ADSactly Fiction : Date With The Ghost

Meeting an online date can be cool; at least it can distract you from your singlehood; but it can also go awry depending on what fate presents to you.

Dave; a fine single young man in his early thirties; had been unsuccessful in finding a girlfriend after he broke up with his girlfriend a few years back - even going on a date had become like "mission impossible" for just no reason. Everyone he approached for a date would not show up on the day of the proposed date.

Dave hadn't felt this lonely before in his life. At last, he stumbled on a dating site, and it looked like things fell into place for him. Soon after, he got a date from the site. She was very beautiful and in her late twenties - I mean, Cheryl was the epitome of beauty, but Dave didn't know that was how the devil catwalked gently into his lonely life.

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Things got unusually quick with them, and in less than three days of meeting online, they planned a physical date. Since they lived in the same city, the venue of the date wasn't too far for both of them. Cheryl made a choice of the venue and Dave concurred, after all, he had been waiting to have a date in years. On the morning of the proposed date, Dave got a call from Cheryl;

"Hey Dave, would you mind if we rescheduled the venue for our date," Cheryl asked in the sexiest tone ever.

Dave said that it was no problem.

Cheryl added, "I’ve recently moved into a new apartment, and I would love to have my first date in the apartment.”

”erm; why not?" - Dave responded.

Cheryl continued, "You can pass the night with me in my apartment, Netflix will be showing the premiere of GOT and I want us to watch it together; don't worry, I won't rape you".

Dave laughed for a while, and said, "Okay I'll be at your place this evening".

Cheryl sent him the address. He dressed in his dinner suit and boom!! He was heading for destruction Cheryl's house. When he arrived at the house, the place was quite big and exotic and was beyond the mental picture created by Dave.

Dave asked, "You mean you stay here all alone?"

Cheryl nodded.

Well, things went on normally as anyone would expect on a normal date. Cheryl had already set a table with some French wines.

How did she know French wines are my favourite? Dave thought to himself.

Well, he knocked that off as sheer coincidence - only if he had listened to his instincts.

As they progressed through the dinner, he experienced some weird inexplicable feelings. You know the kind of feeling you have when something bad is about to happen? That was exactly what Dave felt. Since he couldn't explain the feelings, it was pointless telling Cheryl about it. He had to force himself to stay cool and even made funny gestures at Cheryl.

Suddenly, cold chill rested on Dave and goose bumps covered his body. He was in his suit, so the goose bumps weren't visible, but right within himself, he knew something was not right.

After a few seconds, the feelings stopped and Dave thought, Well, this could be because I've not had a date in years

Perfect plot; he was able to deceive his brain to think that the feelings were just mirages.

After the meal, they headed over to the parlor to watch the premiere of GOT together. Dave had been fascinating about seeing the premiere of GOT - Cheryl knew exactly how to get Dave; because that was the only reason he agreed to pass the night with Cheryl. The movie ended around 3:43am and both of them were feeling sleepy. The apartment had 3 rooms but it was only in Cheryl’s room that there was a bed. This should have passed a message to Dave, but it didn't.

Cheryl asked Dave to come sleep on her bed. The words left Dave with mixed feelings but he accepted anyway. As Dave lay on the bed with Cheryl, many thoughts wandered through his mind and he couldn't sleep, then the devil beckoned. Dave heard a noise which presumably came from the parlor. Dave turned to ask Cheryl what the noise was but she was already sleeping. Dave thought that she might have forgotten to switch off the television, so he moved out of the bed and headed to the parlor. When he got to the walkway that led to the parlor, he saw a dark figure standing by the door of the parlor. The figure looked like a human, though the place was too dark that he couldn't picture the face of the figure. From what his brain could gather about what he saw, it was a large 3-D figure of a human.

Dave could remember that Cheryl told him she lives all alone in the house. "Where on earth did this figure come from?" Dave thought. For one moment, he almost thought that the figure was Cheryl, but she was sleeping when he left the bed. Also, the figure he saw was way bigger than Cheryl - she only stood at about 5 feet and 3 inches tall. Dave horridly went back to the room to ask Cheryl how someone managed to enter the house because the doors and windows were not open, but Cheryl was nowhere to be found. By then, the figure was also gone - Dave stood there transfixed like someone that was kicked on the nuts by evil spirits.

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Dave tried calling out to Cheryl but out of fear, his voice cracked; "Che..Che..Che" he stammered through. The only thing he could lay his hands on was his car keys. He ran out of the house like an arrow and straight into his car in only his pants, he sped faster than what Michael Schumacher did at the Summer Olympics Formula-1 Race.

By the next day, Cherly's profile and details were mysteriously deleted from the dating site and all the details she gave to him about herself; even her name and surname; didn't match with any detail online - by inference, she never existed. The weirdest part was that Dave couldn't remember her house address that she gave to him. So many questions have remained unanswered in Dave's mind - "why didn't Cheryl hurt me?" "why did she invite me to her apartment?" "What did she want?"... These question wandered in Dave's mind, but the truth remains that; till now, Dave has not succeeded in explaining what really happened in that house that night, whether it was real or it was all in his head.

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THE END

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