Hana’s apartment building was six storeys.

He stood outside it with his hands on his knees catching his breath and looked up at the lit windows and realised he had absolutely no idea which floor she was on.

He went inside anyway.

The elevator was on the third floor going up.

He took the stairs.

First floor.

Nothing.

The air was completely ordinary, no spiritual pressure, no dark energy, nothing at all that shouldn’t be there.

That’s good.

He moved up.

Second floor.

The same.

Third floor.

He paused on the landing.

Still nothing but something at the very edge of his range, barely there, faint enough that he almost talked himself out of it.

Here’s a smoother, more grounded version with clearer flow and atmosphere:

It wasn’t unusual for certain places to carry a faint, unsettling energy.

Such traces formed when intense negative emotions like rage, grief, hatred, fear, lingered too long in one place, seeping into the surroundings and gradually fading over time.

He kept moving.

He moved up.

Fourth floor.

Closer.

The air had changed.

Normal people wouldn’t have noticed it.

To him it felt like a pressure at the back of his eyes, a subtle wrongness that hadn’t been there a floor below. A residue. Dark energy.

And it was fresh.

He didn’t like that it was fresh.

The chances of it being a normal occurrence were dimming.

His heart was racing. All he could think was about Hana.

He raced to the next floor.

The fifth floor landing stopped him before he reached it.

The feeling hit him three steps below, sudden and cold, pressing into his spiritual energy and pushing back.

His chest tightened.

Dark energy.

Not faint. Not residual.

Thick and present and moving.

He came up the last steps fast.

The apartment on the immediate left to the staircase had its door open.

Dark inside.

The dark energy trail ran from it in a visible thread to his sight, a deep bruised colour pressed into the air, and it wasn’t going sideways.

It was going up.

He looked at the ceiling. At the stairs continuing above him.

No.

No no no.

No no no.

Please don’t let me be late.

He sprinted towards the roof.

The roof access door was ajar.

He hit it with his shoulder and came out into the night air and stopped.

"AhahAHAhAHhhA"

Hana was standing near the edge.

She was in her pyjamas, her hair loose and tangled around her face, her feet bare on the concrete.

She was walking in slow uneven circles, her head tipped back, laughing at the sky.

The laugh was wrong.

Too loud, too empty, the sound of it bouncing off the water tanks and the low parapet walls with nothing human left in it.

Dark energy coiled around her, thick and slow.

She was getting closer to the edge with each circle.

He didn’t have time to think. He pushed his spiritual energy down through both palms and threw the chain spell forward.

The spiritual energy chain shot out and wrapped around her, her arms, her waist, pulling tight.

She stopped moving.

Her head dropped slowly from the sky.

She looked at the chain around her and then she slowly turned to look at him.

Then she smiled.

You could tell it was not Hana in that body with that smile itself.

She’s possessed.

How

She flexed her arms.

The chains snapped easily.

The recoil hit him in the chest and threw him back two steps.

He caught himself and looked at his hands.

The chain was gone.

Hana was rolling her neck slowly side to side with the dark energy around her deeper than before.

That was fast.

She crossed the distance in a second.

Her fist hit his jaw.

His head snapped to the side and his vision flashed white.

For a moment, all he could think was Hana.

Hana’s fist.

Hana’s hands gripping his shirt.

But the strength wasn’t hers.

She lifted him off the ground like he weighed nothing and threw him towards the water tank housing.

The metal edge slammed into his ribs.

The concrete took the rest of him.

He didn’t move.

He lay there, eyes open, staring at the night sky.

Get up.

He dragged in a breath and forced himself to his feet.

He raised both palms and fired two quick blasts of spiritual energy straight at her chest.

They hit.

The dark energy around her rippled. She slowed for half a step.

"AhahaHahaha. It tickles," Then she kept walking.

He fired again.

Three blasts this time, faster, aimed at her core.

Each one hit and each one rippled the dark energy around her and did nothing else.

The ghost has taken complete possession of Hana.

At full strength the ghost barely felt them.

He might as well have been throwing water at a wall.

He needed another approach.

He dropped to both knees, slammed his palms against the concrete, and pushed.

A containment seal flared to life beneath her feet.

Thin blue lines burned outward from a single point, spreading fast until the square locked into place and walls of light rose around her.

A cleansing seal.

The moment it closed, the dark energy around her began to break apart. The blue light clung to it, eating into it.

She felt it.

Her head snapped down.

She stared at the seal, and her face twisted.

She punched her fist into the nearest wall.

The impact hit him through the connection.

A heavy shock slammed into his chest and forced the air out of him.

He stayed down, palms pressed to the ground, feeding the seal.

She hit it again.

And again.

And again.

Each strike came back through him. His arms shook. His vision started to blur at the edges as the drain worsened, but the seal was working.

The dark energy around her was thinning, peeling away under the light.

Hold it.

Another hit.

And another.

Crash!