---
If I thought my first day at college would be about navigating syllabi and finding the best spot in the library, I was a special kind of stupid. My life was no longer my own. It had been officially annexed by the Pine Valley Supernatural Club.
For the next seventy-two hours, I became their primary research project. Lexi, with the terrifying focus of a mad scientist, had devised what he called the "Aura Activity Log." This involved a series of "tests" that felt more like a curated form of torture designed specifically to fluster me.
"Okay, Subject Alex," Lexi announced, perched on a stool with a clipboard. He was wearing a lab coat over a crop top and skinny jeans, an outfit that was both scientifically intimidating and deeply distracting. "Test number four: Proximity-based Ectoplasmic Resonance. Yuki, you're on emitter duty."
"Yay! Cuddle time!" Yuki chirped, launching himself from a beanbag chair. Before I could protest, he had wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, pressing his cheek against my back. He smelled overwhelmingly of strawberries. "Ooh, your back is so warm! Is this the aura? It's totally tingling!"
I stood rigid in the center of their clubroom, various sensors stuck to my chest and temples with medical tape. A bank of EMF meters on a nearby table immediately started chirping, their lights flickering from green to a frantic red.
"Fascinating," Lexi murmured, scribbling notes. "Physical contact from a sensitive individual causes a significant spike. Sage, what's the ambient temperature reading?"
Sage, who was monitoring a laptop covered in glowing graphs, looked up. His tall frame was curled comfortably in an armchair, a cup of coffee steaming beside him. His rust-red eyes held a look of deep concentration. "Temperature has increased by two degrees centigrade in a three-foot radius around Alex. The spike correlates exactly with Yuki's contact." He gave me a soft, almost proud smile. "You're doing great, Alex. Just breathe normally."
Breathe normally. Right. Easy for him to say. He wasn't the one being used as a human radio tower by a caffeinated tech-mom while a strawberry-scented gremlin used "science" as an excuse to hug him.
"This is ridiculous," I muttered, my face feeling hot.
"Silence in the lab, Subject," Lexi said without looking up. "Your subjective experience is noted, but the empirical data is what matters. Yuki, switch to frontal contact. I want to see if the resonance is directional."
Yuki didn't need to be told twice. He released me, skipped around to my front, and then, without a hint of shame, wrapped his arms around my torso and buried his face in my chest. "Mmm, much better! Front-facing cuddles are superior for aura reception! I can feel the vibrations in my teeth!"
The EMF meters went berserk. One of them started emitting a high-pitched whine.
"Remarkable," Lexi breathed, his eyes wide. "Sage, are you getting this?"
"I am," Sage said, his voice a low, intrigued hum. "The energy signature is becoming more coherent. It's almost as if it's... responding to the stimulus."
The stimulus. I was being stimulated to the brink of a nervous breakdown.
This was my new reality. Between classes, which now felt like brief, boring interludes, I was dragged to the clubroom for "data collection." They followed me, too. Not in a creepy stalker way—okay, maybe a little—but in a "we need to monitor your ambient field throughout the day" way.
I'd be trying to find a book in the library, and Lexi would suddenly materialize from behind a bookshelf, holding a Geiger counter-like device that clicked rhythmically as I passed.
"Confirmed. The restricted section has a higher residual haunting potential, but your presence is causing localized agitation. Don't check out any books on demonology," he'd state before vanishing back into the stacks.
I'd be in the cafeteria, trying to eat a sad-looking burger, and Yuki would slide into the seat opposite me, placing a small, ornate crystal on the table.
"This is a focus stone! I'm testing to see if your aura can charge it with spiritual energy! Just go about your business, don't mind me!" he'd say, then proceed to stare intently at me, and the crystal, while I tried to chew.
The worst, or maybe the most confusing, was Sage. He didn't ambush me with gadgets. He ambushed me with care. I'd be leaving my last class, exhausted, and he'd be waiting by the door with a fresh, hot coffee.
"You look tired. Your energy levels must be draining you. Here, drink this. It's got an extra shot of espresso," he'd say, pressing the warm cup into my hands. His fingers would brush against mine, and the simple contact felt more intense than any of Yuki's full-body hugs. It was calm, deliberate, and felt like it carried the weight of a thousand unspoken promises. He'd then walk me to the clubroom, his presence a silent, towering shield against the world, all while subtly herding me exactly where he wanted me to go.
