I'm feeding Lunagaze when it happens. Lt. Paige had just left. The detail had given no warning. Cianasteela was nowhere to be sensed. Nothing gave it away, even when everything was suspicious. A simple pinch in my arm and the room began to fade away. I didn't feel it when I hit the floor. I didn't hear it when the captor dragged me across the floor. I didn't smell the rubber burn when they sped off with me in the trunk. I just felt a pinch, and I woke up alone, in a wooden cell not two feet wide. Barely enough to breathe.
I almost began to panic, when a voice comes from the other side of the wall I'm leaned against. I press my ear to it, my neck in an uncomfortable position.
"Your precious Shedahe is with me. Meet my demands, or her claustrophobia will only get worse." It's a woman's voice.
"Shedahe? Stop speaking in riddles! What is it you want? Leave Caroline alone!" Lt. Paige's voice. Muffled over a speaker.
"What I want is something only she can give me, but for that I need your help." The woman says. "I need Sodium Iodide, Hydrogen Peroxide, and a live sample of Yersinia Pestis."
"Yersinia Pestis? The Plague? Even if I could get that for you, why would I willingly give you it?"
"Don't worry. Caroline won't die from this. Just be in a lot of pain."
"You're going to give her the plague?" Lt. Paige seems more worried than she traditionally would be in this situation. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?
"Along with the chemicals, yes." The woman is clearly sadistic. Her tone of voice actually seems happier when she says that.
"No!" Paige yells.
"Then she'll know what true fear is." The woman laughs. Not an evil chuckle, nor a simple "heh". A full-on, pure-joy, laugh. This woman's laugh nearly consumes my thoughts, before my fear of the shrinking space gets the better of me.It's uncomfortable to breathe. It's uncomfortable to move. It's uncomfortable to be. It scares me.
What sick sadist created this room?
Oh wait... The same sadist who built this room is the same sadist trying to blow me up while giving me the Plague.
"Calm down, Carol." Cee-cee says. Where have YOU been? I yell at her in my thoughts.
"Just... keep talking." I say. Her voice steadies me. It always had.
"I'll start by telling you where I've been." Cee-cee slips through the wall, and places her hand on my cheek. It's solid. "I've been learning to do that."
"H-How?" I ask.
"In the afterlife, you usually have to experiment." Cianasteela floats close, leaning herself into me. "But I... I am what you call a tortured soul. My unfinished business changes often. Whether it be words left unsaid in life or people I need to torment, my business changes too often for me to ever move on. Tortured souls have the special privilege of being able to influence the energies of the universe directly. Like majik, only, quicker, more abrupt. But with that we give up the ability to influence the material world in a physical manner. I met with a medium a very long time ago. Seasoned. She told me that the only way to touch objects was to lose what makes my soul tortured. Whenever I go someplace without telling you, It's me finishing some business. This time I went to an ex. I had so many things to say."Cianasteela's Flashback (Just overlook the change in POV, I just wanted to make it more comprehensive.)
"Laurel. It's me." I say.
"Ciana?" Laurel turns around, but of course, doesn't see me. "Am I losing my mind?"
"You lost it before we met." I just stare at her confused face. "I'm dead, Laurel."
"You're dead? As in, a ghost?" Laurel's confused face softens, but it is still clear she is still confused.
"Yeah. For years." I look down. "Ten years."
"Ten... You didn't." She looks to where my voice is coming from, and the tears in her eyes once would have elicit a response from me, but I've changed much, much more since she left me.
"I did. I couldn't handle it. My entire world, I could once take by the hand. And then she decided that I wasn't worth hanging around for." I look away.
"You had changed! I couldn't help it!" Laurel raises her voice in emotional turmoil.
"That was circumstance." I say. "Although, I do admit, some of the change was me trying to be less clingy."
"I..."
"I mean, when you 'broke' your phone, it was pretty obvious you were just ignoring me. Too many holes in that story. And I wasn't the only one who changed, but I still love you. However, I do suppose I didn't realize until after you had left, just how dependent my personality was on clinging to people. I try to stop, and I stop being myself. I go ahead and be myself, you ignore me. I just wanted you to stop ignoring me. I just wanted you to include me. I missed you and you were only two feet away. So one day I decide to give you the space you obviously seemed to want. I didn't know I chose a bad time. I didn't realize that talking to someone who would reply would make you jealous. I didn't realize that my ADHD medication changed my personality and that you didn't like who I was off it. I didn't realize you couldn't handle my high-function unipolar disorder. I didn't realize that you no longer saw me as a person. I didn't realize how far I truly had fallen for you and I didn't realize how trying to make sure we stayed together would eventually rip us apart. I didn't realize how you never truly loved me. You loved part of me, but not the whole deal. Well, after ten years of death I thank you. I thank you for leaving me. I thank you for plunging me deep into the depression I was trying to get out off. I thank you for it. Because ten years ago, I died. And five years ago, I found something that made me feel alive. You once made me feel alive. Made me feel worth something. Now she does. Five years helps you get to know the whole deal before you ask for it. And she asked. So now I'm placing myself in my most vulnerable state to make it happen."
