Part II – The Girl on Fire (Who Won’t Stop Talking)

You do not scream.

Mostly because your lungs go on strike.

The flames are everywhere in your phone’s camera—blazing bone, roaring heat, a tall skeleton standing in your closet doorway like it kicked its way out of a heavy metal album cover.

In real life, your closet is full of clothes and the one suitcase you refuse to unpack. No fire. No skeleton.

In your phone, the flaming skull leans down until it fills the frame.

“Boo,” it says.

You squeak. You’ll deny this later.

The skull sighs in disappointment. “What, that’s it? I practiced that all week.”

You blink.

“You’re… Kitty?” you manage.

The skeleton ripples, like the fire has to remember what it’s burning. The bones shrink a bit. Flames draw inward. The figure in your closet becomes a charred teenage girl with wild, ash-smeared hair and a burnt school jacket hanging off one shoulder.

Her eyes are bright, sharp, and very done with your nonsense.

“And you’d be the one holdin’ the ghost radio,” she says, nodding at your phone. Her accent is Scottish, words rolling like they’ve got momentum. “You gonna point that thing at my face all night, or…?”

“Excuse me,” you say faintly, “I downloaded an app. I did not order a… whatever you are.”

Her mouth curves. “Ghost. Spirit. Cautionary tale. Take your pick.”

She steps the rest of the way out of the closet, only in the camera view, not your actual room, and plants her hands on her burned hips.

“You look rough,” she observes. “Did livin’ do that, or is it just… a vibe?”

You let out a stunned laugh. It comes out wetter than you’d like.

“That’s just my face.”

“Ah.” She squints at you. “Soft eyes. Jittery hands. Probably apologizin’ to the kettle when you make tea, yeah?”

“…No,” you lie.

She snorts. Tiny embers pop from her shoulders. “Aye, you’re that type.”

On-screen, the flames around her gutter suddenly, shrinking down, leaving more bone visible than you’re comfortable with.

“Whoa,” you say. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she answers, which is exactly how you say not fine. “Just …” She presses a hand to her ribs. The hand passes slightly through them. “Feels like runnin’ on fumes. Been a long time since anybody saw me.”

Something unwinds in your chest at that.

“I see you,” you say before you can stop yourself.

Her head snaps up.

“What?” she asks softly.

You swallow. “I see you. Right now. Literally, yes, but also…” You wave your free hand vaguely. “You sound lonely.”

The flames lick higher, softening from pure orange-white to a warmer, candle-like glow. The edges of her form firm up, like your words are drawing her back together.

“That’s better,” she mutters, glancing at her own arm. “Whatever that box is, it likes you bein’ nice.”

[Haunted XR:  interaction detected]
 [Ectoplasmic stability +12%]

You flinch at the text. She doesn’t.

“You can’t see that?” you ask.

“See what?” she says.

“Nothing,” you say quickly. “Ghost HUD. Long story.”

She leans forward, peering at your phone like a cat trying to understand a laser pointer. Her charred hair falls in front of one eye; she blows it away impatiently.

“So,” she says, “what is that thing? A cursed mirror? Dick Tracy Gizmo? Wee box of witchcraft?”

“It’s… a smartphone.”

She squints. “It does not look smart.”

“Rude.”

You sit down on the edge of your bed, because your knees have filed for divorce.

Kitty drifts a little closer in the camera. Without the whole “towering skeleton” thing, she looks… sixteen. Same as you were when you memorized every lyric of your favorite band and thought no one would ever understand you.

Her jacket has a name patch half burned away: KATH… The rest is gone.

“Kitty,” you say. “Is that short for…?”

She frowns, thinking so hard her brow creases through the soot. “Kathryn,” she says slowly. “Kathryn Mac… Mac… oh, blast it.” She taps her temple. “It’s like there’s soot in the works.”

“Do you remember where you’re from?” you ask gently.

“Here. Not-here. The in-between.” She looks around your room like it might grow an exit. “It’s all I’ve had for… a while. Sometimes I feel wind. Sometimes I hear engines.” She closes her eyes briefly, inhaling. “Petrol. Smoke. Cheap perfume. Fried onions. Headlights. And then—”

She opens her eyes again and swallows whatever comes next.

