Chapter 3: PASSING ON
The word hung in the frozen air.
"Mama?"
Thomas's voice was a whisper of static, barely there, like a radio station fading in and out of range. But it was real. He was speaking. After three months of silent waiting, he was finally speaking.
"Yes." I kept my voice low. Steady. The other patients hadn't stirred, lost in whatever dreams the living dream. "She's been waiting for you, Thomas. Just like you've been waiting for her."
The ghost flickered. His form destabilized for a moment—edges blurring, colors washing out—and then solidified again. His hollow eyes found mine.
"She came?"
"Jesus."
The hope in that question. The desperate, terrible hope of a child who'd died alone and afraid.
"She came," I said. "She got in the car the second she heard you were getting worse. She drove as fast as she could. But there was an accident on the road—ice, maybe, or another driver who didn't see her. She didn't make it to the hospital."
Thomas's small face crumpled. Even without tears, even without flesh, grief carved itself into his features.
"But she crossed over," I continued. "She moved on to whatever comes next. And she's been there ever since, Thomas. Waiting. Wondering where her little boy is. Wondering why he hasn't come to find her."
The temperature had dropped so low I could feel my fingertips going numb. Frost crept across the floor in delicate patterns, branching out from where Thomas stood. But I didn't step back. I didn't flinch.
This wasn't about me.
"She... she's waiting?"
"For three months. Same as you."
Thomas looked at the empty bed—his bed—and something in his posture shifted. The tension of waiting. The desperate need to stay. I watched it drain out of him like water from a cracked vessel.
"I wanted to say goodbye," he said. "I wanted to tell her I wasn't scared anymore. That the treatments didn't hurt so bad. That I was brave."
My chest tightened.
"Christ, he's eight. Was eight. Just a kid trying to be strong for his mother."
"You can still tell her," I said. "She's right there, Thomas. Just past the edge of this place. You just have to go to her."
For a long moment, nothing happened. Thomas stood in his corner, flickering like a candle flame, staring at a bed where he'd spent his final days. Remembering, maybe. Processing. I couldn't know what ghosts thought about in those last moments before moving on.
Then the light came.
It started in the corner where Thomas stood—a soft golden glow that pushed back the frost and the cold. Not harsh or blinding. Warm. Like sunlight through autumn leaves. Like the memory of every good afternoon, compressed into a single point of radiance.
Thomas turned toward it.
And I saw her.
Just for a second. A shape in the light. A woman's silhouette reaching out with open arms. I couldn't see her face, couldn't make out details, but I knew—the same way I'd known Thomas's name without being told—that this was Margaret Brennan.
A mother who'd died racing to her son's bedside.
Thomas took a step forward. Then another. His gray skin began to shift, color seeping back into his cheeks. His hollow eyes filled with something bright and real.
He looked back at me.
His mouth moved. No sound this time, but I could read the shape of the words:
"Thank you."
Then he walked into the light.
Golden particles scattered where he'd been. They drifted upward like fireflies, like dandelion seeds, like all the beautiful fragile things that don't last but matter anyway. The frost began to melt. The cold retreated.
And the notification appeared.
[CASE CLOSED: THOMAS BRENNAN]
[RESOLUTION GRADE: S-RANK]
[REWARDS EARNED]
EXP: +150 FAITH POINTS: +75 ESSENCE POINTS: +75
[BONUS: COMPASSIONATE RESOLUTION]
FAITH RESONANCE: +2
[SYSTEM LEVEL PROGRESS: 150/500 (30%)]
The blue text glowed in my vision. Numbers and rewards and proof that I'd actually accomplished something.
But I couldn't feel the victory.
I sat on the edge of my bed, in the darkness of a hospital ward in 1968, and felt the tears come.
Not sad tears. Not exactly. More like... release. Like something had broken loose inside me. All the fear and confusion of waking up in a stranger's body, all the terror of realizing I was truly, genuinely dead in my old life—it came pouring out.
I'd helped him.
I'd helped a scared little boy find his mother.
Maybe that's why I was here. Maybe that's what this whole insane situation was for. Not power-ups or system levels or whatever other game-like nonsense waited in my future. Just... helping. Finding the lost. Guiding them home.
