"Every soul carries a story written in blood, tears, and shadows some are whispered, some are screamed, but all must be told before the light fades completely."
- From the ancient scrolls of the Veiled Realm
The road to Ghost Town does not exist on any map drawn by human hands. It has no markers, no sign posts, no gravel or asphalt to announce its presence. It appears only when the world is balanced between sleep and wakefulness when the moon hangs low and pale as a bone, when mist creeps across the earth like cold fingers, and when a soul has exhausted every other path.
Tonight, the road winds through a landscape that shifts with each step taken upon it. First, it cuts through a forest of trees with bark like cracked porcelain, their branches reaching upward like skeletal hands grasping for a sky that never quite clears. Then, without warning, the trees vanish, replaced by a desolate town square where rusted swings sway in a wind that carries no sound. Streetlamps flicker with a blue light so faint it seems more like memory than illumination, casting shadows that dance and twist independently of any source reaching, stretching, yearning for something just beyond the edge of sight. At the road's end stands a single wooden building, weathered by centuries no calendar can measure, its planks dark as burnt sugar and carved with symbols that glow faintly when the wind passes through them. A sign hangs above the door, swaying back and forth on iron chains: GHOST TOWN ALL STORIES WELCOME.
Inside, the air smells of old paper, damp earth, and something else something metallic and sweet, like blood mixed with wild honey. The walls are lined with shelves that stretch into darkness so deep they seem to bend around the edges of the room, each shelf holding countless books bound in what looks like dark leather, their spines unmarked and smooth as river stones. In the center of the space sits a heavy oak table, scarred with rings from thousands of cups and etched with the same glowing symbols that mark the building's exterior. Behind the table, a figure waits.
It looks like a boy first no older than sixteen, with messy black hair that falls across eyes the color of storm clouds gathering over the sea. He wears a simple white cotton shirt and dark wool trousers, his hands folded neatly on the polished wood as he stares at the empty chair across from him. His face is young, almost innocent, but his eyes hold a weight that belongs to someone who has seen too much, lived too long, and understood too deeply. But as the door creaks open with a sound like grinding teeth, the figure shifts. The hair shortens and darkens, the shoulders broaden, and suddenly he is a man in his late thirties, with a beard flecked with gray and hands that look calloused from work he cannot name. A moment later, his form changes again this time into a soldier in tattered khaki uniform, medals glinting on his chest though their ribbons have long since rotted away. Then, just as quickly, he becomes a woman with long black hair braided with small pieces of bone and stone, her face sharp and solemn as a knife blade.
This is Jhun the Ghost Teller.
He does not move as the newcomer steps into the room, though his appearance settles back into the boy's form. The visitor is not quite solid; their shape shimmers like heat rising from summer asphalt, and their skin has a pale, translucent quality that makes them seem more like glass than flesh. They are dressed in clothes from another time a woman in a yellow cotton dress that was once bright but has since faded to the color of dried straw, her bare feet leaving no marks on the wooden floor as she hesitates in the doorway. She trembles, and when she speaks, her voice is like wind through broken glass.
"Am I… am I dead?"
Jhun's lips curve into a gentle, sad smile. His voice is soft, but it fills every corner of the room without echoing, as if the walls themselves are listening. "You have been dead for three days, Samantha. Your body lies in a shallow grave behind the ruins of the old bakery in what was once called San Isidro. But here you are exactly where you need to be."
The woman, Samantha stumbles backward, her hands flying to her mouth. The movement makes her form flicker like a candle in a draft. "San Isidro… but that town was destroyed fifty years ago. I remember… I was there when the fire came. I was there when everything burned."
"Memories are stubborn things," Jhun says, and as he speaks, he shifts into the soldier's form, his voice deeper now, carrying the rough edge of someone who has stood on battlefields. "They cling to us even when the world we knew has turned to dust. That is why you are here. Every soul that finds its way to Ghost Town carries a story that must be told from the first breath you drew to the last moment your eyes closed in this world. I do not judge what you have done, or what was done to you. I cannot punish, cannot reward, cannot send you onward or force you to stay. I am only here to listen."
Samantha's form wavers, and tears that look like liquid silver stream down her cheeks, vanishing before they can reach her chin. "Why? What good will telling my story do? I am gone. Everyone I ever loved is gone too. There is no one left to care what happened to me."
Jhun stands, and as he does, he transforms into the woman with the bone-braided hair. She moves around the table with a grace that seems impossible for a figure so ethereal, and gestures to the empty chair with one slender hand. "Because stories are not only for the dead, Samantha. They are for the living. Every tale told here travels beyond these walls in whispers carried on the wind, in dreams that visit those who need to hear them most, in the choices people make when they stand at the edge of darkness. Your life mattered. Your death matters. And the lesson hidden in the threads of your story… that matters more than anything."
