This time I’m walking along a cavernous path. It’s cold here below the earth’s surface. I remember being here before and being afraid of what would happen next. Tonight I am not afraid.
I am in Trance, moving along like I belong here when, in fact, my fate is still undecided. It feels normal, me being in this space at this time. It feels like home.
When I come to a small clearing, I hear the ripple of water and see a steady billowing of steam. There’s a lake there, just a few feet ahead of me. It curves around like a road inside the cavern. Where it ends I don’t know. If it leads to a larger pool of water I’m not certain. There’s life in that lake—something that has its own energy, negative energy—that breathes moisture in the air. I breathe in that moisture, inhaling deeply. It’s like food and I’m gorging myself, enjoying the fullness it leaves inside me.
As the moisture gives way to a darker mist, I smile. It’s Lor. I know what the cloud is now. The chameleon has a name. He knows mine and I know his. It’s like we are friends.
I walk toward Lor, even though the mist simply rolls along the floor of the cavern. I know it’s taking me somewhere, the place I came in search of. I think it’s cool that I know what it’s thinking without saying a word. It probably knows the same about me or why else would it have appeared right now.
The path opens up to reveal a larger cave, like a room within this dark dank place. There’s a large chair or what looks like the back of a chair, with no seat. There’s a frame along the wall, in a deep crimson color outlined with crystalline rocks. On each side are birds, ravens with beady red eyes. They are the largest ravens I’ve ever seen, like the size of pit bulls. They eye me as if I’m the main course on the dinner menu.
I’m not afraid as I continue walking. I am welcome here. I know this, I feel it deep inside.
Without a sound, he appears in the seat. His cloaked form simply materializing out of the air. Everything is still covered. Unlike Nasiel’s cloaked appearance with its skeletal frame, Charon’s form is shapeless, just an endless blackness that evokes an ominous feeling.
“You are beginning to believe,” he says.
Sticking my hands into my pockets, I nod. “I’m seeing things a little differently now.”
“You desire more answers.”
“I do.”
“Ask.”
“Why them? Why do you need me to help you break them up? They’re just a group of teenagers. They’re not important.”
“To me they are. Each one of them separately has some meaning. Together they could destroy all that I have worked for.”
“But they don’t even know about you.” At least I’m almost positive they don’t, since how many people have had encounters with twenty-first-century demons?
“They know that I am here, that I will destroy them.”
I shrug. “What do you get from destroying them?”
The question prompts Charon to lift his arm again. I’m prepared this time, waiting for the vision to appear, anxious to see what he has to show me.
I see Sasha first. She’s standing behind a house, just having closed the door behind her. Maybe she’s sneaking out to see that boy she’s going out with, the one who hangs out with the troublemakers at school. I don’t see the significance…but then she’s not there anymore. She appears again at the corner of Bolten Street. That’s a good distance from her house, where I’d just seen her.
The scene changes and it’s him—Jake. I’m not really in the mood for seeing him right now, but I don’t think Charon wants to hear me whining about the boy who stole my girlfriend. So I keep quiet, but my jaw is clenched and my teeth are grinding against each other so hard they feel like they could crumble.
Jake’s lifting something. It looks like wood planks. Lots of wood planks and he’s carrying them as if they’re light as a feather. He’s behind his house, I can tell from the old rundown look of all the houses down by the tracks. Then he’s not lifting the wood anymore, he’s just looking at a huge pile. Then that pile is moving—plank after plank after plank is drifting into the air—traveling the length of the yard and stacked in a neat pile.
I swallow.
Sasha’s disappearing and reappearing. Jake’s strength and ability to move things. I’m afraid of what’s next but I know it’s coming whether I’m prepared for it or not.
It’s Krystal. She’s at a cemetery, standing amidst headstones and grave sites, looking, strangely enough, as if she belongs there. Her hair’s blowing in the wind, trailing behind her like long fingers. She’s staring straight ahead, her eyes focused on something that I don’t see. Then she opens her mouth to talk. I can’t hear the words but she’s definitely talking to someone or something. An eerie feeling circulates inside me as I watch her. She looks so serene, so at peace here in this place, talking to no one.
Then she turns, a half smile touches her lips as she mouths something into the air once more. She goes to her knees and makes a motion with her hand like she’s telling someone to come closer. Her gaze moves to the space right next to her—the empty space and she continues to talk.
If it were another time, before I took a dip in the lake and dragged Krystal into the woods to try to gauge her eyes out, and definitely before I woke up in the Underworld and was transported to Trance where I’m surrounded by larger-than-life ravens, a chameleon demon and a demon with ambitions of ruling the world, I might have thought what I was seeing was incredible. But now it’s like pieces of a puzzle clicking into place.
The scene shifts to the forest, and I take a step closer, wondering if I willed myself, if I could go back to that place, that time—what would I do if I could?
I can’t, so it doesn’t matter. I just move closer to the image, which opens up like a big-screen television with scenes edited especially for me. It’s like I’m watching a surreal movie trailer.