"If that's the job, I can do that. I can do that."
The tears dried. I wiped my face, blew my nose on a hospital-issue tissue, and accessed the Hub.
The cramped study looked different now. Not larger—still dim, still candlelit—but somehow warmer. The desk was neater. The floating case pins had rearranged themselves, Thomas's location no longer glowing.
I checked my status:
[HOST STATUS]
System Level: 1 (150/500 EXP) Awakening Level: 0 (DORMANT)
Soul Integrity: 100/100 Psychic Stamina: 48/50 (minor drain from sustained supernatural exposure) Faith Resonance: 12
Essence Points: 80 Faith Points: 75
I was halfway to level two. One case. One ghost. And already making progress.
The case board drew my attention. Those floating pins, scattered across an invisible map of Connecticut. Each one represented a supernatural disturbance. A haunting. A possession. Something that needed fixing.
"How many?"
I focused, and the system answered.
[ACTIVE CASES IN REGION: 47]
[D-RANK: 31] [C-RANK: 12] [B-RANK: 3] [A-RANK: 1]
Forty-seven cases. In Connecticut alone. Ghosts and spirits and things that went bump in the night, all waiting for someone to notice. To help.
One of the pins was brighter than the others. Closer. I focused on it and information appeared:
[CASE PREVIEW: C-RANK]
Location: Hartford Municipal Pool Entity Type: Vengeful Spirit Status: Active (escalating) Brief: Multiple drowning accidents over 6 months. Pattern suggests deliberate targeting.
Note: This case exceeds current System Level recommendations. Approach with caution.
A public pool. Something killing swimmers. Something that wouldn't wait forever.
"Not yet."
I closed the Hub and returned to my body.
The sun was coming up outside. Gray light filtering through windows that no longer held any frost. I could hear the distant sounds of the hospital waking—nurses beginning their shifts, wheels squeaking down corridors, the clatter of meal trays.
Normal sounds. Living sounds.
I looked at Thomas's empty bed. The sheets were still rumpled. The pillow still held the impression of a small head.
But the cold was gone. The wrongness had lifted.
Someone would change those sheets today. Someone would make that bed for a new patient, never knowing what had happened here in the dark hours of the morning. And that was fine. That was how it should be.
The dead moving on. The living moving forward.
My hands had stopped shaking. My legs felt stronger. Whether it was the system's influence or just adrenaline, I didn't know. Didn't care. What mattered was that I could stand. I could walk. I could function.
Doctor Hendricks arrived at seven for morning rounds. He seemed pleased with my progress.
"You're recovering faster than I expected, Paul. Much faster."
"Must be all that jello."
He laughed. Not because it was funny, but because he was relieved. A miracle patient telling jokes. Everything was normal. Everything was fine.
"We'll keep you for observation a few more days," he said, "but I'm optimistic about discharge by the weekend."
Three days. I had three days to get this body working properly, to figure out my cover story, to prepare for whatever came next.
The case board glowed in my mind. Forty-seven pins. Forty-seven problems.
"One at a time."
I would start with the D-ranks. Build my strength. Learn what I could do. And when I was ready—when I was strong enough—I would tackle whatever was killing swimmers at the Hartford Municipal Pool.
Nurse Martinez brought me breakfast. Oatmeal, toast, a cup of something that wanted to be coffee but hadn't quite committed to the role.
I ate it all. Every bite. The oatmeal was bland and the toast was dry and the coffee tasted like boiled cardboard.
It was perfect.
"Second chance. New life. Don't waste it."
The sun rose higher. The ward filled with the sounds of recovery—patients talking to doctors, visitors arriving, the ordinary business of healing.
And in my head, beneath the clatter and chatter of the waking world, the system hummed quietly:
[CANONICAL EVENT TRACKER: INITIALIZED]
[PERRON HAUNTING — 1,823 DAYS REMAINING]
[ENFIELD POLTERGEIST — 3,176 DAYS REMAINING]
[PREPARING HOST FOR FUTURE EVENTS...]
The countdown had begun.
I finished my coffee, set down the cup, and started planning.