I was being studied, cuddled, and mothered into submission. And the terrifying part? I was starting to get used to the buzzing in my bones. It was becoming the soundtrack to my life, a constant hum that only quieted when all three of them were close, as if their presence somehow stabilized the signal.
It was after one of these "stabilizing" sessions—which involved me sitting quietly while they all stood at different points in the room, "calibrating their senses" to my aura—that Lexi dropped the real bomb.
"Okay, the baseline is established. Your passive emission is a seven on the Vance Scale of Paranormal Attraction. But we need to see it under pressure." He folded his arms, a glint in his brown eyes. "We're going on a field trip. A real investigation."
Yuki gasped, clapping his hands together. "Yes! Finally! Where are we going? The old cemetery? The abandoned asylum?"
Lexi's smirk was razor-sharp. "Something better. The third-floor men's bathroom in the Liberal Arts building. The one with the flickering light."
My blood went cold. That was my bathroom. The one where this whole nightmare had started.
"The readings there have been consistently high for weeks, but sporadic," Sage added, looking at me with those knowing eyes. "But with a catalyst present... we might finally get some conclusive data."
They all looked at me. Lexi with anticipation, Yuki with excitement, and Sage with a gentle, unshakable certainty.
I was no longer just a subject. I was about to become the bait.
---
The "field trip" was scheduled for 10 PM., when the Liberal Arts building was supposedly empty except for a lone, bored security guard. The walk there was a surreal procession. Lexi led the way, a determined general in a dark tracksuit, a heavy duffel bag of equipment slung over his shoulder. Yuki buzzed around me like an excited hornet, clutching a spirit box that occasionally spat out random syllables of static.
"Ooh, it just said 'cold'! Do you feel cold, Alex? Maybe it's trying to talk to you!"
I felt nothing but a deep, profound sense of impending doom.
Sage brought up the rear, a silent, towering sentinel. He carried a high-end thermal camera and moved with a quiet grace that was unnerving. His presence was a comfort and a concern all at once. He was the only one who hadn't treated this like a game, his expression serious, his protective instincts on high alert.
"The entity in this location is classified as a Class-C Apparition," Lexi stated, not looking back as he pushed open the heavy front door. "Mostly harmless. Shows itself as light manipulation and auditory phenomena. But with you here, Alex, we have no idea how it will react. Your aura could agitate it, empower it, or... pacify it. That's what we're here to find out."
"Pacify it?" I whispered, my voice echoing in the cavernous, dark hallway. "How could I possibly pacify a ghost?"
Sage's hand landed on my shoulder, a heavy, calming weight. "We don't know the full extent of your abilities yet," he said, his voice low. "Just stay close to me."
We reached the third floor. The air was colder here, the silence thicker. At the end of the hall, a pale, flickering light spilled from the open doorway of the men's bathroom. The flicker was irregular, stuttering, like a dying heartbeat.
Flicker... darkness... flicker... darkness.
My own heart was trying to match its rhythm. The static in my bones was no longer a hum; it was a dissonant chord being played on my spine, a physical pull toward that room.
"Readings are already spiking," Lexi murmured, pulling an EMF meter from his bag. The device was screaming, its needle pinned in the red zone. "Yuki, set up the recorders. Sage, get a baseline thermal. Alex... you're with me."
He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong, and pulled me toward the doorway. The flickering light cast strobing, jumpy shadows across his determined face.
"Lexi, maybe we should—" Sage started, a note of caution in his voice.
"We need proximity for a valid test," Lexi cut him off, his eyes glued to the meter. "Don't be a mother hen. He's fine."
He was not fine. I was about three seconds from redecorating the hallway with my pancake dinner. As we crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped another ten degrees. My breath plumed in the air. The flickering light was coming from a single bulb above the row of sinks. In the strobing darkness, the mirrors showed fragmented, terrifying glimpses of our faces.
Flicker. Me, pale and terrified.
Darkness.
Flicker.Lexi, focused and exhilarated.
Darkness.
"Can you feel it, Alex?" Lexi whispered, his voice tight with excitement. "It's focusing on you. All its energy is converging right here." He pushed me forward, toward the sinks. "Stand right there. Don't move."