He returns to his seat, settling this time into the form of the bearded man, and reaches under the table to pull out a thick book bound in the same dark leather as those on the shelves. When he opens it, the pages are blank white as fresh snow and waiting. A small glass of water appears on the table before Samantha, though Jhun did not move to pour it. The water glows with the same faint blue light as the symbols on the wood, and steam rises from its surface despite the room's cold.
"Drink," he says. "It will help you speak clearly. The past has a way of twisting itself when we try to look back shaping memories to fit what we wish were true, or what we fear might be true. This water will steady your thoughts, so you can tell your story as it was not as you remember it, or as you wish it had been."
Samantha hesitates, then reaches out with a hand that passes through the glass once before her fingers close around it solidly. She brings it to her lips and drinks, and as she does, her form becomes slightly more defined her dress gaining color, her features sharpening until she looks almost as she might have in life. The silver tears stop flowing, and her eyes clear, focusing on Jhun with a steady gaze. She sits down in the chair, her hands folded in her lap.
"Where do I start?"
"At the beginning," Jhun says, opening the book fully and picking up a quill that seems to materialize from thin air. The feather is black as raven wings, and when it touches the page, it begins to write on its own though Jhun's hands remain still. "Tell me about the day you were born. Tell me about the first thing you can remember. Tell me about the people who made you who you were for good, or for ill."
Samantha closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, her gaze is distant, fixed on something only she can see. The room around them begins to shift, the wooden walls fading like mist to be replaced by the interior of a small house with a thatched roof and walls made of sun-baked clay. Rain drums against the windows, and the sound of a baby's cry fills the air strong and clear, full of life. Jhun watches, his appearance changing again and again as the story unfolds sometimes the boy, sometimes the man, sometimes the soldier, sometimes the woman each form seeming to match the mood of the tale Samantha weaves.
"I was born on a rainy day in 1947," she begins, her voice softening as she looks at the scene before her at a young woman with dark hair and tired eyes holding a swaddled bundle in her arms. "My mother said the sky opened up the moment I took my first breath, as if the world was crying for me even then. I didn't understand what she meant until much later. My father was a baker he owned the only bakery in San Isidro, and his bread was known for miles around. It was warm and sweet, made with honey from our hives and grain from our fields. Even the poorest families in town could afford to buy a small loaf on Sundays, and Father never turned anyone away empty-handed. He said a hungry stomach makes for a hard heart, and he wanted our town to be full of kind people."
The room shifts again, this time to a sun-drenched courtyard where a small girl with curly black hair chases a chicken through rows of corn stalks. A younger boy no more than four years old runs beside her, his laughter bright and clear as church bells.
"That was Diego," Samantha says, pointing to the boy with a smile that holds both joy and pain. "My little brother. He was small for his age, but he was brave braver than anyone I've ever known. He used to say he was going to build a bridge across the river that ran through the town, so San Isidro could be connected to the whole world. He'd spend hours drawing plans in the dirt with a stick, explaining every beam and bolt to anyone who'd listen. Mother would shake her head and say he had too much ambition for such a small body, but she was proud of him. She was proud of both of us."
As she continues, the mood of the story darkens. The room transforms into the town's market square, where wooden stalls are lined up along a dirt road. People move through the space, but their faces are tight with worry, their voices low with concern. Samantha points to a man standing on a wooden crate at the square's centertall and sharp-dressed, with silver hair and eyes that seem to see everything and care about nothing.
"That was Mayor Torrez," she says, her voice hardening. "He came to town when I was seventeen, promising to bring prosperity to San Isidro. He spoke of building a factory on the riverbank one that would make cloth and tools, give everyone a job, bring money into our town so we'd never have to worry about hard times again. He was clever with his words, and he knew just what to say to make people believe him. The younger folks especially they were tired of living the same way their parents and grandparents had, tired of being poor and isolated. They wanted more."
Jhun shifts into the soldier's form, his face set in lines of grim understanding. The quill in the book moves faster now, scratching against the pages with a sound like insects scurrying over dry leaves.
"Father was against it from the start," Samantha continues, the market square fading to be replaced by the interior of the bakery warm and smelling of fresh bread. Her father stands at a wooden counter, his hands folded as he speaks to a group of other farmers and shopkeepers. "He said the river was the heart of our town that it gave us water to drink, fish to eat, soil to grow our crops in. If we built a factory on its banks, he said, we'd poison the water, kill the fish, and watch our land turn to dust. He gathered the older folks to speak out against the plan, but Mayor Torrez was one step ahead of him. He told the young people that Father and the others were just afraid of change, that they wanted to keep everyone poor so they could stay in power. He said progress was necessary, even if some people had to be left behind."
