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The original was posted on /r/ghoststories by /u/B6TM6N on 2025-10-31 15:02:16+00:00.

In the early days of the pandemic, when Australia was isolated and there weren’t any Covid cases here, life went on pretty much as normal. One sunny afternoon, I visited a good friend of mine, named B_ who I hadn’t seen in some time. He was living in a bungalow by the sea, with his new partner M_ and I spent the rest of the day there with them, drinking and making art and I eventually stayed for dinner.

M_ was a great cook and friendly enough, maybe a little withdrawn; she didn’t talk too much and seemed to have a quiet sadness about her. Later in the night she told me about her father, who had raised his two daughters alone, and had recently passed from cancer. I saw a photo of him on the bureau, tanned and slightly plump with a gold watch, half-smiling at the camera. She told me he was a great father and a huge inspiration to her, and was a monumental figure in her life. Losing him had been a great struggle for her.

Late that night I went home with a head full of alcohol. The day had left me with a good impression of M_. I was really happy for my friend; he had finally settled down and found a good partner. They had a beautiful life out there, by the sea.

As the pandemic worsened, and the news from around the world got darker every day, I stayed in touch with my friend over the phone and we planned on meeting up again, but days turned into weeks and then months and we kind of drifted apart again.

One afternoon I was walking through a shopping mall on the way to the store to line up for some groceries. The area was pretty much deserted, most of the shops were closed, and a grim silence hung over everything. I saw M_ walking towards me, she looked really pale and upset, with a wide look in her eyes. It looked like the pandemic had been hard on her, or maybe something really bad had happened. I smiled and waved at her, but she just looked right at me and walked past without saying anything.

I went home a little puzzled by the experience, I kind of rationalized that she was probably a little upset that I had never come back to visit them, or that maybe there was something that had happened between my friend and M_ that made her not want to talk to me.

The phone rang and it was my friend B_ He had come home from work during his lunch break and had found M_ in the back yard slumped over the stairs where she used to sit and take her cigarettes. She had died sometime in the morning.

This is a true story. Names have been removed out of respect for the living and the dead.