A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 63 Ghost Lands

Chapter 63 Ghost Lands

Raina looked at Ahleena, sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground across from her. The camp fire between them flickered with a fascinating rainbow color-storm, the way all fire did in this strange land. The colors of fire here seemed infinite, but the heat it put off was as normal as ever, providing some comfort against the nighttime chill that crept in with the darkness. That warm fire-light was reflected in Ahleena's eyes, yet didn't touch the familiar ice there. Raina wondered at it once again, casting a look over at Ghost sitting nearby.

Was Ghost partly responsible for this dead, frozen look Ahleena wore every day, all day? His presence had certainly seemed to change Ahleena.

"Ghost certainly changed me!" She thought to herself, bewildered and full of hate for their captor.

When Ghost had come to the mansion and taken over her mind, he had forced her to use her empath powers to attack all within the mansion, forcing her to attack Callin and Ahleena. Then, from within Raina's mind, he had somehow twisted his powers into patterns so strange, so alien, that Raina had fled to the darkest, deepest parts of her own mind to escape their image.

He had twisted his powers all around her and Ahleena, pulling them into a swirling vortex of chaos, of endless power flowing wildly about, pulling them away from reality. It had been a sensation of coming undone, cripplingly foul, and bone-chilling terrifying in its alien wrongness.

And then she had opened her eyes and found herself here, with Ghost no longer in her mind and Ahleena next to her, in this gray place, a strange place bleached of color and life. She had found Ghost standing nearby, watching them closely. She remembered the unsurprised look on Ahleena's face as she looked around at the impossible landscape they were now in. As if she had been here before.

That had been days ago. Days where Ahleena didn't speak and Ghost led them through the barren landscape, ever moving forward. They walked all day through the gray, blasted landscape of rocks and shrubs so wretched, thin, and dry that Raina imagined she could feel them screaming as she walked by them.

Ghost would answer some questions, but other times he ignored her completely. She still hadn't figured out the pattern, the reason, for this. She had so many questions. As she looked at Ahleena, sitting so still, staring with dead eyes into the fire, she felt abrupt fury rise up within.

"Will you tell us where we are now?" She demanded angrily, glaring at Ghost.

Ghost sat in a similar cross-legged fashion as Ahleena, his spine ramrod stiff and straight, his eyes constantly roving, his breathing steady, smooth. She had seen him do this every night, looking like a form of meditation without relaxation. She had fallen asleep with him sitting like that, ever watchful, senses obviously honed to their surroundings. Guarding them. And she had found him like that in the morning. For the last so many days. Days she had truly lost track of, she realized angrily. What was Ghost doing with them? Why were they here?

Ghost didn't seem to register her question, but Raina was too furious to just let it slide this time. She leaned forward and locked her eyes on him, letting just the barest tendril of her power begin to coil about inside her mind.

"I said, where are we?" She hissed, her power rippling in her voice.

She blinked at the color storm that seemed to accompany her words. It was a wispy pattern, stretching outwards from her in all directions, lighting the night with a glowing rainbow flash of light, much like the camp fire. Ghost turned his gray eyes on her, his expression suddenly so lethal that she found herself holding her breath in tense anticipation.