Ember Rising Light (Book One)

by C.K. Mullinax

  Chapter Two

  I sensed it the second I stepped off the bus, that horrible feeling of dread. Our house looked normal from the outside – well, as normal as the day we moved in. The paint was virtually nonexistent. The concrete steps were cracked and the carport was caved in on one side. The heavy, ragged plastic that had been taped up to ‘fix’ the broken window was blowing around like a battered flag. The house was definitely a dump. The outside didn’t even give a hint about what the real problem was, but I knew something was wrong.

  The bus was gone by the time I looked around the neighborhood. I saw and heard absolutely nothing. My blood turned to ice and I was chilled to the bone. The world had apparently stopped spinning. I didn’t hear a dog barking, no children were playing and no breeze was blowing. There was just…nothing. It felt like a terrible storm was building – calm and eerily quiet.

  Then, I was filled with a sense of alarm when I suddenly turned into a statue in my driveway! I was frozen, right along with the rest of the world. I tried to force my fingers to move, but they refused. I was stuck in a time warp…

  My vision seemed to get foggy and the world narrowed into a hazy tunnel. I would have been intrigued by the mystery of what was happening to me, but I was terrified. I had never been stuck in suspended animation.

  My thoughts clouded over with darkness as an inky black fog started to surround me. It felt like I was being hypnotized – lulled into some type of weird, twisted dream. Near the edge of the fog bank I saw, animals…no…a ‘dark being’ of some kind was forming. It reminded me of a haunted, wicked entity like I had seen in a horror movie.

  I would have shouted, but my voice was as useless as the rest of my body.

  The dark entity grew into one tremendous being. It had four different heads and what looked like the body of a dragon. I watched in freaky awe as the talons formed into sharp, black razors. The gimonsterous entity sprouted wings and took flight. It was hovering at least twenty feet over our roof. I could tell that the dark entity was getting ready to strike, but I didn’t see anything for it to attack. Since I was stuck in one place, I couldn’t scope out the area.

  The silence became deadly…

  Then, I saw another ‘entity’ start to take shape…a light…an image. It appeared from out of nowhere, just like the dark entity. My eyes struggled to focus on the newly forming image. The dark entity headed toward the ground like a rocket and attacked its growing enemy.

  The epic battle was being fought in front of my eyes. A few seconds later I finally figured out what the dark entity was fighting – a being of light. The blazing light entity was definitely winning the war. It was slashing the dark entity to ribbons. The dark creature was desperately trying to defeat the blinding light, but it was getting blocked at each turn. Every time the dark entity would do something to get the upper-hand, the light entity would stop it.

  There I stood, still as a fixture – Traywick Shane Pateman, the great human statue…

  I watched in helpless fascination while I was being blinded by the light entity. I saw a zillion sunbursts as the light assaulted my eyes. The dark entity bellowed in rage. The noise thundered around inside my head. Warm blood trickled down my neck from my busted eardrums.

  The dark entity had been torn to shreds by the light. The remaining pieces were hopelessly attempting to reassemble into some type of a fighting form. The shreds of darkness whipped and swirled together into a frenzied storm. The wind howled in response and its outrageous wail climbed to a high-pitched, endless shriek.

  I was still stuck to the ground when all-the-sudden something seemed to snap loose inside my body. I thought it might be an internal organ being torn in half. Then, the unknown piece of me, ripped away from my body! The missing part of me streaked toward the house and sailed through the wall. It must have landed somewhere inside…

  Terrified, I tried to decide if my brain had just fractured – that just had to be a mind trick, right??? I couldn’t check my head for damage, since I still couldn’t move. So, I performed a quick mental inventory.

  I’m still breathing…that has to be a good sign…

  My mental inventory started and ended there, because I thought of something important.

  Ember…

  My body was still frozen, but my mind was screaming my sister’s name. Although I still didn’t know what was going on outside, I knew there was danger lurking through the doorway of our house. My sister is inside with the nameless monster! She is not allowed to go anywhere…ever. I’ve got to get to Ember!

  I urgently tried to force my feet to move, but they refused to cooperate.

  The remaining shreds of the dark creature made one last attempt to fight. A brilliant beam drew the battle skyward. The evil howls doubled in intensity as the light entity consumed the darkness.

  For one flicker of a second, the sky lit up like it had been hit with a nuclear bomb. Every color of the rainbow bathed the landscape. The colors burned my eyes, because I couldn’t look away.

  The sky returned to a normal shade of blue and the earth righted itself, again. Well, almost everything around me returned to normal. My shrieking brain and frozen body remained…

  “Ember…” I eventually managed to force her name from my lips and my invisible chains released me.

  I ran like a wild person toward the kitchen door. I couldn’t think about the dark creature that had just been destroyed or the blinding light being that killed it. My own injuries or what might be behind that door just waiting to attack me would be forgotten too. I was focused, running on blind instinct.