The room shifts to the night of the town meeting, where wooden benches are filled with people shouting and arguing. Samantha sits beside a young man with dark hair and a scar above his left eye his hand in hers, his face set with determination.
"That was Martin," she says, her voice catching. "We'd been in love since we were children. We were going to marry as soon as the meeting was over we'd planned to take over the bakery from Father, to have children of our own, to build the life we'd always dreamed of. But Marco believed Mayor Torrez. He said the factory would give us a better life that we could have a house with real floors and windows that didn't leak when it rained. He argued with Father that night they shouted so loud the whole town could hear them. Father said Martin was being foolish, that he didn't understand what he was asking for. Martin said Father was being selfish, that he cared more about his old ways than about the future of the town. They almost came to blows before the mayor stepped in and calmed things down."
The vote passed by a narrow margin. Construction on the factory began the next week, and within a month, the river water had turned from clear to brown. The fish began to die, floating belly-up on the surface like strange wooden toys. People started getting sick at first with small things, headaches and stomach aches, but then with a fever that left them weak and confused, their skin breaking out in dark spots that looked like bruises.
"Diego was the first to fall ill," Samantha says, the room transforming into a small bedroom where a young boy lies in bed, his skin pale and slick with sweat. "He'd been helping the mayor's men clear land for the factory he thought he was helping build the foundation for his bridge. He said he'd seen strange things in the woods while he was working shadows that moved even when there was no wind, voices that whispered his name in languages he didn't know. He said they told him the town would burn if we didn't stop what we were doing. We thought he was just delirious from the fever."
Her mother thin and exhausted moves around the room, mixing herbs in a wooden bowl and pressing cool cloths to Diego's forehead. "She tried everything," Samantha says, tears welling in her eyes again. "Every herb she knew, every potion her own mother had taught her. But the fever was different it wasn't like any sickness she'd ever seen. She said it was the river's anger, that we'd betrayed the spirits who had protected us for generations. Father went to the mayor to beg him to close the factory, but when he got to the mayor's house, he found it empty. Torrez had taken all the money he'd collected from the townspeople for the factory and vanished into thin air. He'd never intended to build anything at all he'd just wanted to steal what little we had."
The room shifts to a makeshift hospital ward in the town's church, though it looks more like a stable than a place of healing. Beds are made of straw and rough wood, and people lie on them pale and still, their breathing shallow. Diego is in the corner, his eyes closed, his small body barely moving. Samantha sits beside him, holding his hand, her own skin hot with the same fever that has taken hold of her brother.
"Diego told me he was sorry," she whispers, her voice barely audible over the sound of labored breathing. "He said he'd known something was wrong, but he'd wanted so badly to believe that he could help build a better future for us all. He said he'd seen the spirits of the river that morning they'd stood at the edge of his bed and told him that the town would be cleansed by fire. I didn't understand what he meant until later that night."
Diego died just as the sun was setting, his eyes closing with a look of peace that seemed impossible in a place so full of pain. Samantha's mother followed him three days later her body worn out from trying to heal others when she couldn't save her own son. Father withdrew into himself after that, stopping work at the bakery, spending his days sitting by Diego's grave and staring at the brown river that had once been clear and life-giving.
"One night, I found him in the bakery," Samantha says, the room shifting back to the familiar space dark now, and cold. "He had a can of kerosene in his hand, and he was pouring it over the flour sacks and wooden tables. He said if the town was going to die anyway, he'd rather burn it clean than let it rot from the inside out. He said the fire would purify us, would make things right again. I tried to stop him we fought, we shouted, we knocked over the can, and kerosene spilled everywhere, soaking the floors and the walls. I don't know how it happened maybe a spark from the oven, maybe a match Father dropped. One moment we were arguing, the next the whole room was in flames."
The air fills with the smell of smoke and kerosene. Samantha's voice rises, full of pain and regret. "I ran for the door, but Father was standing in front of it. He said he wouldn't let me leave not when the town needed to be cleansed. I tried to push past him, but the flames were too hot, and they caught the hem of my dress. I fell to the floor, and the last thing I saw before everything went black was Father standing in the doorway, his face calm as the fire closed in around him."
When she opens her eyes again, she is back in the room with Jhun. The book before him is half-full, its pages covered in neat black writing that seems to glow faintly in the dim light. Jhun has shifted into the woman with the bone-braided hair, her eyes soft with sorrow.