The forest is just as it was that day, dark and eerie, even though a few miles away it’s bright sunlight. Tall trees jut up from the ground, dominating the landscape. In a small clearing littered with broken branches and fallen leaves, all of us are standing—Sasha, Jake, Lindsey, Krystal and me. I had my arms around Krystal, holding her, but not really feeling her. I remember that day when I grabbed her. I remember I didn’t feel like me and she didn’t feel like her—not the Krystal I knew, not the Krystal I loved. She’d yelled at me, her tone sounded like she hated me. That hate had been tinged with something else, maybe confusion. But I can’t pinpoint it right now.
All I know is that I needed her. I needed something from her with a desperation that was eating me alive. In some ways, I felt like what I was doing was wrong. But the need was overwhelming. I was reaching and reaching. She was squirming and yelling. Sasha was holding Jake back. Lindsey was staring at me like she could see right through me, like she knew exactly what I was feeling. But that’s not possible. Nobody knew what I was feeling, that unspeakably dark need. They couldn’t know—none of them could.
Then Krystal was out of my grip and Jake was behind me, pulling me down. I don’t remember anything after that. Nothing. But I see it now. I see exactly what happened from that moment on, and I struggle to understand it.
I am not me—not the me I’m used to seeing.
My eyes are different, my voice is different. It’s my body, but it is not my soul. I was gone even then. They’d already taken the old Franklin away, replacing him with what?
“Power,” I hear Charon whispering in my ear, like the narrator of a film noir. “You had it even then.”
I’m shaking my head but I don’t look at him. I hear him and a part of me agrees with what he’s saying. Another part needs more convincing. In the next few seconds, that persuasion comes when the scene changes and I’m levitating off the ground, my body floating in the air as an eerie laughter follows my movements. The four of them are on the ground, looking up in disbelief. Then I see them standing in different parts of the clearing, with lights glowing, and connecting them.
From my perch i
n the sky, I look down and notice that an aura is coming from each of them—purple from Lindsey, pink from Sasha, green from Jake and Krystal is bathed in a heavenly blue. The rainbow colors combine in a way that generates a sensation like nothing I’ve ever known.
In the next second, it’s over.
The darkness once again envelops the cavern, except for an eerie red glow that makes everything around it look just a little more sinister.
“They are powerful, as well. If they use that power together against me, I lose,” Charon states, solemnly.
The ravens are still watching me, perfectly still except for the red of their beady eyes.
“How did they get their powers?” I ask, accepting what I’ve just seen for exactly what it is—the beginning of a revelation.
“She created them. She manipulated the weather to create her army. Now I will manipulate her precious mortals to gain the ultimate power.”
“And you need my help.”
“I want you there, on the inside with them. You know their weaknesses, things I can never know. You know how to tear them apart. I sense you want that as much as I do.”
Oh, if he only knew. Vengeance is mine. I can feel it, a growing sense of power and control.
“Is that what I need to do before you trust me?”
“No. Destroying them will take time, and a carefully plotted plan. Right now I simply need to see what is in you. What you are capable of. I sense an evil streak in your blood. But that’s true of most people. I need to know if it runs deeper in your blood—if you can live up to my expectations.”
He wants to believe in me. I can hear it in his voice. He wants to believe that I can help him reach his destiny. He has faith in me. No one has ever had that kind of confidence in me before, or at least they never said it.
I want to believe what he said was true. I could destroy them. I could take their little group apart because I was powerful. And I would be even more powerful when this was all over.
“I’ll show you what I’m made of,” I say, and turn to leave the cavern without another word.
I know the ravens are watching me, and I know that Charon is watching me. Just as I know Lor is right behind me. I can sense his dark presence like another part of me.
The time is now.
I’m back at Krystal’s house now. I can’t seem to stay away from her. I just want to see her, one more time.
My life doesn’t seem to be my own anymore and I don’t really know when or why that changed. I’ve accepted that my circumstances are drastically different now. But I don’t know how much of a difference that makes on the inside in what I feel for her.
There were so many secrets she kept from me. But they are no longer secrets. Well, now that Charon has revealed the mystery surrounding Krystal and her friends. I watched in amazement at the revelation of who Krystal was or wasn’t, compared to who and what I thought she was. I guess it all works out, since now I am not what I used to be.
It’s late, but I don’t have any real sense of time anymore. I’m inside her house, standing in her room, right beside her bed. How did I get in? I don’t really know. One minute, I was outside her window, thinking of climbing the tree beside her window to see her. In the next instant, I was there. I thought I felt a breeze as I stood looking down at her, like Nasiel probably had something to do with it.
The reaper keeps insisting that I make the right decision for myself. He believes in Charon, both him and Lor, and that’s why they’re helping him. But Nasiel seems to know that I’m torn between both sides. There’re plenty of reasons why I should simply cross over and do Charon’s bidding. Realistically, there’s nothing on earth holding me back from what promises to be an even greater destiny.
Nothing, but Krystal.
The choice is mine and I’m still wavering as to what I’m going to do. But that doesn’t matter at this precise moment. What matters is that I’m here and this is where I want to be, for now.
