Return to the Haunted Mansion | BOOK 4

15. Samson

I cry out, holding my left eye as it stings with a pain I can't explain, but the blue wispiness stays around me. So maybe this is real. But... do I believe it is?

The ground rumbles and I lock eyes with the past me. Everything seems to freeze, the two me's stuck in staring at one another. I slowly lower my hand as her eye grow brighter, the ring around my own vision brightening. I'd blacked out after this. This is where my memories ended.

My memories.

"I believe," both forms of me whisper.

Lightning seems to strike between us, light exploding as the world around us shakes, the mansion seeming so close to collapsing.

Ghosts and ghouls grew agitated and began lashing out at one another. I watch from the ground, placidity washing over me as the younger me and current me keep eye contact. I walk forward and I find myself reaching out toward her. Our fingers touch and something inside me jolts awake. I grit my teeth and close my eyes as another burst of energy pulses from my bodies. Closing my eyes, I feel a shift of gravity, of air quality, but that calmness lingers in my chest.

When I open my eyes, I'm on the ground where my younger body was. I take a deep breath and pull whatever was holding me back, making it fall to the ground. I stand grip its wrist tightly. It's like my body is moving on its own, as if my brain knows exactly what to do.

I say nothing as I squeeze my hand tighter. Tendrils explode from my hand and into the ghost's body, making its form buzz and turn to gelatin that falls on the ground below me.

I see Megan's eyes widen in fear. The younger Megan. This isn't another memory, is it?

No, I realize as I clench my fist, slamming into the stomach of a vampire rushing toward me. This is the present.

My fist glows bright blue, the energy exploding from it creating a hole in the vampire's torso. Fire sparks to life around its wound, as if it was from the energy I'd released. I walk to the middle of the room, the agitated ghouls and ghosts and whatnot standing still now, staring at me, agape. My footfalls are louder than the whispers and grunts and groans around me, stopping as I do in the center of the room, beneath the blown-out archway into the kitchen. Megan stands, staring at me, bewildered.

"You... were supposed to die."

I say nothing, staring her down. My veins buzz with energy, energy that feels divine, like it's a blessing from God.

Release them.

The words come to me, the voice gentle. Before I can ask How? an idea comes to me.

I look down at my hands, the light cyan radiating from my every pore like a bioluminescent fish.

I squat down and touch the ground, closing my eyes as the building creaks and moans, sounding about ready to collapse. The energy rushing through me...

"Be free."

The mansion begins to rip apart as the light coming from me seeps into the floor and up the walls, the monsters around me turning to smoke or light, disappearing one at a time as the world outside shifts from blackness to the street I'd once lived on long ago.

Megan rushes over to me, reaching for my arm. "What are you—"

She pulls back with a hissing gasp, her hand turning to smoke.

"What is this?"

"You didn't want to be trapped anymore," I say, Keea catching my attention. Her body shifts and changes from that of a wolf to a young girl with dark skin and dark hair. She stares at her hands and back at me, blinking back tears. A blue stripe of paint glows in the light I give off.

A beam falls, barely missing me as it passes through Megan.

"Stop it! Stop it, you're ruining everything!"

"You wanted me to die?" I ask calmly, unafraid.

I know I'll make it out of here alive.

"It's what you deserved."

"Then what? If I died and turned into a ghost, what would you do? Torture me for a millennia?" I watch her green eyes flicker. "And if I didn't? If I went straight to Heaven... you'd be left in your revenge scheme."

"You're destroying our home!"

"They're crossing over," I breathe as the last monster disappears, the mansion crumbling around me. "I've hated this place my entire life. Maybe the ten years I'd lived weren't real. Maybe I created a whole life for myself, but it doesn't matter. Real or not, I learned a lot. And I believe you did too."

"You can't do this, Katelin! You're—I'm—"

She's speechless.

"You're scared." It's a statement that comes from my lips, not a question. "Then I guess you know where you're going. You had ten years, Megan."

Fear fills her eyes.

"Say hello to God for me," I breathe. "If you meet him today."

The cyan fills everything I see and Megan goes up in smoke. Wolves and vampires shift to human or fall to ash, most leaving to get out of the path of the falling rubble. I'm sure some are caught in the wreckage.

A feeling in my gut tells me the mansion is empty as the walls fall around me, the debris barely missing me. I stand slowly, the beams still hitting the ground. Calmly, I walk forward, stepping over whatever is in my way.

Nothing hits me. Not a speck of dirt lands on me. The nighttime air is thin and cold, but I don't feel it through the warmth of the energy within me.

People stand around the mansion, those that were saved by these powers bestowed onto me. As I step onto the rickety old porch, the mansion finally collapses completely in on itself, a hush falling over the street I used to know so long ago.

The people who had been transformed seem to curse me as I pass, but I don't care. I don't listen. I keep walking, my eyes trained on the road until I turn back around to face the mansion.

"The mansion no longer exists."

With a rumble, the ground beneath the mansion sinks in on itself, tumbling down the cliff behind it. I'd never noticed, but then again, I'd never cared.

The people are silenced, staring at me like I'm a freak. Or an alien.

"Thank you, God, for getting me out," I say as the lights I project dim and the nighttime is lit by only the streetlights and the moon.

The girl I recognize as Keea stares at me, not really sure what to think about what just happened. She's a lot taller than I'd imagined. A lot younger, too.

I pat her on the shoulder, a few sparks from my hand flickering in the night at our touch.

I don't say another word as I walk down the street, a few people coming out to see what the ruckus was at the end of the street. I see my dad come out, looking younger than I remember him. And taller. And why is he here? Why is he in our old house?

I catch a glimpse of myself in the front window. My younger self is staring back at me. My heart jars in my chest. Ten years, gone, just like that.

"A world of my own," I whisper, feeling sort of like Samson from the Bible. Only I walked away, alive.

I stare at my hands, the world flickering around me.

I think.