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It was five days before Ryan and Shane were heading out to do their second filming shoot of the season when Shane discovered he could communicate with ghosts.
It had happened on a Saturday. He had been sitting in his room quietly reading the newspaper when he heard a disembodied voice speaking to him, and when he checked he couldn’t find the source of it. His reaction should have been a little more shocked and surprised than it was but its Shane and at this point it would be shocking if anything actually surprised him.
At first he had just laughed because of course they weren't real and it was just a silly series that he and Ryan were doing, but when he got presented with evidence he was considering it. Then finally believed it.
In the end It turned out the ghost was just bored and wanted to scare someone, which laughably wasn’t going to go well if it was presenting to Shane. Shane halfway through processing that a ghost had just turned up in his house out of nowhere, was just about to pick up his phone to tell Ryan when a thought struck his mind. It wanted to scare someone?. Who better to scare then Ryan Berega himself.
Shane loved doing the series but his favourite part of filming and going to these locations was when Ryan got freaked out. He beamed with happiness every time he would watch Ryan shrink and pull away, the way he would bend down slightly as his eyes glossed over. It got a laugh out of him every time. Not because he didn’t care about Ryan, but because it allowed room for him to lovingly tease him when Ryan loses his mind over nothing. God Ryan was so adorable. And of course it actually meant that they would get some good content for the viewers as he knew their audience loved when Ryan got scared too. So he struck up a deal with the bored ghost that if he messes up the recordings and messes with Ryan then it can have it’s fun.
It's 11:30pm on the day of recording. Ryan and Shane are sitting in the car checking that the cameras and equipment are all working when Shane felt a ghostly presence nearby, just like he did back in his room. Naturally the hair at the back of his head stands up and the temperature drops, all signs that he had learnt to recognise and of course believe that a presence was making it. He couldn't help but smirk widely, but luckily Ryan was too busy looking down at the night vision camera to notice. But he saw that Ryan had felt it by the way he was looking shifty and although he was too busy concentrating, Shane saw that his eyes had widened slightly.
The location they were doing tonight was naturally a place that Shane had picked. It was an old abandoned water mill, and it was rather dark since they were quite far away from the city which was just small blinking lights in the distance. Perfect. A dark isolated location was always promised fun.
They begin to record and get a few shots of the outside area to do for their opening and Ryan began his usual blabber of talking to introduce where they were. Shane would cut in some snarky comment here or there that would result in Ryan either rolling his eyes or looking at him with that funny expression he did when Shane was being weird.
But that’s when the ghost made its first move. Shane knew this because of the little yelp Ryan made as he lowered his camera, his brows creasing slightly in confusion.
“What’s the matter Ryan” he speaks in his usual mocking tone but a little too gleefully as a spark flew across his chest, he wasn’t expecting it this soon but he knew full well that whatever had come over Ryan was the ghosts fault. Shane deliberately kept his camera pointed at Ryan’s face which he could tell was a little annoyed but stunned. Ryan was now looking up at Shane like a lost puppy dog, and Shane had to bite back the urge to laugh.
“My camera just died-“ he says slowly breaking eye contact to look around.
“Oh- did you charge it?” Shane says making sure not to show too much of his smirk.
“Oh yeah I charged it today ready for tonight, it was on full!” He shook it a bit and then Pressed the power button and it started to flicker on, then his face lit up.
“Well viewers” he says a small smile appearing, “looks like we’ve got our first piece of evidence”. Shane’s heart started to bubble as shoots back with his short and friendly jabs at Ryan,
“Ryan common dude that was just a technical difficulty with the cameras, you can’t start already” he instantly dismisses it, letting in his personality for the show in full Shane confidence. Even if it was slightly fake now. But that didn’t matter, because Shane was so used to fitting into his personality of being a skeptic that it was a breeze for him.
“Nope nope it says fully charged look”
Ryan deliberately points his finger hard on the screen up in the little corner where the battery light flashes. Ryan was right, it did say fully charged.
Ryan looks up, his smile in full view and Shane felt so warm watching Ryan jumping around. His mind is whirring and the only response he lets out is “heh, i don’t know Ryan” in the tone he always adopts. He then does a huge shrug which promoted,
“Ha! See smart guy you have nothing to say right now do you? No snide comment?”.
Shane didn’t and he realised this about half way through Ryan’s sentence.
“Hey I’m just saying that whatever you think happened you can’t go instantly jumping in on the idea of a ghost before proper evidence is revealed”.
Ryan slapped him gently on the arm and lifts the camera up ready to record again, “ooh tonight is going to be a good night just you wait Shane” he hadn't stopped smirking and then he turns and takes big confident strides towards the entrance.
Oh, you have no idea Shane thinks cunningly.
When they got to the door Ryan wanted to do this, what he described as a ‘really clever cinematic shot’ where they would stand in front of the door and strike a serious pose as the camera pans down slowly on them dramatically. Shane couldn’t help but laugh, having to lean on the wall for support.
