The assignment seemed easy enough when Remer explained it. Convince Margaret Fielding, the spirit of an angry tenant, to leave the apartment she was haunting. Dheny didn't ask too many questions; he just wanted to get the task over with. The sooner he worked off his karmic debt, the better.
Moments after opening the folder, Dheny found himself standing in the dim, decrepit hallway of an old apartment building. The flickering light above buzzed like an angry wasp, casting long shadows on peeling wallpaper. Dheny realized he wasn't entirely solid - his hands looked translucent, and when he tried touching the wall, his fingers passed through it with a faint ripple.
"Great," he muttered to himself. "I'm a ghost, too."
At the end of the hallway, a door creaked open. Cold air seeped through, carrying the unmistakable scent of mildew and something metallic. Dheny hesitated but remembered Remer's words: She says you ruined her life. Now you get to clean up the mess.
Inside the apartment, chaos reigned. Furniture was overturned, and deep scratches marred the wooden floors. In the corner of the living room, a young couple huddled together, trembling. The man clutched a baseball bat, though his hands shook so badly it was useless.
"Please, leave us alone!" the woman sobbed, her voice breaking.
Before Dheny could process what was happening, the temperature dropped sharply. Frost crept across the walls, and a low growl echoed from the shadows. Then she appeared.
Margaret Fielding's spirit was a nightmare given form. Her face was gaunt, her skin ashen and stretched tightly over her bones. Her eyes glowed an unnatural white, and her hair floated as though she were submerged underwater. She moved with a jerky, unnatural gait, her gaze fixed on the terrified couple.
"You think you can live here?" she hissed, her voice layered with an inhuman echo. "This is my home. You don't belong here!"
The young man swung the bat, but it passed through Margaret harmlessly. She shrieked, a sound so piercing that the walls began to crack. The air grew heavier, thick with malice, as blood-red handprints began appearing on the walls, dripping down like fresh paint.
"Margaret!" Dheny shouted, stepping forward.
The spirit froze. Slowly, she turned to face him, her glowing eyes narrowing.
"You," she said, her voice filled with venom. "I know you."
Dheny swallowed hard. "Yeah, it's me. Dheny. I...I was the landlord who evicted you."
Margaret form began to flicker, her anger making her presence unstable. "You threw me out in the middle of winter. You didn't care that I had nowhere to go. Do you know what happened to me?"
"I didn't…" Dheny trailed off, guilt hitting him like a freight train. He knew what had happened. Margaret had frozen to death in her car a week after the eviction, her body found slumped over the steering wheel in the parking lot of a gas station.
"You killed me!" Margaret screamed, lunging toward him. Her hands, icy and spectral, wrapped around his throat. Though Dheny was insubstantial, the pain was real. His breath came in ragged gasps as darkness crept into his vision.
"I'm sorry!" he choked out, his voice strained. "I was wrong. I didn't care about what you were going through. I only cared about the rent. I was a coward, and I'm sorry!"
The grip on his throat loosened, and Margaret's form wavered. Her glowing eyes dimmed, replaced by something that looked almost human grief, pain, and longing.
"You are sorry?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"Yes," Dheny said, tears streaming down his face. "I failed you. I should have helped you, but I didn't. I'm so sorry, Margaret."
The frost on the walls began to melt, and the oppressive atmosphere lifted. Margaret's form softened, her ghastly features fading into something more familiar. She looked like the woman in the photo, tired but whole.
"I just wanted someone to care," she said softly.
"I care now," Dheny said.
Margaret gave him one last, lingering look before her form dissolved into shimmering light. The apartment grew warm again, the eerie bloodstains disappearing from the walls.
Dheny turned to the young couple, who were staring at him in stunned silence. They couldn't see him, of course, but they felt the change in the air.
"Guess that's one down," Dheny muttered. He looked at his hands, which seemed a little more solid than before.
Somewhere, faintly, he thought he heard Remer voice chuckling.