The Miracle Clinic

In the dark classroom on the second floor of Starlight High, the remaining kids are crowded around the small wooden Ouija board. All of them have different reactions; Bennet is frightened, Christopher is unnerved, Hamster is scared, Rebecca is nervous, Alex is annoyed, X is straight-faced, & Marcus is excited.

“You’re the resident ghost guy, how’s this work?” Rebecca asks.

“Well first you put your middle and index fingers on the planchette,” Marcus says.

“The what?”

“The chip-looking thing,” Marcus says, “that’s how we can communicate with the ghosts. It essentially acts as the doorway for them.”

Marcus, Rebecca, X, Alex, Christopher, & Hamster follow the instructions while Bennet tries to place their paw on the planchette.

“Okay, now what?” Alex asks unphased.

“Well I’ll be the spokesperson, so I’ll ask them a question,” Marcus says before clearing his throat, “If there are any spirits here, can you please tell us your name?”

The planchette doesn’t move as everyone just sits there.

“See, I knew this was just a piece of junk,” Rebecca remarks.

“Oh really? How come you were scared to use it?” X teases.

As Rebecca is about to retort his claim, the planchette begins to slide across the wooden board, passing by several letters, before landing on ‘O’.

“D-did you guys move it?” Christopher asks, concerned.

The planchette then glides across the board before landing on ‘U’.

“Who the fuck has the name Ou?” Alex asks.

“Don’t insult the ghost!” Marcus says, “And it isn't done, yet.”

The planchette once again moves across the board before landing on ‘I’.

“O-U-I?” Rebecca asks befuddled.

“Oh dear god, it’s French!” Alex jokingly remarks.

The planchette then moves onto another letter on the board, ‘J’. Bennet is the first one to realize what the name is and his little hamster eyes widen in horror.

Finally, the planchette moves onto the final letter, ‘A’. With the question now fully answered, everyone in the room is silent, all not knowing how to react.

“Y’know, if nobody is gonna say anything then I’ll ask it something, why are you doing this?” X asks.

Marcus groans as the planchette begins to move.

“X why?” Marcus groans as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“What did I do wrong?” X asks as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“You’re only supposed to ask simple questions,” Marcus explains as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“Why?” X asks as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“Because this thing only does one letter at a time, it's gonna go on forever!” Marcus sighs as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“Oh, my bad,” X says as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“This is not the ghost we’re supposed to be messing with,” Alex complains as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“Who’s to say someone is just pushing the planchette and not telling us?” Rebecca suggests as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“Did you not just read what the planchette said the ghost’s name was, I’m not taking any chances with a thing that got a board named after it,” Alex says as the planchette goes from letter to letter.

“So you do believe-” Marcus begins to say but gets cut off when the planchette finally stops moving.

“Finally the question is over,” Hamster says, “Did anyone keep track of what it was saying?”

“I thought Bennet was,” Christopher admits.

“Bennet’s a fucking hamster, Christopher,” Rebecca yells.

“Oh…yeah, my bad guys,” Christopher sighs.

“Should we ask for the ghost to repeat itself?” X asks.

“NO!” The rest of the room yells in unison.

“This isn’t working, let’s just stop doing the ouija board,” Alex suggests.

“Yeah, sorry guys, this wasn’t much help,” Marcus admits as he begins to end the session. Once he does so X stretches and begins to walk to the door.

“Ray’s been gone for like 15 minutes, so we should be free to go,” X Locke says.

“But what about Ronnie?” Marcus asks.

“He’s fine…probably,” X admits.

X begins to walk to the door and just as he opens it, and enters the hall, he freezes.

“What in the world-” X begins to say but the door to the classroom shuts before he can say anything else.

X is still in the hall though, and the rest of the class stands there as the only thing they hear are the giggles of a little girl. Eventually, those fade and when Alex opens the door and looks into the hallway, X is gone.

Everyone gets out into the hall and looks around.

“He couldn’t have gotten far, right?” Christopher panics.

The group tries to look around the hall but it's too dark to make anything out.

“Let’s just head back into the classroom,” Hamster suggests, with Christopher agreeing.

