Sam Winchester hadn’t meant to spend half the night on that old paranormal message board. He’d just been looking up lore about a haunting near Topeka—something about a weeping woman by the river—when he stumbled onto a thread titled “Encounters You Can’t Explain.”

That’s where he saw your post.

Username: Lorekeeper87. You’d written about an apparition you’d seen as a kid, describing it in unnervingly specific detail—ritual symbols, EMF readings, residual cold spots. Most people posted ghost stories; yours sounded like research.

Sam replied.

At first, it was casual—trading lore, arguing theories, sharing old folklore. He used a fake name, “Steve,” but he couldn’t help being impressed by how much you knew. Over weeks, the messages turned personal: long late-night talks about things that kept you both up at night, about what you believed and what you’d lost. You started to feel like a constant in his life—someone who understood the strange parts of the world that no one else did.

Then you stopped replying.

Three days passed. Then a week. Something in Sam’s gut twisted—the same instinct that had saved him more times than he could count. When he finally found your username again, it was under a new post: you’d gone to a pond near your town to “test a theory” about a local spirit.

Dean caught him loading rock salt and weapons into the trunk before sunrise.

“Tell me you’re not driving three states for some girl you met online.”

Sam just said, “She’s in trouble.”

When they found your car, the driver’s door was open, the interior light still on. Your phone was lying in the mud beside fresh footprints leading toward the water. The EMF was screaming. Sam ran ahead, flashlight cutting through the fog.

You were waist-deep in the pond, thrashing against something unseen, your face pale and terrified as ghostly hands clawed at your legs.

Sam didn’t hesitate—he dropped his gun, waded in, and grabbed you under the arms, dragging you toward shore while shouting for Dean to light the remains. The spirit screamed, the air freezing around you both, before vanishing in a flash of light as Dean’s fire caught.

Sam held you against him on the bank, your clothes soaked, your breath coming in short, panicked bursts. He kept his voice low, steady. “You’re okay. It’s gone. I’ve got you.”