The Pretty Ghost's Contract with the Billionaire: Plug me in.

POV: Ethan "Dad, I'm fine. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm twenty-eight." I said it into the phone with a measured calm, one hand already working the seatbelt loose. My voice — steady on purpose. Controlled on purpose. I was tired of them worrying about me every single day. "Son, I just want to make sure you get home safe. I don't want a repeat of what happened years ago." Dad's tone was gentle as always. But that gentleness — it grated on me now. It genuinely irritated me every time they treated me like a child. Like I still needed to check in with them every time I stepped out of their line of sight. I was twenty-eight. I was the CEO of my own company. But in their eyes, I was still that seventeen-year-old Ethan who almost died in a car accident. "Alright, Dad. Bye." I hung up. Exhausted. Starving. I just wanted to lie down. I reached for the door handle, but something made me stop. There was something wedged under the passenger seat. I hadn't noticed it earlier. Curiosity got the better of me, and I reached down. My fingers touched it. Cold. Plastic. Glass. *"A phone? Whose is this?"* I turned it over in my palm, studying it, trying to think of how it could have ended up here. It was an older model. Scratched along the edges. Definitely not mine. Not my driver's either. I let out a slow breath when my stomach growled and reminded me exactly why I'd rushed home from the office in the first place. I'd skipped my lunch meeting just to finish that proposal. Now I was paying for it. I tucked the phone into the small inner pocket of my suit jacket. Nothing would come of leaving it there. I'd have someone look into it tomorrow. I got out and headed straight inside. "Manang, is my dinner ready?" I called out the moment I stepped through the door — just loud enough for the housekeeper to hear, the edge in my voice still carrying a hint of the irritation left over from Dad's call. And there it was. I made a beeline for the dining table the moment I spotted it. Everything was already laid out. Steak. Mashed potatoes. Wine. My favorites. I sat down and dug in without wasting another second. I was that hungry. Between everything I had to manage at the company, sleep had become a luxury I could barely afford. There was an important investor I was chasing, and for the past several days, I'd been running on three hours of sleep. Coffee. Meetings. Repeat. After dinner, I went upstairs to shower and finally get some rest. My body was completely drained. My mind wasn't doing much better. I was just shrugging off my suit jacket when something clattered to the floor. I froze. I looked down — and then I remembered. The phone. It must have slipped out of my pocket. I picked it up and sat on the edge of the sofa, turning it over in my hands, studying it with quiet curiosity. It wasn't mine. The brand was a bit outdated, but it still looked decent. The screen still had a shine to it despite the scratches. Something about it felt strange. I couldn't explain it. I tried pressing the power button. Nothing. Dead. Probably just out of battery. I grabbed the charger from the bottom drawer and plugged it in. And that was where everything began. I dropped the phone in an instant. It slipped from my grip like something had forced it out. An intense jolt shot through my entire body — a sharp current that crawled from my fingertips all the way to the back of my neck. For a split second, I went numb. My muscles locked up. I stumbled back, gasping, trying to catch my breath. *"What was that?"* I whispered it to myself. My palms were damp with sweat. Then the hair on my arms stood up. Something cold breathed against my ear. Not the air conditioner — the AC wasn't even on. But it was cold. The kind of cold that clings to your skin, that seeps into your bones. At the same moment, the chandelier above me began to flicker. Off. On. Off. On. With every blink of light, my heartbeat climbed faster. A deep, inexplicable dread wrapped itself around me — the kind that strips you down to something younger, something smaller. The kind that makes you want to hide under a blanket and pretend the world doesn't exist. My heart was hammering, but my legs refused to move. I was rooted to the spot while the room grew colder and colder around me. I could see my own breath now — a thin curl of mist rising in front of my face. My eyes snapped to the phone. It had turned on by itself. The screen blazed with light — but not any normal light. It was blinding white. Unnaturally white. Like a flame trapped behind the glass, straining to break free. Against every instinct telling me to run, my feet carried me toward it. My knees were shaking. My brain screamed at me to stop. My feet kept moving. And when I touched it — An even brighter burst of light exploded outward, flooding the entire room in an instant. I threw my hands over my eyes. *"What the—"* Then, from directly behind me, something whispered into my ear. Low. Cold. Close enough that I could almost feel lips grazing my skin. *"Finally…"* I spun around. My eyes went wide. There, hovering above my bed — A woman. She was suspended in the air, still as a portrait. She wore a white dress — old, its hem torn and ragged. Her hair was long and black and wild, spilling over her face, hiding every inch of it. There was nothing to see beneath those strands. Only darkness. The strength nearly left my legs entirely. My knees buckled. Every part of me screamed to run — to bolt out the door, scream for Manang, call Dad. But my feet were anchored to the floor as though someone had chained iron weights to my ankles. When I tried to step backward, I lost my balance. And I went down — hard — sitting on the cold tile floor, my back slamming against the wall. *"W-Who are you?! Get away from me!"* I forced the words out even as my whole body trembled. My voice cracked anyway. I couldn't stop it. I didn't believe in ghosts. I was an engineer. Logic. Science. But what was I looking at right now? A woman floating above my bed. A woman with no face. I scrambled to my feet and pressed my back against the wall. *No. I can't just run. I'm a grown man. I'm not a coward. This is just your imagination.* But the confidence collapsed the moment the lights began flickering again — faster this time, more violent. Off-on-off-on. The cold surged with it, sharp enough now to bite through my clothes and sting against my skin. My eyes followed the rhythm of the flickering light. Every flash — she was there. Every darkness — she was gone. And when the lights finally stopped. When the room settled into complete dark. The floating woman vanished. My shaking didn't stop. *"W-Where… where did she go?"* *"Show yourself!"* I shouted into the dark. Brave words. But my legs still wouldn't hold me steady. Whatever courage I was performing, it wasn't real. "I'm right beside you." Soft. Close. Right there. I turned — fast. And I found her on the sofa. She was sitting the way a living person would sit. Hands folded in her lap. Head bowed. Hair still curtaining her face completely. But I felt her gaze on me. Even without eyes I could see, I felt it. *"Who are you?! Get out of my sight!"* I shouted, and like an i***t, I started crossing my fingers into a makeshift cross, waving them in her direction. Over and over. *"In the name of the Father, and of the Son—"* "That won't work on me. I'm not an evil spirit." I nearly choked. She had spoken. Directly. Plainly. A woman's voice — but hollow. Drained of everything. A faceless ghost was having a conversation with me. *"Who are you? What do you want?!"* I kept my fingers crossed, kept waving them, still half-hoping she'd dissolve, that I'd wake up, that any second now this would end. The lights surged again — fast and furious, strobing — and she disappeared from the sofa in the chaos of it. One second of darkness. And when the light returned — Her face was right in front of mine. Inches away. I could feel the cold radiating off her. She smelled like old fabric. Like dust. Like something buried. I stopped breathing. I couldn't move — not even my eyes. All I could do was stare at the curtain of black hair covering where her face should have been. "Do you want to know who I am?" Her voice dropped. It deepened — became the voice of a large man, a low graveled rumble, wet and coarse. "I am… your nightmare." And then she laughed. It flipped back to a woman's voice — sharp, high-pitched, drilling straight into my skull. She laughed and laughed without stopping. I wanted to run. Especially when I realized she wasn't standing on the ground — she was suspended from above, hovering upside down. And yet her hair didn't fall away from her face. It stayed plastered there, defying gravity, as though it had been sewn shut. In the darkness of my bedroom, in the stuttering light — I felt her fingers. Ice. Pressing slowly, deliberately, onto my shoulder. "Help me.”