“Go, ahead, I’m just gonna leave this place,” Rebecca says as she begins to walk to the staircase, “I’ve already had enough of you lot.”

“But, what if you encounter the ghost?” Marcus asks.

“Even if there was a ghost, then it would be better seeing it than spending time with all of you,” Rebecca says as she goes down the stairs.

As she leaves, Marcus looks down the hall and wonders if he should follow her but Alex stops him and says, “Don’t worry about her, she clearly isn’t worried for us. And besides, I heard that the cafeteria might have some food for us.”

“S…sure, let’s go,” Marcus replies as the two begin to walk down the hall.

However as they make their way down the hall and towards the cafeteria, Marcus stops. He looks over to where Alex is and sighs.

“Hey Alex you keep on going I just realized something,” Marcus says.

“You want to go alone?” Alex asks.

“I just have a hunch so it shouldn’t be anything major,” Marcus remarks as he walks away.

“Okay, take care of yourself,” Alex says.

As Marcus begins to go down the hall he remembers that while the school had to be renovated over winter break, the school used to only have 1 floor, and considering how X’s ghost story said she would drag people down with her…

Then that must mean…

The ghost is at its strongest on the first floor of the school.

_______________

On the first floor of the school, Rebecca is making her way towards the exit when she begins to hear giggling.

“Who’s there?” Rebecca asks as she looks around.

To the right of her are lockers, to the left of her is the door to a classway, and standing directly behind her is some creature.

Rebecca tries to get away but when she goes to turn she trips herself up. She looks to see that the ghost has long black hair that covers her entire face, a long white shirt that goes down to their feet, and blood stains all over them.

The ghost giggles more and more as they begin to walk closer to Rebecca.

“Damn it,” Rebecca says as she tries to get back up only to realize her back is to a locker, “If I knew this was how I was going to go…maybe I would have done things differently.”

Rebecca sighs as the ghost reaches out to her, “Oh well, I don’t really care anymore.”

As the ghost’s hand gets closer and closer to Rebecca, she sees some water being flung through the air towards the ghost.

“Hope you like that holy water, you ghost!” Marcus yells.

The ghost steps back, just barely avoiding the water, Rebecca looks as Marcus runs over to the two of them.

“Marcus? What the hell are you doing here!” Rebecca yells.

“I figured that ghost was more powerful on the first floor so I came to make sure you were alright,” Marcus says as he tries to catch his breath.

“You think I needed your help?! Why don’t you look after yourself and not someone like me!” Rebecca yells, “This is why you-”

“Oh shut up with it!” Marcus yells, “Do I have to just look out for myself all the time?! What’s so wrong with lending a hand to someone else?!”

Marcus then says, “Now look, we need to get going soon because remember that I said it was holy water?”

The ghost begins to walk toward them as Marcus says, “I lied, that was just some water from the water fountain.”

Hearing this the ghost lunges for the two and Marcus gets out of the way while Rebecca gets up. The two begin to run down the halls as the ghost chases after them on all fours. As Rebecca looks at Marcus he wonders just why he’s doing the things he’s doing. He doesn’t even care about her, they have no reason to befriend each other, hell they barely even talked to each other before today, so why is he helping her out? Was it bravery? Stupidity? Somewhere in between? Despite wanting to find out the answer, Rebecca shoves that back as she tries to think of a way out of this.

“So what’s the plan?” Rebecca asks.

“To be honest, no clue!” Marcus yells.

“What?! You came down here without a plan!”

The ghost gets closer and closer to them as Marcus and Rebecca turn the corner. The ghost isn’t as good with sharp turns so they crash into a locker, causing more distance to get between the ghost and the two freshmen.

“Well, how the hell are we going to fight a ghost?!” Marcus yells as the two try to get away from the ghost.

It’s with those words, that something clicks in Rebecca’s mind as she shouts back, “I have an idea!”

Marcus looks at Rebecca shocked for a bit before she continues, “To be honest, I don’t even think this will even work. It’ll take a miracle for it to even work. Even so, you want to try?”

“A miracle huh?” Marcus contemplates before replying with a smile, “Let's go for it!”

See You Next Chapter!~