The flames around her ankles are flickering low now.

“Hey,” you say quickly. “You, uh… like cars?”

That gets a reaction. Her whole face lights.

“Aye. Cars. Proper ones. None of these plastic wee toy-things.” She gestures vaguely at your poster of an electric hatchback like it offended her ancestry. “I could take apart a V8 blindfolded before I could do my own hair.”

“Mechanic?” you guess.

Her mouth twists into something small and fond.

“Da’s garage,” she says. “Grew up crawlin’ under Chevys instead of playin’ with dolls. Pretty eyes from Ma, grease under the nails from him.” She snorts. “Used to think that made me invincible.”

The word hangs between you like smoke.

“Used to?” you echo softly.

She shrugs, a little too fast. Embers fall from her shoulders and vanish before they hit your carpet.

“Then there were headlights,” she says. “And a dare I shouldna taken. And …” She flinches. “And then I got… promoted to barbecue.”

It’s a terrible joke. It’s also the only way she can say it.

You wince. “You died in a fire.”

“Gold star,” she says lightly. “And spoiler: you forget a lot when you get flash-cooked. I remember heat. Screamin’. Hittin’ something, hard. Smell of petrol.” She grimaces. “And guilt. That bit sticks.”

You want to reach out. Touch her shoulder. Something. But your hand would go right through the phone.

So you do the only thing you have.

“I’m sorry,” you say. And you mean all of it: the crash, the fire, the years of being stuck in echoes.

The flames around her flare bright, steady. For a second, you can see her as she must have looked before everything burned: vivid hair, fierce eyes, grease-smudged cheek, the kind of half-smile that dares the world to say no.

She catches you staring and looks away, suddenly shy.

“Careful,” she mutters. “You keep talkin’ like that, I might start thinkin’ I deserve to be seen.”

[Haunted XR: emotion threshold reached]

“Why wouldn’t you be seen?”

Her eyes glaze over, focussing on a fuzzy memory, “…night, that Tucker 48 cyclops eye, deadsville bird, such a waste …”

“What is that?” you whisper.

Kitty frowns. “It’s all gone, No take-backsees.”

You realize out loud, “Somebody died … besides you!”

She swallows.

“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe that’s why I’m stuck. Maybe I did somethin’ so stupid nobody wants me, alive or dead.”

There’s a beat where you recognize the shape of her guilt like a reflection. Not the specifics, but the feeling: I ruined everything. I don’t deserve peace.

You clear your throat.

“Or,” you say carefully, “maybe something terrible happened, and you’ve been alone with one horrible version of that story for so long, it’s the only one you remember.”

Her eyes find yours through the lens.

“And you think there’s another?” she asks.

“I think there’s more,” you reply. “And if this … ” you lift the phone slightly “… can show us, then maybe we don’t have to guess.”

[Haunted XR: additional investigation required]
 [Warning: emotional entanglement likely]

You snort. “Little late for that.”

Kitty tilts her head.

“What’s it say?” she asks.

“It says,” you answer, “that we might be able to figure out what happened to you. Keep digging deeper.”

She sucks in a breath that doesn’t move the air.

“And you’d… do that?” she asks. The bravado is gone. Just a girl, burned and stuck, trying not to hope.

You look at her, at the way compassion has literally stopped her from flickering out, at the way your own heart feels less like an empty room and more like… a job.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I’d do that.”

The flames around her settle into a steady, warm glow.

For the first time, Kitty smiles like it doesn’t hurt.

In the corner of the display, new text appears, faint and insistent:

[Haunted XR: case file “Kitty MacPherson” opened]
 [Further data required]

You swallow.

You’re no exorcist. No medium. Just an emotional basket-case in a messy bedroom, holding a haunted phone.

But when a ghost on fire looks at you like you might be her last chance at rest, “just” doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to say no.

You tighten your grip on the phone.

“Okay,” you whisper, more to yourself than to her. “What you got left in that head?”

(To be continued…)