  The door knob vibrated with a strange energy. I reflexively yanked my hand away from it and pulled my shirt sleeve over my hand. Getting fried or zapped with electricity won’t help me get to Ember. The metal seemed to be surrounded with a bizarre, unearthly power. I could still feel it vibrate, even through the fabric. Panic gripped me as I prepared to enter.

  Wait…Ember might be in the kitchen. And, if I come barreling through the door, I will scare her. Terrified for her safety, I really want to rush inside and yell her name like a lunatic. But, I somehow managed to fight the impulse and walk in, quietly.

  What I found behind that door would haunt me for the rest of my life. The scene I was looking at was something out of a nightmare. It was impossible…it couldn’t be happening…but it was…

  Every item, not physically attached to something, was scattered across the kitchen floor or suspended from the ceiling. All the pots and dishes had been destroyed. Plastic cups were shattered like they had been made of crystal. Green slime was splattered across the walls. The room was filled with thick, smelly smoke. I was coughing from the stench.

  The microwave and the toaster were on the floor, going haywire. Sparks were flying. Their buzzing sounded like a maddening electrical symphony – although neither one is plugged into an electrical outlet! I must be losing my mind…

  I was astounded by the loony scene. Then, I saw something horrifying. Knives and silverware were buried to their hilts in the doorways and the walls. My thoughts were racing while I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. But, there is no way to explain what I am definitely seeing.

  Toasters can’t make sparks without electricity. The appliances didn’t get that memo…

  Forcing my feet to move, I waved at the smoke to clear a path. That didn’t help much. So, I crawled around and searched for Ember.

  The smoke was still blinding, even at ground-level. The house was creaking like it was getting ready to collapse. I wasn’t worried about my safety. My only concern was for my baby sister. Terror gripped me when I saw streaks of blood and what might be pieces of flesh on the splintered dining room chairs.

  “Ember…Ember…” I managed to choke out her name.

  She didn’t make a peep, but the house would do the talking for her. It stopped creaking and started moaning. The floor’s gonna cave in…
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br />   Crawling faster, I rushed into the living room. That’s where I finally found her. Ember’s small body was crouched in the far corner. Her unblinking eyes were open, but they were hollow. It looks like my sister has been robbed of her soul…

  ‘Terror’ doesn’t even come close to describing how I was feeling. Ember looks empty…she’s gone.

  Scared that I might start shouting like a lunatic, I shoved those thoughts out of my mind. I need to get to my sister and see if she’s okay. My instincts told me to approach her with tremendous care. So I slowly and anxiously crawled in her direction – is she even breathing????

  Sighing in relief, I finally saw her shiver. Ember will most likely be damaged from whatever just happened. But, at least she’s still alive…

  “Hey Little Girl,” I stated softly, reaching out to her.

  Her eyes were still empty and haunted. She didn’t speak or reach out to be held. Terror grabbed me, again and I fought against my normal reaction.

  “Come on, we’ve gotta go. It’s not safe in this house, anymore.”

  It was a miracle, but I somehow sounded cool and calm. The overwhelming desire to shout in the middle of that chaos was crushing.

  Ember still didn’t respond. So, I inched closer, watching her for any further signs of life. The madness started to rise up in my throat. I had to resist the urge to let that sound escape. It probably would have frightened me, more than her.

  “It’s okay…everything’s fine… we need to leave, now…it’s gonna be alright, I promise,” I whispered soothingly.

  My words weren’t helping either one of us. Ember always reaches for me or acknowledges my presence in some way – but, not this time. She was looking right through me. I tried to think of something I could do to make her come back from her dark hiding place.

  I need to find her soul somehow, but I don’t know where to start looking…

  After another few minutes of terrible silence, Ember gradually lifted her arm and pointed to the other side of the room. She wanted me to turn around. I had no clue what kind of nightmare lurked behind me! And would that nightmare become real and rip us both to shreds, if I look at it…

  All I wanted to do right then, was grab her and run away fast. But, that’s not what she wanted. I have never been able to deny her anything she’s ever requested. And, I wasn’t going to start then. So I held her tiny hand and surrendered to her wishes. Turning around cautiously, I looked to see what she was pointing at.

  Gasping in shock and disbelief, my mind tried to wrap itself around, yet another impossibility. A big pile of cash was on fire in the corner! From what I could see, the bills were 50’s and 100’s. It would have been a fortune…

  The money was going up in flames by the time my brain caught up with my eyes. The fire matched all the other loony things in the house. It was burning with purple, pink and light blue flames. The rising smoke was gold instead of the normal gray. I couldn’t seem to react and try to put it out either.

  “Can a multi-colored fire even be extinguished??” I whispered in surprise.

  Then, something insane happened and my question got answered. The unreal fire started to die down even though nothing was there to put it out. Suddenly, the flames just vanished and the shimmery gold smoke disappeared too. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, but this was real.

  I was staring at a gimonsterous pile of unharmed cash.