He Locked Me in the Dark and Watched Me Die

Allan tells his girlfriend Olivia he wants to propose inside a haunted house. The moment she steps in, he cuts the power and locks the door from outside. The claustrophobia she has carried since being kidnapped as a child surges up, and her heart gives out. Outside, Allan laughs with the livestreamer Pauline Henson, who has won a bet: trick the girlfriend with the heart condition into the haunted house, and she is his for the night. Olivia's soul drifts free, bound to Allan as he takes Pauline through the dark rooms and then into the home her father built with his own hands.

As a ghost she can only watch. Pauline shatters the ceramic doll Olivia's mother made before she died, and Allan sweeps the pieces into the trash without a glance. Then his mother Frances Fox calls: Olivia's health-monitor watch has sent an SOS, and her father is frantic. Allan's knuckles whiten around the phone as he forces his voice to stay calm.