“Ryan I’m not” his sentence breaks as he lets out a chuckle, “That’s about the silliest idea I’ve heard us do none of our viewers are going to want that”
Ryan interjects,
“No no no but I’m trying to be more open with the angle of things” he’s doing some weird panning shots around and Shane looks at him shaking his head.
Fine we can do your silly shot” he says giggling and goes to stand with Ryan. The cameraman who went with them to the location but had been setting up other cameras in the different rooms take the shot from different angles and Ryan excitedly hurries over to check them out. That’s when he sees the little ball of light in the top right corner above Shane’s head.
“Yess” he comments excitedly saving the image.
Shane lips curl up as he looks too and sees the camera flare in the image and knows fully well that Ryan is going to say that’s an orb and he waits for it. Then Ryan is excitedly explaining what an orb is and he lets Ryan do so as he hovers back, but makes sure that he looks at the camera with a sarcastic look.
Then they are doing the very opening scene of the show on some old plastic uncomfortable chairs.
“This week on buzzfeed unsolved we are doing the old rookback mill as part of our ongoing investigation into the question, are ghosts real”.
An excited energy flows through Shane and instead of just shaking his head like he usually does he sits up, “nahhh” he says shrugging “not real let’s go home”. This stops Ryan as he looks over to Shane laughing, “nahhh” Shane says again sitting back in his chair again and crossing his arms. A stare. A gleam in Shane’s eyes.Ryan laughing and leaning forward, “right whatever anyway..”
There was a bit more forward and back banter between them as they took a few more shots of the inside of the mill for the Intro they do and Ryan’s mood was strong. He was already being affected by the strange boost of the energy he got off it being late and the fact that he was certain he had already got a supernatural incident on camera. Well technically he did but Shane wasn’t going to tell him that. As they got further in they dimmed the lights of their torchers a bit and it got gradually darker as the small lights of the flashlights shone brightly over the walls castading shadows around the hall.
Although Ryan felt that pang he got when he was fully in a building he knew was haunted, he was mainly just happy he was with Shane right now. Even though Shane played up for the hell of it, Ryan felt safe and protected in his company. Ryan really really did believe in ghosts, and if it wasn’t for Shane being there for that encounter earlier he knew he would of been doubled over horrified and wouldn’t of been able to even step inside.
They take a tour around first, just so they can suss out what rooms they are going into and what bits are important to start their different segments in and Ryan is convinced he keeps hearing whispers or gasps of air that could be a laugh. Every time he would stop and turn around to see Shane’s big goofy face giving him that mocking, I'm going to take the piss, look. “Did you hear that?” He said quickly looking directly into the camera, his eyes have widened.
“Yeah I heard a-“ and he pushes his lips together and lets out a breath of air to imitate the wind per usual.
This goes on for a while as they continue to go around the house and set up the spirit box in the work room. Then a really loud and clear ‘boo’ echoes through the box.
At this point Ryan is beyond a little freaked out. Not only has he been having these small hints and clear evidence throughout the night but Shane had been acting very weird. He was quick to dismiss, and even quicker to jump into his usual blabber. But Ryan couldn’t understand why he was still like that. He reckons this is the most evidence they have gotten and he was definitely going to have fun editing it. But he’s sure this is an episode that everyone will love.
Then it gets to the last segment of the show, the solo investigations around the building. This was the part of the show that Ryan generally disliked doing the most. Going through these locations are bad enough, but at least he had Shane’s company, energy and snide comments to get him through. Now it felt like he was plunging head first into a dangerous pit of hungry snakes.
Shane was first as usual and ryan is waiting outside the building shaking a little with anticipation. The camera is pointed at him and he’s talking into it, pretending that he wasn’t terrified and trying not to think about the evidence they had got tonight that pointed all fingers that this place was haunted, and as he thought this his mind wandered to how Shane was doing.
Shane was in fact, taking the opportunity to talk directly to the ghost again since he hasn’t had a time all night where he was able to. “Your doing great” Shane says laughing “I can tell Ryan is really getting scared”. The ghost was hovering, Sitting crossed legged in the air a few metres from the ground, a huge smile on its face, “good”. Shane can tell that it has definitely Been enjoying itself “you weren’t wrong about your jumpy friend”. Shane suddenly had a thought, and as he thought on it his smile got bigger and bigger.
“Hey you know what would be funny? If you are able to physically appear to him so he can see you vaguely, but tricking him so he thinks he sees you but then deletes the tape? No one will ever know and he will be so confused”.
The ghost smiles,
“Ok deal”, and then Ryan is knocking on the door telling him the time is up.
Ryan walks in and already feels that the room has grown at least 4 degrees colder. He had felt this earlier in the car but not as strong as this. He clenches his fist up a bit and pauses, oh man does he really want to do this. He bends down like he normally does and puts his head in his hands. Breath. You’ll be out soon.
He hears the soft voice of Shane from the other side of the door, “come on Ryan what’s the hold up get in there” and he takes a deep breath in. “Alright here i go” he yells.
He puts one foot in front of the other. He Looks up…
only to see the faintest outline of something standing there down the end of the hall.