The pull was unbearable now. It felt like hooks were set in my chest, yanking me forward. The static was a roar in my ears, drowning out everything except the frantic thumping of my heart. In the mirror, during a flash of light, I saw it. A dark, smudged shape standing directly behind my reflection. It had no features, just a blot of concentrated cold and malice.
Flicker. The shape was closer.
Darkness.
Flicker.It was right behind me.
I tried to scream, but my throat was frozen shut. I was paralyzed, locked in a staring contest with the void in the mirror.
Then, something changed.
The pulling stopped. The roaring static didn't vanish, but it... shifted. It smoothed out, transforming from a chaotic scream into a single, focused, resonant tone. The flickering light above the sinks steadied, casting a weak but constant yellow glow.
The dark shape in the mirror writhed, not in anger, but in what looked like confusion. It dissolved, not with a scream, but with a sound like a sigh, fading away into nothing.
Silence. The steady hum of the fluorescent light. The EMF meter in Lexi's hand let out one last, pathetic beep and fell silent.
I stood there, trembling, my hands gripping the cold porcelain of the sink.
"What... what happened?" I gasped, finally able to speak.
Lexi was staring at me, his clipboard forgotten on the floor. His usual smugness was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated awe. "You... you didn't just pacify it," he breathed. "You absorbed it. Your aura didn't fight it; it... consumed the negative energy. Assimilated it."
Yuki poked his head in, his eyes wide. "The spirit box is totally quiet! It's like someone unplugged the ghost!"
Sage stepped into the bathroom, the thermal camera held loosely at his side. He looked from the now-normal light to me, his expression unreadable. "The cold spot is gone. The entire area has normalized." He walked over to me, his gaze intense. "Alex... are you alright?"
Before I could answer, Lexi was in front of me, so close I could smell the peaches on his skin. He reached up and put a hand on the side of my neck, his thumb resting on my pulse point. His touch was electric.
"Do you have any idea what this means?" he whispered, his eyes searching mine. "You're not just a magnet, Alex. You're a filter. A purifier. You don't attract the supernatural... you process it."
The implications hit me like a truck. Every ghost, every monster, every creepy feeling I'd ever had... it wasn't trying to hurt me. It was drawn to me because on some fundamental level, I could neutralize it. I was a walking, talking supernatural air freshener.
Yuki squeezed between us, wrapping his arms around my waist and looking up at me with stars in his eyes. "You're amazing! You're like a super-powered vacuum cleaner for bad vibes! We have to test this on a real demon!"
Sage's hand landed on my other shoulder, his touch a stark contrast to Lexi's thrilling shock and Yuki's giddy excitement. It was grounding, possessive. "This changes everything," he said, his voice low and firm. "You're far more powerful, and far more vulnerable, than we realized. You can't be allowed to wander around alone anymore."
I was surrounded. Lexi's hand was on my neck, Yuki was glued to my side, and Sage's grip on my shoulder was like iron. The fear from the ghost was gone, replaced by a new, different kind of panic. They were looking at me like I was the most fascinating, precious, and dangerous thing they had ever found.
The buzzing in my bones was gone. In its place was a new feeling, one that was warm and terrifying all at once. It was the feeling of their complete and total focus.
My life as a normal person was officially, irrevocably over. I was their discovery. Their project. Theirs.
The walk back to the P.V.S.C. clubroom was a silent, somber parade. The air, once thick with the chilling presence of the supernatural, now felt heavy with the weight of a terrifying new reality. My reality. I wasn't a victim. I was a… processor. A filter. The words echoed in my head, each one more absurd and terrifying than the last.
Lexi was practically vibrating with intellectual fervor, his earlier awe hardening into a razor-sharp focus. He marched ahead, muttering to himself, sketching frantic diagrams in a small notebook. "Assimilation, not dissipation... the energy has to go somewhere... is it converted? Stored? The metabolic implications alone..."
Yuki, for once, was quiet. He clung to my arm, not with his usual playful energy, but with a kind of reverent possessiveness. He'd look up at me every few steps, his big eyes wide, as if I'd just grown a halo. Or maybe horns. "You ate a ghost," he whispered for the third time, a statement of pure, unadulterated wonder.
Sage was the anchor, his tall frame a steady presence at my back. He didn't speak, but his silence was louder than any of Lexi's theories. His hand remained on the small of my back, a constant, warm pressure that felt less like comfort and more like a brand. A claim.
