“This is the story I was told, the way my cousin told me when her best friend moved to Australia because she was so terrified after this experience. This is a real story. So, there’s this girl and it’s her prom night, but it’s on the same night she has a lacrosse game, so before the game she has to set up all her stuff for the dance in the locker room because she doesn’t have time to go home and get ready. So she has to get ready in the locker room and go early to help set up for the dance. So she wins her lacrosse game and she goes into the locker room to start getting ready and she had set up her curlers and dress and so she walks into the dark locker room. For some reason, her curling iron light is on, and the red light is illuminating the dark room. She was so confused as to why the curler was on and why it was pitch black except that one light. And she thought, “Wow this could have set the place on fire, why is this on?” But she is ready to curl her hair anyway. All the sudden she hears this voice, and it says, “Don’t touch it.” Startled, the girl says, “Hello? Is anyone in here?” She tries for the light switch but it doesn’t work, but the power clearly isn’t out because her curling iron is working. So she follows the light of her curling iron and in the dim light, she sees the shape of a girl, wearing a sparkly prom dress and it’s lightly illuminating her face. So she says, “Oh hi, you scared me, did you turn my curling iron on?” The voice responds, “Don’t touch it. It’s hot. It’ll burn you.” And the girl responds, “Oh, I know…Thank you..” Then the light starts to move away from her and she says, “Oh that’s mine, please don’t touch it, I need to use it. Have you just been in here in the dark..?” And the voice repeats, “It’s hot. It’ll burn you. Burn you.” And the girl responds, “Umm okay, sorry I need to get ready now.” And she runs and grabs her dress and throws it on. Then the light of the curling iron goes off. And now there is no illumination in the room whatsoever. So she is freaking out and says, “Okay.. I’m leaving now..” and she narrates her thoughts as she walks out of the locker room. She finishes getting ready in a different bathroom and is really shaken up by the whole experience. She didn’t know why the girl was there, but since she had been wearing a prom dress, she figured she was going to prom as well. So anyway, she goes to prom and the next day she comes to school and is telling her friends about the weird experience she had that night and what happened. She picks up a school newspaper and at the bottom of the paper, there is a commemoration saying “In Memory of Beth James, who was killed on the night of prom in a fire on campus.” And she drops the newspaper and starts screaming and crying because she sees the picture and realizes it’s the girl she saw the night before. It was the same face that had been illuminated by the red light. The reason why she kept warning, it’ll burn you, it’s hot, don’t touch it, is because she had died in an electrical fire in the old gym 20 years prior. The girl was so traumatized, she moved to escape from the memory of what had happened. The End.”

This story exemplifies many common motifs found in ghost stories. The dark locker room creates a mysterious, eerie setting. The red light creates even more of a spooky atmosphere by casting a dim light on everything. The repetition of phrases by the ghost also adds to the terror of the girl. I think this ghost story perfectly captures an event that seems very strange in itself, which is then concluded by proof that the event was truly ghostly.