At first he didn't think much of it, it could've just been the moonlight shining through the window right. It was grey white and wispy so then it would make sense if it was just that. But as he got closer he saw it kinda represented an outline. An outline of a figure that was definitely there, but he was able to see through. He couldn’t see a face with any defining features but his heart stopped in his chest and he froze. What he sees down the hall is looking back at him.
It took about five seconds for him to process what he was seeing but then He instantly jumps and flinches, moving the camera to focus on the spirit before him.
He starts to feel new emotions, joy, fear, excitement, perks up churning at his insides. Was that a…
“What the fuck” he breaths slowly the camara and video feed shaky and unfocused as his hands shake and he loses grip once or twice. His knees buckle and he’s afraid he’s going to fall. “Did I just see-”.
It’s gone before Ryan can blink and he’s left in the cold dark corridor.
Then he’s running back shouting.
Shane was sitting outside on the bench in the middle of his sentence when he heard Ryan screaming. The noise echoed in the hall and Shane’s heart filled with joy even though he has to fight himself to laugh or smile or show any sign that he’s anything other than surprised. Because he knew exactly what had just happened. He turns around to look at the door just as a very pale, shaken Ryan comes through.
He smiles evilly to the camera.
“Ryan buddy calm down what happened” Shane says getting up and walking over to him and placing his hand on Ryan’s now trembling shoulder.
“I saw a ghost Shane, I actually saw a real life ghost in person, look I have the evidence right here”
He’s thumbles with the camera almost dropping it twice, but thank god it was tied around his neck. Shane stood next to him, his hand still on Ryan’s shoulder, squeezing gently for reinsurance because he knows how shaken Ryan is right now and he like always, was there for him. And because he knows what is going to happen next. Ryan isn’t going to find the footage, and Ryan is about to get confused and have no way of proving what he saw. So Shane wanted to give him the contact so he could at least have some reinsurance. Ryan flipped through the shots they had already taken and watched a few back, Shane watched as his eyebrows creased together and his eyes dropped. He was confused.
“No wait I did- I did see it” he chuckles, “Don’t tell me the camera didn’t pick it up” but then as he continued to look and watch videos he realised that the video he took of him going into the building cuts out in the middle and then the next time it is rolling Is when Ryan ran out of the building screaming about seeing the ghost.
For the first time tonight, Ryan looked up at Shane and made eye contact with him and said, in a tone that was laced with confusion, amusement and disbelief,
“Are you messing with me man?”.
Ryan was catching on but Shane couldn’t show this. “What? Ryan are you serious how could I do that?”
Then quickly he added on “ I really don’t think you saw one dude. I think you thought you saw one, your brain tricked you into it because of how desperate you are to see one but nothing was there” he continues to squeeze his shoulder. Ryan looks back down at the camera and then back at Shane.
“If I find out you’ve been doing this Shane” he pauses to laugh again, “holy crap man I saw it clear as day”
“Did you?” Shame cuts in accusanly but making sure to say it like a question, “are you sure it wasn’t your… idk torch?”.
“Nope. Nope. Shane dont do that I honestly swear to god that I saw one and I will try to find that footage somewhere to show everyone I don’t care if no one believes me”. As he says this He begins to walk away from the house.
“Uh Ryan where are you going?” Shane says standing still outside the entrance.
“Oh I’m out. There’s no way I’m going back in there” Ryan calls back shaking his head and continuing to walk backwards up the path.
“Ryan bargara you come back here and finish your solo investigation sir” he yells gesturing wildly for Ryan to come back.
“Nope. There is no way. This is me walking back. I’m walking back away to the car now”. Any response Shane could possibly have is lost in a fit of giggles and he continued to record Ryan until he was out of sight.
“Wellp” Shane says shrugging for the fifth time tonight. Then the ghost appears next to him smirking.
“Ayy bring it in dude” Shane says holding up his hand for a fist bump to which the ghost obliges as they pump their hands together giggling, “wow you really scared him off”. The ghost is still giggling, and then after a moment of them just laughing they manage to calm down enough to say goodbye.
“Cheers dude” the ghost says and tells Shane a way of contacting it in case it ever wanted to do this again, to which Shane happily jotted down. “Oh there will be a next time” he says his mind already thinking about things that can happen in the next few episodes.
Ryan is waiting in the car still a little paled face by the time Shane gets there. He gets in the car and turns to face Ryan. Ryan has his phone out and is messaging someone. Shane laughs, “telling someone else about this “ghost” you saw Ryan” he deliberately did the finger quotes to annoy him.
Ryan looks up and his eyes are full of friendly joy, “hey someone believes me at least '' he says shrugging.
“Ryan that’s your wife she has to” he cuts back playfully. This causes Ryan to bite his lip, no doubt was going to say something but then decides against it and there’s silence again.
But Shane’s mind is still racing with excitement. Because The case still has to remain unsolved due to the evidence being messed with and Ryan can’t form any proof, and only he knows the truth behind what really happened.