If you'd asked me before that night, I'd have laughed at the idea of a ghost touching me. I mean, it sounded ridiculous - even in the stories my grandmother used to tell, spirits were distant, unreachable, nothing more than whispers in the dark. But karma's a twisted thing, and Stella - well, she had her own way of proving she wasn't finished with me.
It started small. Nothing I could deny completely. A cold draft in a locked room. The sudden creak of floorboards when I was dead certain I was alone. The weirdest part was how subtle these things were at first, like soft footsteps behind me, just out of sight. Enough to make me paranoid, but not fully convinced.
Then came the touch.
I was sitting alone in the dim glow of the hallway lamp, the bitterness of black coffee biting at my tongue, trying to keep my mind steady. The rain outside hammered against the roof like furious drumming, matching the storm brewing inside me. That's when I felt it.
Cold. Like an ice cube pressed hard against the back of my neck. The kind of chill that made my skin crawl and my breath hitch. It wasn't just cold air - it was… deliberate. Like someone reaching out to remind me they were there.
My heart slammed wildly against my ribs as memories exploded in my head - the way her eyes had looked that night, full of fear and something I still can't name.
"Not again…" I whispered, my voice cracking.
The air around me thickened, colder, heavier. I could almost hear her voice, soft and haunting.
"Steve…"
It wasn't quite a sound, more a vibration deep inside my chest, like the echo of a secret wound I'd long tried to ignore.
I spun around, eyes darting through the shadows, but there was nothing. Just the faint glow of the lamp casting long, trembling shapes against the damp walls. Yet the sensation lingered - icy fingers trailing down my skin, a touch that was both tender and terrifying.
I remember closing my eyes tight, trying to steel myself, forcing the shaking in my hands to calm.
"Stella…" I breathed. "What do you want?"
No answer came. Only that faint, haunting scent - the jasmine she loved, blooming like a cruel reminder of what I had taken, what I had lost forever.
The following days felt like living on the edge of a nightmare I couldn't wake from. Her presence was everywhere - in the flicker of candlelight, the corners of my vision where shadows played tricks, in the sudden chill that ran through the room. Sometimes the feeling was soft, a bittersweet melody filling the silence. Other times, it was sharp and cruel, biting like the truth I'd run away from.
Sleep became a battleground. My dreams haunted by her face, her smile twisted with sorrow or fury, her eyes burning with the fire of a love betrayed. And yet… beneath the fear, beneath the pain, there was an ache - a longing I can't describe. Like the thread that once tied us refused to break, no matter how much I tried.
Then, Asha came again.
She was the bright light in my shadowed world - an unexpected lifeline. Her laugh, her quick wit, the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled reminded me that some part of my life hadn't completely fallen apart.
"Steve," she said softly one evening, after we'd shared silence heavy with things neither of us dared say, "you're losing it. But maybe… maybe there's a way to face it."
Her words made my chest tighten. Facing it. Could I? Was I strong enough to face what I'd done, the ghost I'd unleashed?
I looked at her and saw hope in her eyes, fragile but real. Maybe, just maybe, I could find a way back - from the darkness, from Stella's ghost, from the storm that raged inside me.
But one thing was clear: no matter how much I wanted to escape, Stella's hold on me was stronger than death, stronger than hell itself.
I was caught. Trapped in her smile.
***