Glitchy Ghost Novels & Stories

There was fresh blood on the floor, but the animal didn't react. I took a shaky step forward, my heart hammering against my ribs. The wolf didn't turn. I walked closer, standing five feet away and holding my bleeding hand out. Nothing. I walked until I was standing right next to the bars, inches from the cold metal. The wolf threw itself at the cage again, trying to get to Declan. Its claws sparked against the iron. It ignored me completely. I was invisible. "You really are a Ghost," Declan said softly. He walked up beside me. He raised the knife again and sliced his own palm.

“We will burn anything that moves.” The voice that was not truly a voice laughed softly. “You will chase shadows and burn what you can see. But I am not visible until I must be. I am a net. I am a mirror. I am in your mistakes, in your water, in the machines you trust. Tulip prepared for your anger.” It shifted then in a way that made me think of the way tide shifts in storms. The edges of its form thinned and hazed. Light bent awkwardly across it. It was dissolving not into nothing but into smaller pieces of itself, like oil on water.

Without thinking, I walked outside, wanting to blend into the vast, frozen world around me. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier, my breathing became more labored, and my limbs began to lose sensation. I walked on numbly. The vast world around me offered no place of belonging. In the haze of my consciousness, a dark figure suddenly appeared in front of me. The person was panting as he reached out a pair of trembling arms to catch me before I fell. Though my body was weak, I still had some weight to me. In the icy cold, the frail arms struggled to carry me. Then, I heard a familiar murmuring in my ears, saying, "You can't die… You can't die…"

It seemed as if, after the dreadening encounter with the Formless beast, Grisha's psyche and rationality had shattered altogether. But this madness and irrationality were the very core of Akashic Glitch. The human mind was a puppet of the whims of the glitch. There was no binary answer to what was right or wrong. What made sense to someone might not make sense to another. That was the only truth. Soon enough, the sound of metal clanking reached Grisha's ears. Threads of sparks bloomed in her pupils, coming from 200 meters away. "Oh dear god!" Grisha sighed when she heard the clash. "He's still alive... thank god!"

My breath was choked up in my throat seeing her state. She was drenched with her own blood that camouflaged with her red shimmering torn dress. Blood blanketed her entire face. Her flesh was torn all over by the shards of the crystal chandelier. Some shards even stayed still on her cheeks. What caught my eyes were the lines of ripped flesh across both of her cheeks from the corners of her lips up to her ears. “Why do ghosts appear with a face before they die?” I quivered and looked away. “She desires something that’s why she hasn’t crossed over yet,” Grip opened up.

"I'm the version of you that didn't make it out of the lab fire in the first draft, Hazel. I'm the one they deleted because I was too angry to control. I’ve been living in the trash bin of this system for a long time." "She’s a Ghost Program," Silas said, stepping forward. He looked tired, his silver eyes dimming. "The Board thinks they wiped her, but you can’t kill a memory that wants revenge this badly. She’s the one who’s been sending the glitches. She’s the one who opened the door for you." "I don't care who she is," Bryan said, pulling me closer to him. He looked at the flaming wings with suspicion. "We need to get to the exit. The Eraser is already putting itself back together."

It was a man, but he was flat—two-dimensional, like a cardboard cutout, shimmering with a glitchy, purple light. He looked up at us, and he didn't have a face. Just a line of text where his eyes should be: [REVISION IN PROGRESS] "Run," I said, my voice cracking. "Run where?" Kieran demanded, shifting partially, his claws extending. "I don't flee from ghosts!"

Processes it. And… glitches. It tries to purge the data. But it’s too late. The paradox is a virus in its core code. A ghost in the machine. The concept of sacrificing oneself for something else is like a corrosive acid eating at the foundation of its everything. Its attacks on the Cage falter. The beams of logic waver, become incoherent. Its form shudders, contracts.

Half of his head was blown off, brains and dark red blood clinging to his eye socket. He must have been one of Marco's hired guns in life. There was no way he was among the living now. "Careful, little kitty. Nosing around can get you killed," the spirit said with a ghastly smile, black blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. A ghost. "Another one of Marco's guard dogs?" I asked coldly. "I'm the master of this pier," the spirit said, closing in. "But I took the boss's offering, so I have to clean up any bugs that crawl in."