The Skeptic

A police officer responds to a 911 call and discovers an elderly woman dead, clutching rosary beads. The scene hints at something beyond a simple natural death, setting a chilling tone for the investigation.

Bryan Beckett, an overly analytical lawyer, learns he is the rightful heir to his aunt's home. He moves in to separate from his wife and treats the aunt's death as a routine event, dismissing any notion of life after death as superstition.

Sully, Bryan's partner, suffers a seizure at the house and warns Bryan not to enter the closet behind the cross. The warning plants a seed of dread about a hidden secret within the home.

Unexplained phenomena start to appear: a chest in the upstairs bedroom falls by itself, and a shrine is found behind the closet crucifix. The house fills with strange noises and fleeting glimpses of a woman.

Bryan learns the house was willed to an institute studying sleep disorders. The director, Koven, shows a department that researches psychic energy, insisting they do not believe in the paranormal, which deepens Bryan's skepticism.

Despite the institute's stance, Bryan decides to contest the will and uncover the truth behind the house. Koven discounts his theories about voices, but Bryan remains determined to prove there is more to the haunting.

Bryan visits his psychiatrist Shepard, who attributes his visions to stress-induced insomnia rather than real supernatural activity. The session opens the door for deeper memory work later in the story.

Cassie, a psychic specimen from Koven's program, arrives to scan the house and offers insights Bryan hadn't disclosed. Her presence adds a new layer of plausibility to the haunting and pushes Bryan to confront hidden truths.

In an old trunk in the basement, Bryan and Cassie find a doll that terrifies him and triggers a flood of emotion. He begins to recall a memory of his mother abusing him and locking him in the closet.

Shepard helps Bryan piece together that, as a five-year-old, he had hidden toys on the stairs, causing his mother to fall to her death. His father and Shepard helped him forget this event, linking the haunting to his own past.

Bryan returns to the aunt's home but hesitates to enter. He sees Cassie's car in the driveway and calls her, only to realize she is not where she appeared to be.

Bryan discovers Cassie's car is missing and senses that his mother has orchestrated a trap to draw him back into the house. The manipulation hints at a long-standing influence from his mother entwined with the haunting.

In a tense confrontation, Bryan finds his mother's body lying at the foot of the stairs. The shock causes him to faint and slide down the stairs, colliding with a haunting sense of the past.

As he lies on the stairs, Bryan experiences a vision of a picnic he missed the day before his mother's death, which feels like an apology or a delayed closure. The scene fades to black, leaving his fate unresolved.