The Chipenden Spook

Chapter 2: Out of the Coffin

I awoke. My head was whirling my legs were numb and there were cuts all over my body. But most of all, the pain coming from my chest was unbelievable. I wanted to see what was wrong. I needed to, because frankly, I hadn't a clue what had happened for me to be in this state.

Confused I opened my eyes slowly and looked around me. There, in the pitch blackness, was nothing to see. I was covered in a sheet.

"Where am I? Who am I?" I whispered into the blackness.

I needed to get out and have a look around. So saying, I started to slowly move my arms along the wall of which surrounded me. I started to figure out that I was in a rectangular box. How could I get out? I tried pushing to two sides, but to no avail would they open. I tried the top. It worked! All I needed to do was be able to push it completely open so I could get out. So I started to push. As hard as I could. It wouldn't open fully! So tried and tried, but the pain from my chest had been keeping back all of the strong power I need to use.

But I didn't have to open it. It opened by itself, by someone on the outside.

It was nighttime, the the moons light lit the box brightly compared to the pitch darkness it had before.

It took me awhile to stand up. It took all of my willpower. But when I did, I saw something strange.

A girl with black hair and blades across her chest was standing closest to me, with a younger girl a few paces behind her. Multiple people were behind them, looking just as surprised and a little scared. Why did they look like this?

I held onto the edges of the box, trying to keep my balance, as the blade woman walked toward me slowly.

"Who are you? Get away from me!" I yelled, my breath fogging into the night.

She kept on approaching as I tried to escape the box. You see, the box would have been easy to escape, if it weren't for the pain I was experiencing. Everything I was doing took all the strength I had. Sitting up, standing up, lifting my legs, lifting my arms...

She got so close that she was standing right out of the box.

"You're alive..." She gasped. She held out her hand to help pull me out.

"Thomas, how do you feel? You need rest, and we need to attend to your gash."

By then, with enough trouble, I had gotten out of the box. She was walking away, still talking, as I stood there. She turned around and looked at me.

"What are you doing? Don't you want to be healed?" She looked like she was agitated that I had stopped walking with her.

Everyone was shifting around uneasily, making uneasy notices probably because they were scared or confused.

I spoke with a trembling whisper.

"What do you mean?"

I shook my head in frustration. Raking my brain for any past information of what she was saying. Obviously she was talking about events that happened before I woke up in the box.

The problem was, I couldn't remember them. And I couldn't remember the people who were standing before me. That is, if I had known them all.

"Thomas? Who's Thomas? And why should I trust you? Out of all people the one with the blades is the one I should follow?"

Her anger had gone and she looked at me in a panic.

"Are you telling me that," she paused, and this time when her voice spoke it was much quieter. "That you don't remember what happened? You don't remember who you are?"

That's when the noises stopped. The shifting. All the noise ceased. And everyone looked straight at me.

"No, I'm sorry, but I don't."

The younger girl gasped. The woman walked towards me again, but I wasn't afraid this time. She came up to me and stood about four paces away. Then she spoke.

"Well, your name is Thomas Ward. You've been through a lot lately and by the looks of it you're going to be through a hell lot more-"

"Grimalkin, what are you doing?" The girl said in a shouted whisper. I was just as confused as she was, but "Grimalkin" apparently was her name, kept her eyes on me and started to speak once more.

"I am going to ask you something and I want you to think about this as hard as you possibly can." She then spoke slowly. "Do you remember anything before you died?"

That was when I full out bursting with anger.

"Dead? Are you telling that I died? What are you talking about? And you decide to tell me that just now? Don't you know I'm confused as anything and you just think the best thing to tell me is that I died?"

She waited till I had stopped yelling to speak.

"Sometimes the truth hurts, I won't deny it." She glanced down at my chest. Exactly where the pain was coming from. I knew she wanted me to follow her gaze, so I did. Slowly I looked down to find something that caught my breath. My eyes widened in horror, as I saw the wound. There were scales, green scales growing on my skin over the cut. It looked as if the scales were my own body trying to heal itself.

I looked up and took a few steps back as I tried to speak but no words came out.

Grimalkin looked at me, with a depressed look, and it wasn't one of pity.

"What happened to me?" I stuttered.

She sighed and looked me straight in the eye.

"You were fighting an assassin just a few days ago. You had killed him, but, as you can see, he hadn't went down for nothing. I tried to save you, but I failed. I'm ashamed to say I didn't foresee your death. I had no idea of the out come of the fight. You lost your life, and we had you in the coffin ready for burial. That's when a white winged figure came here and did something to the coffin that I can not yet explain. But your back, your alive again."

I was silent. I said nothing. If I did, questions would have poured out of my mouth like there was no tomorrow. Well, there was going to be a tomorrow. A tomorrow of me and for everyone.

But the difference between me and them, was that they had a yesterday.