A strange sound was coming from my basement…

My heart gripped with fear. I slowly opened the door, holding a broom handle in my hand so tightly that my knuckles were white. I pulled the chain, and a dim light bulb flickered to life.

I slowly, oh so slowly, tiptoed down the steep stairs. I fumbled for the flashlight on the only piece of furniture down there, a wooden side table. I turned the flashlight on and shone it in the basement to find…

A boy was standing there, facing the wall, apparently staring at… nothing.

“Uh… what are you doing in my house?” I asked.

Slowly, the boy turned around, and all at once, I realized I could see the wall behind him. Not just behind him. Through him.

“G-g-g-g-ghost!” I shouted and turned toward the stairs that led out of the basement. The door at the top slammed closed, then everything went black…

***

“What just happened?” I asked as my surroundings slowly blinked into sight.

“You passed out,” a doctor told me, peering over my hospital bed…

Wait, the hospital?

“When?” I asked.

“We’re not sure. You were found on the steps to the basement.”

I gasped as everything came flooding back to me.

“T-t-there was a ghost in the basement!” I cried.

“Oh, honey,” the doctor said in a sugar-coated voice, “I think you’re suffering from shock. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

I knew what I had seen, and I knew it wasn’t shock. There was a ghost in the basement.