The Copper Casket Game

The summer I turned sixteen, my friends and I thought we were invincible. My name is Riley, and my two best friends, Tessa and Morgan, had decided that a sleepover at Morgan’s new house was the perfect way to celebrate the end of finals. The house was an old Victorian relic, inherited from her grandmother, and it sat at the edge of a dying town called Ashburn. The place had a sagging porch, peeling paint, and windows that seemed to watch you. But we were teenagers, and the eerie vibe made it more exciting.

We arrived at dusk, eight of us in total, with sleeping bags and junk food. Morgan’s mom had ordered a mountain of tacos and soda, and we gorged ourselves in the dusty dining room while her mom told us to ‘behave’ before retreating to her study with a bottle of wine. After dinner, we clattered down the narrow stairs to the basement, which Morgan’s parents had converted into a ‘rec room.’ It was a misnomer—it was a damp, low-ceilinged space with wood-paneled walls, a threadbare couch, and a dozen mildewed mattresses arranged in a circle on the concrete floor. A single bare bulb hung from a cord, casting harsh shadows. We set up our sleeping bags, laughing at how creepy it was.

Around midnight, as the pizza boxes lay empty and the soda ran flat, one of the girls—Sophie, who always knew weird stuff—leaned in and whispered, ‘You guys ever heard of the Copper Casket Game?’ We shook our heads, but her eyes glinted. ‘It’s an old séance thing my cousin told me about. You take a volunteer, they lie on the floor, and we all stand around them. One person at their head, one at their feet. The head person says, ‘This is [name], and she is dead.’ We all repeat it. Then the head person whispers, ‘Rise, [name], rise from the copper casket.’ And the person on the floor goes into a trance—they float, like, a few inches. It’s freaky.’ We laughed, calling it bullshit, but there was a nervous energy in the room. I was the skeptic. I’d read about sleep paralysis and suggestion. But the others clamored to try it.

I offered to be the ‘dead’ one, thinking I could expose it as a prank. I lay down on the cold concrete, my heart thumping. Tessa took my head, Morgan my feet. The other six formed a loose ring around me. The light bulb flickered, and Tessa began: ‘This is Riley, and she is dead.’ They repeated it, a chorus of uncertain voices. She said it again, louder. ‘This is Riley, and she is dead.’ My skin prickled. Then Tessa leaned over me, her breath warm and stale, and said, ‘Rise, Riley, rise from the copper casket.’

Nothing happened. I felt foolish, about to laugh and sit up, when a cold draft slithered across the floor, despite the sealed windows. The bulb buzzed, and my body went rigid—not like I was choosing to stay still, but like my muscles were locked. I couldn’t move. I tried to speak, to say ‘this is stupid,’ but my jaw wouldn’t budge. The girls around me gasped. Morgan whispered, ‘She’s lifting.’

I couldn’t feel the floor anymore. I was suspended, floating about six inches above the concrete. I could see the dust motes swirling in the light, and I glimpsed their faces—wide-eyed, terrified, but also thrilled. I was not floating by my own will. Something had taken hold of my body, pinning me in place. A pressure built in my ears, like being underwater. I could hear their voices as if from a distance, repeating the phrase over and over: ‘Rise, Riley, rise from the copper casket.’

Then I saw it—a shape at the periphery of my vision. It was like a shadow, but darker, an absence of light. It hovered near the ceiling, not human, more like a long, thin ribbon of smoke that twisted and coiled. It seemed to be feeding on the ritual, growing denser. My eyes locked onto it, and I felt a terrible cold seep into my bones. The pressure in my ears became a whisper, a word I couldn’t quite catch. I realized with horror that my body was rising higher, now a foot off the floor, as if the thing was pulling me up.

I wanted to scream, but my voice was gone. The girls chanted louder, some in excitement, some in fear. Tessa’s eyes were wide, but she kept repeating the words. I managed to twitch a finger, then a hand—a tiny break from the paralysis. I forced my mouth open and croaked, ‘Stop.’

The chanting faltered. The moment they broke the rhythm, my body slammed back to the concrete floor, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The shadow-thing vanished, but I felt its absence like a cold spot that lingered. I gasped for air, trembling. ‘Stop playing,’ I said, my voice cracking. ‘Something’s wrong.’

The girls helped me up, a mix of awe and unease. ‘You actually rose!’ Sophie said, but her smile faltered when she saw my face. ‘What happened? You look like you saw a ghost.’

I didn’t tell them about the shadow. I didn’t tell them about the cold or the whisper. I just shook my head and said I wanted to go to bed. We all curled into our sleeping bags, the excitement fizzling into a nervous silence. The light bulb hummed, and I lay awake, staring at the ceiling where the thing had hung.

That’s when I felt it: a faint pressure on my chest, like a hand resting there. I looked down, but nothing was there. The pressure grew, becoming heavier, and I felt a cold breath on my ear—a voice, so faint I barely heard it: ‘You opened the casket.’

I bolted upright, waking Tessa, who cursed at me. ‘I can’t sleep,’ I whispered. ‘I feel something.’

She rubbed her eyes. ‘What? You’re being paranoid.’

But then the light bulb flickered and went out. The room plunged into darkness, and a collective gasp went through the other girls. I fumbled for my phone, turned on its flashlight, and swept the beam across the room. For a split second, I saw it—the shadow-thing, crouched over Sophie’s sleeping form, its head tilted as if looking at me. Then it was gone, but Sophie let out a low groan and sat up, her eyes open but blank.

‘Sophie?’ I said.

She didn’t answer. She stood up, walked to the center of the room, and lay down on the floor, her arms crossed over her chest like a corpse. The other girls woke with confused murmurs. ‘What the hell?’ Tessa said.

I realized with dread what was happening. The game had started, but now it was playing itself. ‘We need to finish it,’ I said. ‘We have to say the words, but reversed.’

‘What words?’ Morgan asked, her voice shaky.

‘The closing,’ I said, my mind racing. ‘To send her back.’

I positioned myself at Sophie’s head, Morgan at her feet. The others gathered around, still half asleep but instinctively joining. I began to speak the words I’d never heard but which came to my lips as if I’d always known them: ‘This is Sophie, and she was dead. Sophie, return to the casket. We close the lid. We bury the box. We seal the ground.’

The girls repeated the phrases after me, their voices a trembling chorus. Sophie’s body remained still, but I felt the temperature drop again. The shadow materialized at the foot of the circle, larger now, its edges frayed like torn cloth. It started to move toward Sophie, and I screamed, ‘Keep saying it!’ We chanted faster, louder.

Sophie’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Her body twitched, then went limp. The shadow dissolved into a wisp that shot into the bare bulb, which blazed to life with a pop. Sophie gasped, her eyes snapping open, and she sat up, gasping for air. ‘What happened?’ she said, looking around wildly.

We all burst into tears, hugging her, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing wasn’t gone—it was trapped in the light, in the room, in us. We spent the rest of the night huddled together, not sleeping, just waiting for dawn. As the first gray light crept through the boarded-up basement windows, we gathered our things and fled, vowing to never speak of it again.

That was ten years ago. I’ve tried to move on, but the shadow has followed me. Not every day, but in my dreams, in the flicker of a streetlamp, in the cold draft of a room with no windows. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I hear the whisper again: ‘You opened the casket. But I never left.’

I know now that the game wasn’t a trick. It was an invitation. And the copper casket isn’t a box—it’s a doorway. And once you open it, something from the other side clings to you, waiting for the day it can rise again.