Adja turned her computer on and chew her nails intently, one after the other. She had ordered a salad with goat cheese toasts at the restaurant next to the hotel and had rushed to her room. The thought of returning to the Maison Dormeaux during the evening was disappearing from her mind. I will not go anywhere before I see what the hall camera filmed.

She spent the next hour watching and re-watching the footage, but didn't notice anything until the end of the movie. No supernatural event took place before the brutal end of the camera. Okay... I will edit it all by synchronizing this camera and the one I was carrying, maybe I'll find something interesting.

Adja worked ruthlessly on her video, determined to post it before the end of the day. Usually, she didn't share anything that dated back to less than two hours, but the content was so rich it didn't matter. She needed her subscribers' feedback. After all, she was facing a real ghost whose name she now knew... Each time she would go back to the Maison Dormeaux, Sylvana would be here to greet her and guide her to the reason of her demise. It's scary as hell, I must not make mistakes.

Adja recorded narrative segments for the video. When she saw the footage of the bedroom and the hall together, she immediately understood. Her heart started pounding in her chest and she explained:

'At this instant, precisely,' she narrated, the hall camera turned off. 'The screen will stay dark until the end, because I didn't know what had happened. I will be honest with you, and you don't have to believe me: I know exactly why the camera stopped. When I looked at Sylvana's face, I had the misfortune to think that she looked so absent on this photograph that she seemed more alive as a ghost. I didn't dare pronounce it because it was not polite, but I thought it very strongly. And, five seconds later, the hall camera was turned off.'

Adja paused, then added:

'I think Sylvana took her revenge after my critique, even if she was exhausted. She had given me all her strength to open the wardrobe lock, and I was bashing her in my head! Maybe she was a very sad young woman and was trying to hide it on this picture... I would like to know your opinion. How could I be forgiven when I come back there? I don't usually upset people, and even less people gone for over a century. Someone who couldn't express themselves since their dead and who believed I wanted to make fun of them...'

Adja went silent. She took this matter too seriously. Fine, it's already strange that I can stay so calm in front of supernatural things, but I dreamt of it so much... I never doubted ghost existed. Of course, making a spirit sad was not a good idea, but she would stay between four walls forever! Adja did not risk anything if she didn't come back the Maison Dormeaux, so what was the point of torturing herself?

The main problem was that Adja treated Sylvana as a real acquaintance, as if she knew her. Some Ouija in the dark, some K-II, and here she was, thinking she was her best friend! I'm completely mad, and that's even worse than believing that I talk to ghosts...

When the editing was done, Adja posted her new video: 'SECRET AND DEADLY HOUSE: FIRST HALLUCINATING NIGHT AND CRAZY MORNING!!'. She had never written such a clickbait title, but it was almost an euphemism. She clicked on Play to delete the video if she saw any editing mistake.

'Hello everyone, it's Adja Hunting! You are in front of the craziest video of my whole life...'

Adja watched the result of her work with squinted eyes, focused, but didn't see anything wrong. At least, no one would accuse her of tampering with the footage. The first comments appeared rapidly, even before the end of the sixty minutes.

'What the hell is that crazy Ouija???'

'It looks fake, but I saw the video on your account... You need to bring a subscriber here to test again!'

'Great!'

'You're so naive, she edited the K-II part!'

Adja answered to all the comments mentioning going with a viewer, saying that she would choose someone from the county to do some Ouija. She ignored the other ones, aware that she would raise some skepticism. She always published videos of ridiculous spirit box noises and swore they were actual voices, and now this...

Without giving the exact address of the Maison Dormeaux so inquisitive people wouldn't come, Adja posted on social media that she was looking for a rational person in the county of Var. This story would not be between her and Sylvana, after all, even if her heart was heavy when she thought of her. Maybe it's between her and me, actually. Adja was possessive, without a doubt. I want to know everything about her, and to be the only one who gets to know her, who she is, I don't want her to talk to other people... No one wanted to answer her messages before I did! No one listened to her!

Adja almost slapped herself to bring her composure back and kept her nails buried in her cheek. Stop thinking of her, she's not YOUR ghost, Adja. She's a real person!

In a few minutes, she received many proposals by private messages. After talking to each contender, she chose a seventeen-year-old man whose nickname she recognized: he spent his time saying the talked nonsense and her videos were fake. Perfect. His name was Léon, and he would be there in a day. Fine, it's faster than expected, and I will be able to record the rest of my investigation in peace.

Adja ate a bag of crisps and laid under the covers, reading more comments on her phone.

'Your face lights up when Sylvana talks to you, I swear.'

She felt a knot in her throat, and an awful nausea delayed the moment she finally slept.

~

The next day, groggy, she devoured the hotel breakfast to make up for her missed dinner. She left her room to join Léon at the train station. We haven't lost any time! I hope Sylvana will not take his intrusion for an insult.

Adja recognized Léon very easily from two pictures he had sent her: brown hair, glasses, and a hiking backpack. What is he doing will all this... He's burdening himself! The young ,an looked sane, but extremely shrewish.

'Léon!' she exclaimed, waving her arms. 'I'm here!'

'Adja Hunting!'

Léon was smiling, but his face went blank in an instant.

'Do you know who I am, or did you choose me randomly?'

'Oh, you're stressing over that?' she laughed. 'I know very well that you spend your life trying to launch fights in the comments of my videos, but it's exactly why I chose you. Nobody would believe me if I took a real fan of my channel! You will experience extraordinary things and I will ask you to be honest, alright?'

Léon shrugged but nodded in silence. On the way to the hotel, he cleaned his glasses with his sweater and admitted:

'I would have enjoyed telling you that your investigation is intriguing me, but I didn't believe this Ouija story one second. I think you moved the planchette yourself. Do you know the ideomotor phenomenon?'

'Yes,' Adja sighed, 'it's when you provoke movements only because you want to see them... But I can assure you that it moved way too much to be a reflex of my finger, I will show you the difference. You don't feel the same thing when someone drags the planchette and when it moved by itself.'

'No object moves by itself, honestly.'

Adja stayed silent for a few seconds, then said:

'You know, I studied science. I have always been attracted to paranormal things, but I'm not a fanciful nor irrational person. I think you should always have an open mind about everything. We don't know anything about supernatural stuff.'

'But, seriously... What do you measure, electromagnetic fields? That doesn't mean anything! And even if they technically existed, why would ghosts be able to modify electromagnetic fields?'

'Why not?'

Léon went silent, and Adja burst in laughter.

'You know, I think it's great that we don't get along well. Don't hesitate to discuss all of this with the camera on, because it could be interesting for the viewers. There's not enough skepticism in my videos, and now that I have things to show it's becoming essential.'

Following her to the room, Léon explained that he lived at his parents' and had invented a university training course to leave for one week.

'They would kill me, if they knew that I met a stranger. And you, do your parents care at all? You're lucky, I'm under supervision all the time.'

'They're used to it... I don't ask them for their opinion, I have a job now. Do you want to eat, take a shower maybe?'

'None of this,' Léon answered, shaking his head. 'I did everything I had to before leaving, I live very close. I didn't come by the TGV, you know?'

'I didn't ask for your address, so I wasn't sure. Okay,' she added, taking her huge bag and her tripod on the shoulder. 'We're putting all of this in my car and let's go!'