man say something that made him stop.
It couldn’t actually be described as a word, more like a sound of sorts. The man’s mouth hadn’t moved at all and the woman who was the homeowner didn’t seem to hear it.
It had sounded almost like a calling, like the man had sent a voice out to Tommy’s head to tell him to come out, that he was safe.
Hmm, this might be interesting, perhaps Tommy would stick around for a bit.
---
Phil had been called in for another ghost hunt.
Over the phone the homeowner had sounded worried, terrified even, at the prospect of staying in the house.
“ -it’s just that the previous homeowners warned me, they told me it was haunted but I didn’t listen, -sob- I thought it was all nonsense, but now-”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Phil had assured her. “I’ll come over and check it out okay?”
The woman had agreed and that led to where Phil was now, standing in front of a house that couldn’t have been older than 50 years.
The woman had been standing on the porch, arms wrapped around herself like there was a chill that she couldn’t get rid of.
She definitely brightened up a bit when she saw Phil, and Phil sent her a warm smile which caused her shoulders to relax a bit.
“You’re here,” she practically melted with relief as she looked him up and down.
Phil smiled and nodded and said, “So what types of things have you been experiencing?”
The woman seemed to shudder at the thought of explaining herself, but after what seemed to be a mini debate in her mind she began telling him what had been going on at the house.
“It started off somewhat normal,” she started with. “The previous homeowners had warned me that the house was haunted, but I was a skeptic, so I didn’t believe them.”
Phil nodded, that was usually how it went.
“Then I started hearing things,” she continued. “Floorboards creaking in the attic, door hinges squealing, the works. At first I thought that perhaps it was just that it was an old house, so I paid it no mind. But then it got worse.”
With almost perfect timing a cold breeze swept through the area, causing the woman to shiver.
“How about we continue this conversation inside?” asked Phil.
He could see the woman tense up at the sound of heading back into the house, but he pushed back his initial instinct to cater to the other person’s needs, he had to scope out the house with the homeowner there first so that if there was a ghost it would be more inclined to come check on him.
The woman eventually gave in and nodded and they stepped into the house.
It wasn’t that bad of a looking house, it just looked like it hadn’t been updated in ten years. According to the homeowner no one stayed long enough to renovate it. Hmm.
“-and sometimes at night I just feel like someone’s watching me and-”
Ah yes, the woman was speaking about the hauntings again.
She talked about the chill, the feeling of being watched, the random doors opening, lights turning on and off, all the normal signs of a ghost.
Phil didn’t really care what she had to say, though.
Now this was what distinguished Phil from the other ghost hunters. Phil wasn’t human.
Phil was a reaper.
A reaper sent by Death herself to help lost souls home.
Phil let out a signal to any ghost that was in the house. No human could hear it, but it would tug on the mind of the ghost, if it in fact was there, and let it know that Phil was safe to approach.
Unfortunately for Phil nothing happened right away. Well, no reason to be disappointed, he’d just have to call his boys in for help.
Phil turned back to the woman and smiled.
“My associates and I will fix this up, don’t worry.”
The woman almost sobbed in relief.
“Until we finish you should probably stay in a hotel somewhere nearby so once we finish you can move back in.”
The woman started to profusely thank him, “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, oh sir thank you!” She then turned slightly to him and asked, “What was your name again?”
Phil smiled and said, “Phil.”
She nodded, seeming to ground herself. “Well Phil in case you forgot my name’s Niki, and thank you so much for the help.”
Phil then proceeded to escort her out, he was going to need some time to get Wilbur and Techno up to speed, although he didn’t doubt for a moment that the two shades would figure it out extremely quickly.
Still, Phil could feel something off about the house, and he intended to figure out what that was, no matter the cost.