"You think you are to blame," she says not as a question, but as a statement of fact.
"I should have stopped him," Samantha cries, her form flickering with emotion. "I should have found another way. If I'd listened to him instead of fighting him, if I'd helped him find a way to fix what was broken instead of trying to stop him… none of it would have happened. The fire spread from the bakery to the whole town. By morning, San Isidro was gone. Fifty-seven people died that night including Father, and Martin, who came running when he saw the flames, trying to save us both."
Jhun reaches across the table and places a hand on Samantha's ...shoulder. Though his form is ethereal, she feels the touch warm and solid, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
"Your story is not one of blame, Samantha," Jhun says, his voice carrying the gentle weight of ages. "It is a lesson about the cost of choosing fear over wisdom, haste over patience, and destruction over hope. The mayor chose greed over honesty. The townspeople chose easy promises over hard truths. Your father chose despair over perseverance. And you… you chose panic over understanding. But none of you acted alone, and none of you bear the burden entirely."
"But what good is that lesson now?" Samantha asks, her voice breaking. "The town is gone. Everyone I loved is gone. No one will ever know what happened here no one will ever learn from our mistakes."
Jhun smiles, and as he does, his appearance cycles through all four forms boy, man, soldier, woman before settling into something that is none of them and all of them at once. His eyes hold the light of countless stars, and his voice echoes with the sound of every story he has ever heard.
"The living will know," he says. "Tonight, a young woman named Sarah will lie down to sleep in the city that now stands where San Isidro once did. She is an engineer, working on plans to build a new industrial complex on the very same riverbank. As she sleeps, she will dream of this town of you, of your family, of every moment you have just told me. She will see the river turn brown, watch the people grow sick, feel the heat of the fire that consumed everything you held dear. When she wakes, she will not remember the dream clearly, but she will feel its weight in her heart. She will ask questions about the land, about the water, about what was there before. She will push for tests, for studies, for safeguards that no one had thought to ask for before. Your story will change the choices she makes and in doing so, it will change the lives of everyone who lives in that city."
He closes the book and runs his hand over its cover. The leather seems to absorb the light in the room, growing darker still. When he places it on the shelf behind him, it vanishes into the rows of identical volumes, finding its place as if it had always been there.
"Every story told here becomes part of the great tapestry of life and death," Jhun continues, shifting back into the boy's form young, gentle, and wise beyond his years. "They do not disappear when the telling is done. They travel on the wind, seep into the earth, find their way into the hearts of those who need to hear them. That is why I exist. I am not a judge, not an executioner, not a guide to the afterlife. I am only a keeper of stories a bridge between the world of the dead and the world of the living. My only purpose is to make sure that no soul's journey is forgotten, and no lesson is lost to time."
Samantha stands, and as she does, her form grows brighter less translucent, more whole. The yellow of her dress deepens to its original shade, and her hair falls around her shoulders like living silk. She looks around the room, at the endless shelves of books, at the flickering blue light, at Jhun who stands before her with storm-cloud eyes and a gentle smile.
"Am I ready now?" she asks.
"Your story has been told," Jhun replies. "The choice is yours. You can stay here in Ghost Town, if you wish help me listen to the stories of other souls, help me make sure their lessons find their way to the living. Or you can move on, into whatever lies beyond this place. There is no right choice, no wrong choice. Only the choice that feels true to you."
Samantha walks to the window though there is no glass in the frame, only darkness beyond and looks out at the shifting road that leads to nowhere and everywhere. She thinks of her family, of Martin, of the town that was once her home. Then she turns back to Jhun, her face calm and clear.
"I think I'd like to stay," she says. "There are so many stories I want to hear. So many lessons I want to help share. Maybe… maybe one day, I'll even be able to help someone else understand that blame doesn't heal anything that the only way to honor the dead is to help the living make better choices."
As she speaks, another figure appears at the door this one a young man in modern clothes, his form shimmering like water in sunlight. He looks scared, lost, his eyes wide with confusion and pain. Jhun turns to him, and his appearance shifts again this time into a doctor in a white coat, his hands clean and steady, his eyes full of compassion.
"Welcome to Ghost Town," Jhun says, his voice soft and clear as a bell. "Please, come in. Tell me your story."
The young man hesitates for a moment, then steps across the threshold. The door creaks closed behind him, and the wind outside carries the sound of whispers stories being told, lessons being learned, souls finding their way home.
The road to Ghost Town has no name. It does not appear on any map. But for those who need it for those who have stories to tell and lessons to share it will always be there, winding through the shadows and the mist, leading to a place where every soul matters, and every story lives on.