The Castle of Forgotten Souls

Their Bitter-Sweet Ending

Life moved on without them. They were in Scotland. Near a city this time. It had been twenty years and the Hunchback had moved location many times. He grew bored of the lack of victims he was getting. He was annoyed that they always seemed to get away from him.

"Heads up!" Anna looked at the cane heading her way.

She laughed, "No way you got that off him! Good going, Dennis!"

A hearty laugh sounded out and Anna caught the cane with her telekinesis. Every spirit got a power when they died, based on what they would need in the afterlife or how they died. Anna had no arms and only one leg which was pretty much useless. She got telekinesis.

The hunchback's outraged cry came from the dungeons.

"We have a runner!" croaked Ms Murphy.

True to her word, a little boy who looked about seven years old came running out of the dungeons. His face was pale and he had a small collection of scars, tears streaming down his face. He sobbed as he ran, tripping over his feet. He nodded to Claudia's excited voice giving him directions out.

Claudia was the only one who appeared to the living now. Chloe's scream when she saw them first had discouraged a lot of them. They still held a grudge against Chloe. Chloe was closer to the gargoyles than she was to the spirits, especially when she revived Fallon.

A blonde-headed blur ran past her with a rug. She threw the other side to a red-headed farmer from the 80's. The hunchback came hobbling out, only to fall into the carpet and have it wrapped around him.

Leah and Emily laughed and high-fived each other. They exchanged a look, grinned at each other and together pushed the rolled-up hunchback back down the basement stairs. Everyone was quiet to hear the thumps and outraged screams of the old man.

Anna wandered over to Leah and kissed her cheek. Leah looked at her with a grin.

"Guys? He's getting too close to a passageway!" Ruby O'Reilly called uncertainly.

Leah and Anna exchanged a glance. They'd lose him if he goes in there.

"I got it!" Chloe called.

There was a startled squeak and Chloe started to cackle.

"Chloe Neenan, you did not just pelt him with water balloons!" Anna yelled.

Chloe cackled and Dennis joined in, yelling, "Run, Chlo!"

"Dennis, he's getting out. The memories!" Another spirit called.

Then there was silence. Anna exchanged grins with everyone close to them. They have been doing things differently since they died. The three girls started getting others out and once the spirits realised how much happier they were without having to hear the tortured screams, they started helping out.

The hunchback was not happy with how his house seemed to go against him.

They all looked down to the basement.

"So..." Leah started.

"Not it!" both Anna, Leah and Emily yelled at the same time.

There was an exasperated sigh and soon a stone creature knocked past them.

"Why do I always end up helping him out?" The stone creature grumbled in his signature bored voice.

A preppy teenage girl from the 90's wolf-whistled as he walked down the stairs to the basement, " Looking good Fallon!"

There was a resounding growl from the basement and the spirits all started laughing. Leah looped an arm around Anna's waist and smiled at her. They listened to Emily and Robin bicker about what game they would play that night.

Anna rested her bald, half-skinned head on Leah's shoulder.

"It didn't turn out all bad, now, did it?" Leah murmured to her.

Anna looked in front of them as the spirits of the house met with each other, congratulated each other and messed around. The room was overflooding with energy and life, it only got bigger when some of the gargoyles joined in. She beamed at them.

"No, No, it did not" she whispered, content despite everything.

That night, when the memories of her time alive in the house came to haunt her, she had her family around her to cheer her up. They offered small smiles and companionship because they were no strangers to the demons. They nudged her and told her to keep her chin up and to focus all that rage on making sure she was the last one to experience it.

That night, the laughter, the play fights and the mocking of the spirits who were strangers only twenty years ago but now were as much family as her parents kept a smile on her face and warmth in her heart.

'It did not turn out bad at all. Though the way we ended up here wouldn't be my first choice," She thought.

It was a bitter-sweet afterlife, but it was theirs.