Her head is tilted to the side, with her hair spread across her pillow like a dark fan. Soft black lashes shadow her smooth creamy skin. Lifting a hand, I move closer to her like I’m going to touch her face. My fingers actually get really close to her cheek, but I don’t feel anything. The touch is not real. Her chest moves up and down with each breath she takes and I feel myself pacing my own breathing accordingly. Inhaling, I smell her fragrance, something soft and feminine. It’s a scent I’ll carry with me forever, no matter which way I go—good or bad.
She looks so peaceful and I wonder if she knows I’m here. After I returned from Trance, Nasiel was there at my house. He explained they were called the Mystyx and that Krystal’s what they call a medium—one who can see and talk to spirits. Does she know what I am or what I’m going to be? Probably not, I say to myself. I won’t be a ghost, but rather a demon.
The Mystyx are fighting for something, they have a purpose. Why shouldn’t I? Embracing this new life seems like the right thing to do. I’m so pissed at my dad for leaving without even trying to find me. I know that for a fact now, as well.
Nasiel knows a lot and he’s not bad to talk to if you ignore the fact that he usually an agent of death. If I remained on earth, where would I go? Who would I live with? What would I do?
Krystal’s with Jake now and that hurts—a lot. She was the one thing good in my life, and now…
A cool breeze floats through her window, blowing strands of her hair until they dance in the air. It’s not Nasiel this time, I don’t feel the reaper near. Funny how I can feel these things now, how I seem to be connecting to that world. No, the breeze is me. I feel the coolness in my fingertips, filtering through my body as it enters the room.
I’m doing this all by myself. A jolt of pleasure moves through me as I watch the breeze I’ve created pull at the sheet covering Krystal’s body. It slides down lower so that the full length of her nightshirt is revealed. It’s pink and has a colorful peace sign in the center. Ironic, considering what was brewing between the Mystyx and Charon.
I fixate on the curve of her breasts and hips and I get lost there for a moment, longing, needing. Then she stirs like maybe she feels the chill of the air. She moves and turns onto her side, pulling her knees up to her chest. One side of her face is facing me and I kneel down to get closer. I can’t resist moving my face closer to hers, my lips just a whisper away.
I want to feel her, to taste her lips one more time. I like this feeling of control I have now. Given the circumstances, my decision is even clearer now.
A persistent tugging in my chest says there’s something still holding me here, something I’m going to have to put away completely in order to move on. There’s no use when she wants someone else. Right? Besides, what can I give her, even though I’m now a part of the same mystical world in which she exists. I’ll be on the other side though, a side she’ll probably always fight against because that’s the way she is. I’ll be in a constant battle with the other supernatural one who she thinks she’s falling in love with. Jake. His name reverberates through my body like thunder in a brewing storm. My teeth clench and my resolve strengthens.
I kiss Krystal, my lips brushing over hers. She doesn’t feel me, I know this. But I feel her and that’s all that matters. I feel her.
Standing back, I prepare to leave, prepare to walk away from her and the life I thought I had. Then she moves, rolls over onto her back and her eyes slowly open. I stand perfectly still, waiting, hoping she can see me now.
But she doesn’t.
She just looks around like maybe she thinks there’s something there. Then she reaches for the sheet, pulls it up to her neck and turns onto her other side so that I can no longer see her face.
She’s dumped me again.
For the last time.
Chapter Five
This is the fifth night of the sixth month. I’m walking along this stretch of dirt road. I don’t really know where I am or how I got here. I just started walking and this is where I ended up. It’s pretty dark outsi
de now and I get the feeling the hours are winding down.
They will come for me again shortly, at the sixth hour. What will they find? What will my final decision be?
I’ve gone back and forth, and over and over again. Weighing the pros and cons, I guess. There aren’t many pros to being dead and power isn’t so great once you’ve had a taste of it. And I have. It was a small taste, but I enjoyed it just the same.
My feet are moving just as fast as my mind, but I don’t feel the ground beneath me, just the motion and the sensation that I’m getting closer.
I hear the sounds of an engine, tires rolling over dirt and rock long before I see the one headlight down the road. A car’s coming.
Blood starts coursing through my veins. I actually feel like its pumping, traveling, filling every crevice inside me. I can see clearly in the dark. My sight is tinged with a red chroma color, but I can see the trees on either side of the road, the winding path the car is about to take, the two passengers who have no idea what’s about to happen to them.
Trust.
Believe.
I repeat the mantra in my head, focusing every thought on the car. Well, not necessarily the car, but more like the person driving the car.
His name is Oz, short for Osborne Krandle. He’s seventeen, a senior who ditched school more than he ever attended. There’s a girl in the passenger seat, who looks a lot younger than she should be, riding around on this dark road with Oz. But my thoughts are focused on him, the way his fingers are gripping the steering wheel and his foot steadily presses down on the gas pedal.
The car speeds up, kicking up dust clouds as it moves faster along the road.
Faster.
Faster.
Until it swerves, the steering wheel sliding through Oz’s sweaty grip. The ditch isn’t that deep, but at the speed Oz is going when the car tips forward into it, the velocity propels the vehicle and it flips right over. One time. Two times. Three times.
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