Unhinged Magic // BOOK ONE

Chapter 20

"Shit."

As they turned around, some guards and a few cultavists were there, then Selen noticed two people. Her eyes widened. It had felt like more than ten years since she had seen them. But she noticed Blue was missing. "There they are! I swear I saw it!" One man who was dressed in rags said. "Sir, I'm going to need you to lower your fan, and miss I need you to lower your hood." One man said to Ao and Selen, as Zombie stepped in front of them. "Miss." "What are you going to do with them?" Zombie looked at them sternly. "We need to see who they are, we aren't going to do anything." Zombie sighed and she stepped aside, as Ao flicked his fan to where his face was visible, and Selen pulled down her hood, revealing all of the tattoos over her, and Ao's markings on his face. "That's them!" One of the guards cried out. "Selen..?" Kaden whispered under his breath as he stared at her, while Ambrose looked at her in anger. "Girls, run! I'll catch up with you to get you guys back!" Ao signaled to Zombie and Selen, who started to run. They didn't know where, but they were running. 

"Catch them all! Don't kill them!" One guard ordered but Ambrose interrupted him. "Kill the one who has blue hair!" "Why? That's Selen!" "I know, Kaden! I'm not stupid!" "I.." Kaden stood there as he watched them all run after all three ghosts. In the corner of his eye, he could see Eloise, who had been standing in the middle of the open watching this happen. "Come on! We almost have one of them!" One guard shouted as they were backed into a corner. "You're going to have to go without me, kay?" Ao said as he started to open a portal that would close after they entered it. Zombies eyes widened. "Please, you can make it back Ao, please!" She cried. She remembered watching her brother go limp right in front of her, her parents dying, her whole family, dying. She thought she wouldn't have to go through something else like this again, even in the afterlife, and she didn't have to feel any more pain or loss. She and Ao were close like family, and she didn't want to lose him too. Selen stayed quiet as she just stared at Ambrose, then noticed Eloise who was behind her. As she dazed out, a splash of blue blood and ash splattered onto both her and Zombie, as the portal finished. "AO!" Both of the girls cried out as Eloise ran up to both of them and pushed them into the portal, and stayed open for Eloise.  "Ao..." Eloise said as she looked at Ao's limp body, which was withering away slowly, and she grabbed the hand fan he carried, and spoke, "I'm declaring war on you all. That's it." She said as she yanked the hairpin out of Ao's hair and went into the portal, that closed.

As Eloise was in the ghost realm, both of the girls were just sitting there, crying. "I didn't know something like that would get him killed." Selen cursed to herself. "GOD I'M SO STUPID." She said as she hit the ground with her hand. "It's not your guy's fault, he did it to get you both here safe, y'know. You all weren't gonna make it back, just one of you had to go." Eloise tried to reassure the both of them. "I grabbed these before I went through, you guys can choose which one you want." She mumbled as she set the hand fan and hairpin on the ground. Zombie stared at the hairpin and picked it up and stared at it in her hand. It reminded her of grabbing the arrow out of her brother's body and just staring at it as the blood dripped on the ground. And Selen grabbed the hand fan that Ao always had on him. It had the design of a cherry tree that had purple and pink petals on one side, then on the other side of it had a painting of the inside of a tree, with lanterns in it.

A day later, Eloise announced the news to the Ghost Realm that he had died, and that she was back, and that they were going to war soon with the Mortal Realm. 

"As I've returned from the Mortal Realm from years of not being down here, I have two announcements to make, the first, is the bad news."Eloise sighed as she looked at the crowd of ghosts and inhaled. "When Ao, otherwise known as Blue Horned Devastation, Selen, otherwise known as Corrupt Queen of Crimson, and Zombie, a Wrath zombie went up to the Mortal Realm to search for three people, as they were found and caught, Ao sacrificed his last life to save both Selen and Zombie, we'll scatter some of his ashes around the city tonight." She explained sadly and looked around. "The other news is that we're going to war with the Mortal Realm." She announced as the crowd of ghosts started to scream in approval. 

As Selen sat on top of one of the tallest roofs in the city, she looked at the fan Ao had owned and sighed. "I wanted to take them back here, keep Kaden safe, and... I don't even know what to Ambrose." Selen sighed as she looked up at the dark-red sky. "Everyone misses you, even Eloise, believe it or not. I thought she hated your guts, but apparently not." Selen chuckled between her sobs. "Zombie misses you the most out of anyone, though. I try to talk to her but she ignores me, and doesn't want to talk to anyone. I don't have like... anyone here to talk to, so I'm kinda fucked." She laughed again as she kicked her feet back and forth and her bells jingled on her shoes. "Eloise has been really stressed lately, Zombies just upset, I'm just.." She sighed. "I just want to go back to the old times." She said as she leaned back on the roof and closed her eyes. "War with the Mortal Realm.." 




1033 words

END OF UNHINGED MAGIC, BOOK ONE.
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT BOOK.