We reached the clubroom, and Lexi immediately beelined for the main whiteboard, erasing weeks of work with frantic sweeps of his arm. "Forget everything!" he announced, his voice ringing with authority. "The previous data is obsolete. We are now studying a Type-Omega parapsychological phenomenon." He scrawled "THE ALEX PROTOCOLS" at the top of the board in large, blocky letters.
"Type-Omega?" I squeaked, my voice still shaky.
"Classifications are for things we understand," Lexi said, not turning around as he began writing a list of new tests. "You, Alex, are in a class of your own." He tapped the board with the marker. "Priority one: we need to find the upper limit of your absorption capacity. Can you handle a poltergeist? A residual haunt? A non-corporeal entity with true sentience?"
My stomach dropped. "You want to feed me more ghosts?"
"Of course!" He finally turned, his eyes gleaming. "We need to establish your tolerances. For your own safety. What if you encounter something too powerful? We need to know your breaking point."
This was insane. They were talking about me like I was a new model of car that needed a stress test.
"Priority two," Sage's calm voice cut through my rising panic. He had moved to stand beside me, crossing his arms. His gaze was fixed on Lexi, a hint of challenge in his rust-red eyes. "Is safety. We don't throw him into a den of wraiths on day one. We start small. Controlled environments."
Lexi waved a dismissive hand. "Obviously. But we can't be too cautious. The data is paramount."
"The subject's well-being is paramount," Sage countered, his voice dropping into that soft, dangerous register. He placed a hand on my head, his fingers gently ruffling my hair. It was a strangely intimate, domineering gesture. "He's not just a test subject, Lexi. He's our responsibility. My responsibility."
Yuki, who had been quietly setting up a digital recorder, piped up. "Ooh, we should do a sleepover study! We can monitor his aura while he sleeps! I'll volunteer to be the little spoon to monitor his bio-rhythms!" He waggled his eyebrows at me.
The conversation devolved from there. It was no longer a discussion about if they would experiment on me, but how and when. I was a spectator in the planning of my own dissection. Lexi argued for aggressive data collection. Sage advocated for a methodical, protective approach. Yuki just suggested increasingly elaborate scenarios that all ended with him being physically attached to me.
I sank into the worn-out beanbag chair, the same one Yuki had been in earlier. The adrenaline had faded, leaving me hollow and exhausted. The static was gone, but a new emptiness had taken its place. I had walked in here looking for answers, and I'd found them. The answer was that I was a freak, and I had attracted three other freaks who were now going to dedicate their lives to figuring out just how freaky I could be.
"Hey."
I looked up. Sage was standing over me, holding a fresh mug of coffee. The rich, comforting aroma was a stark contrast to the cold sterility of the ghost's bathroom.
"Here," he said, offering it to me. "You look like you need this more than I do."
I took it, my hands trembling slightly around the warm ceramic. "Thanks."
He knelt down in front of the beanbag chair, putting us at eye level. It was a disarmingly humble posture for someone so tall and imposing. "I know this is a lot," he said, his voice so low only I could hear it. "And Lexi can be... intense. But he's right about one thing. This is a gift, Alex. A powerful one. And powerful things need to be understood, and protected." He reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering for a moment on my cheek. "You don't have to be afraid. Not as long as you're with us. With me."
His words were meant to be comforting, but they sent a fresh chill down my spine. It was the gentlest prison sentence I'd ever received.
Lexi was obsessed with my power.
Yuki was obsessed with the novelty I represented.
But Sage?Sage was obsessed with me. The fragile, vulnerable boy inside the supernatural battery. And that felt like the most dangerous obsession of all.
I took a sip of the coffee. It was perfect. Just the right amount of sugar and cream. Of course it was. Sage always got things right.
"Okay," Lexi announced, clapping his hands together. "The preliminary schedule for the Alex Protocols is set. We begin tomorrow after your last class. First on the agenda: testing for emotional catalysts. Does fear, anger, or... other strong emotions affect your absorption rate?" He looked at me, and that familiar, smug smirk was back. "It's going to be a very interesting week."
I finished the coffee, the warmth doing little to fight the cold certainty settling in my gut. The haunting was over. The real horror was just beginning. I had survived a ghost, but I was starting to wonder if I would survive my rescuers.
---
To Be Continue...