Ghosts in Beta 

I told myself I was just going to check one more thread.

My bedroom is a comfortable disaster: laundry chair, half-open closet, textbooks stacked like failed Tetris, a lamp that buzzes when it’s bored. My laptop is open on an article I’m not reading. My phone, as usual, is the brightest thing in the room.

Everyone I know comes to me when they’re falling apart. Tonight, no one needs me. Which is great. And awful.

I was scrolling through a paranormal forum I pretend to read ironically, when a post made me stop.

Someone claimed they’d made something that could show you the dead and talk to them through your camera. No branding, no download link, just a black square icon with a pale ring around a door. The kind of thing that looks wrong in a way you can’t explain.

The post ended with one sentence, “If you’re still carrying someone, this might let them answer back.”

I should have scrolled past.

Instead, I stared at that line until the light from my screen felt like it was pressing into my eyes.

And then, somehow, the icon appeared on my own phone. There it was, a black square, a white ring, a faint outline of a door.

When I tapped it, my phone went dark. For a second, I thought it crashed. 

A message appeared saying it was calibrating the camera.

The room felt heavier, like the air forgot how to move. My lamp flickered twice and died with a sound like a sigh. My laptop went black too, its fan wheezing to a stop.

I should have dropped the phone right then, but I didn’t. The screen glowed faintly and told me to point at a window, door, or mirror.

I turned toward the bedroom window. Streetlight leaked through the blinds in a thin orange slice.

When the camera opened, I could see the room behind me—desk, books, reflection. Normal. Until a pulse of orange light shimmered near the glass, like a spark trapped between worlds.

A warning flashed, indicating the connection was unstable.

The glow stretched, forming something that looked like a skull made of fire.

I whispered the first thing that came to mind, “Absolutely not.”

A resonating thud banged from the phone’s speaker as if something hit the backside of the window.

The light on my phone shimmered, and the orange glow slid down the wall like a thread of smoke that didn’t understand gravity. It crept toward my closet, curling around the doorframe, sinking into the cracks.

My pulse slowed until I could hear the blood behind my eyes.

Another line of text scrolled across the screen, indicating a connection was forming.

A name appeared, “Kitty”

I laughed under my breath because it was easier than screaming. “Sure. Why not,” I said to the empty room.

That’s when the knocking started. Two quiet, polite taps from the inside of my closet door.

I froze. My reflection in the window behind me didn’t move either.

“Very funny,” I whispered. “No one’s home.”

The knocks came again, same rhythm, a little sharper this time, like impatience.

I told myself it had to be the pipes, the wood, the building breathing. Anything but what it sounded like.

“Who’s there?” I finally managed.

Silence.

Then, a girl’s voice, small and annoyed, came through my phone’s speaker.
“Who do you think? Santa? Open up, princess.”

The orange light flared across the doorframe.

I reached for the knob. My hand was shaking.

And when I pulled, the whole room caught fire.

I don’t scream. Mostly because my lungs forget how.

In the camera view, fire bloomed everywhere. Bones made of light, a tall figure standing in my closet like it just kicked its way out of a nightmare. In real life, my closet holds nothing but clothes and a stubborn suitcase.

On my phone, the flaming skull leaned down until it filled the frame.
“Boo”

I squeaked… just a little

The skull sighed, disappointed. “That’s all? I practiced that all week.”

“Kitty?” I whispered.

The fire ripples, shrinking, folding in on itself until the skeleton becomes a girl about sixteen, charred around the edges, her school jacket burned half away. Her hair is wild, her eyes sharp.

“So you’re the one holding the ghost radio,” she said in a Scottish accent that rolls like gravel. “You gonna point that thing at my face all night, or…?”

“I downloaded something,” I stammered. “I didn’t order a ghost.”

“Spirit,” she said. “Or cautionary tale. Will-o’-the-wisp ya know?”

She stepped closer, visible only through the screen. Embers fluttered from her shoulders.

I couldn’t tell if she was teasing or testing me, but when the flames around her flickered weakly, my chest tightened.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” she lied. “Just been a long time since anybody saw me.”

I took a slow breath. “Well… I see you.”

Her head snapped up. The fire steadied, glowing warmer. Candlelight instead of lightning.

“Better,” she murmured, looking at her hands. “Whatever this box is, it likes me being nice.”

She squinted and studied me. “Soft eyes. Nervous hands. Probably apologizes to the kettle when making tea.”

I flushed. “…No.”

She grinned. “Aye. Thought so.”

We talked. About engines, and garages, and her dad who could rebuild a Chevy faster than he could hug. She jokes about dying in a fire, because that’s easier than saying how much it hurt.

Somewhere in her story, my heart cracked open.

When I told her I’m sorry, the flames around her surged. For a heartbeat I saw her as she must have been—grease-smudged, stubborn, alive.

“Careful,” she said softly. “Keep talking like that, and I might start thinking I deserve to be seen.”

Her voice drifted, “Sometimes I remember headlights. A dare. The other car. Fire. Screaming. Then nothing. Maybe that’s why I’m stuck.”

“Maybe,” I told her, “you’ve just been alone with one version of that story for too long.”

She studied me through the lens. “And you think there’s another?”

“I think there’s more,” I said. “And maybe we can find it.”

Her flames settled, steady. 

“If I help you remember,” I continued, “we can find the truth. Maybe even peace.”

She nodded slowly. “And then I’d have to forgive myself.”

“That one’s your choice … I’ll be here.”

She laughed once, quick and bright. “Look at us, angel and arson.”

“Hey,” I said. “You started it.”

The light around her brightened, clean and golden.

But then her outline stuttered, like bad reception. Static crawled across her image.

“Kitty?” I reached toward the screen.

She flickered again and said carefully, “You know you’ll have to help me face what happened. My dad. The driver. Everything. You sure?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

The glow flared. For a moment she was fierce, alive in every way that matters.

Then the signal broke.

“Wait—” I started, but she had already faded, her voice had slipped into a hum that sounded like an engine far away.

My phone went dark. The room was only me, my clutter, my breath.

A single line slid across the screen, indicating Kitty MacPherson needed help.

I stared at the words until they burned into my reflection.

Self-doubt and inadequacy flooded my mind.

But when a ghost on fire looks at you like you might be her last chance at rest, “just” doesn’t feel like a reason to walk away.

I tightened my grip on the phone.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s find out what really happened.”

The screen pulsed once, like a heartbeat.

Somewhere inside the walls, I heard a faint laugh: Scottish, defiant, grateful.

And for the first time all night, the room didn’t feel empty.