"I... I hope she makes you happy." She turns around. "I didn't realize how I made you feel."
"Hey, you made the same mistake I did. You're not my last unfinished business, but you are the one that tortured my soul the most. So I thank you for sticking around and letting me talk." I instinctively try to hug her. It works. I'm solid. That's when I realize something.I can touch when I have an emotional connection.
End of Flashback
"We could have touched all this time, and we didn't?" I say.
"I guess." Cee-cee chuckles.
"Well darn... could you at least tell me what a Shedahe is?" I ask.
"You are. Your gift is what makes you a Shedahe." She takes a deep breath. "Let me explain. The Aaanexa Fossil is a god. Worshiped mainly by the Atlantean Secret Society known as the Sacheed. The Sacheed civilization was almost equal to the Atlanteans, barely unable to move a Mega Island out of the solar system and to the nearest star system, like the Atlanteans did. It is said that the Sacheeds descended from the few Atlanteans who opted to stay behind. All of which, were in the Sacheed. They worshiped this god, who gave the King BloodLine and truest believers the greatest power, a mix of shapeshifting, teleportation, and magic. Their greatest hint was their hair. Pink, and then black. The rest just got magic or they could transform into a ten tailed beast. There was also two more people. Prophets of Aaanexa, Immortal, and extremely magical, more power than the Kings had. Merlin and Nerlin. You are a descendant of Nerlin. His blood gives you the ability that only Merlin and Nerlin had. The ability to command the energies of the universe. So far, you've only been able to command the ethereal energies, the ghost realm, if you will."
"You mean... There are others?" I say.
"None like you." Cee-cee looks at me. "And none with your power, but yes. There are others."
"Can you help me get out of here?" I ask her.
"I'll snoop around, see if there's a way you can get yourself out. I still can't really touch much of anything." Cee-cee smiles, and then slips through the walls, in and out, trying to find a way."You seem awfully quiet for being in great terror." The woman's voice again. "Are you, perhaps, using your power? Does it help you calm down too? Or is it always on and something... or someone... is calming you?" I say nothing. What is there to say? 'Die in a hole'? 'Im being calmed knowing my ghost friend is helping me get out'? Neither of those seem exactly like a good idea for right now.
"I am going to great lengths to get your powers from you. You don't think I didn't think of everything, now did you?" The woman's voice gets closer.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Salt. Everywhere. Only tortured souls could ever possibly walk across them, and as the immortals of the dead, they don't take orders as easily as normal ghosts." She replies, calmly until she hears the shrill laugh of Cianasteela letting the woman know she thinks the woman is dumb.
"I forgot to mention, my best-friend is a tortured soul." I chuckle as Cee-cee shows me just where and how to kick to get out. I move over, get into position, and kick hard. The wood bends, cracks, and then snaps with such force the whole wall swings open, like a door. I crawl out, and run. I get to the door when a cramp overtakes my body and I trip over a tree root."It's not just me, right?" The woman walks up to me, as if she didn't even run after me. "It's cold out, right?"
"What?" I question her.
"It's cold out, right?" She repeats.
"It's mid-autumn. Of course it's cold." I snap at her, trying to pull myself up from the ground.
"So, you agree it was a bad idea to sprint without even trying to stretch, right?" She just watches as I slowly stand.
"Well, I would rather not be stuck in that hellhole of a mousecuboard." I take a step away, but the muscles cramp up again and I end up limping.
"I could upgrade your cell. I just needed to get your secret admirer to become desperate." The woman still doesn't try to detain me.
"What?" I ask, still limping toward what I hoped was home.
"The detective." She says.
"What do you want from me?" I ask.
"I want your power." She says, in the most nonchalant way possible. I stop.
"... you want to have my ability to see the deceased?" It's less of a question and more of a why-would-anyone-in-their-right-mind-want-that type of thing. I use her distraction to stretch discreetly enough to where she doesn't see it.
"Yeah." Still nonchalant.
"I'm sorry, but no. As much as this blessing is a curse, it still is a blessing. It's given me too much for me to just throw it away." The cramp seems to pass, and I try to run again. This time the woman doesn't move and I get to the streets of home.I'm running back to the safehouse when I run into Kristin.
"Who lives in the hills?" I yell at her.
"What?" She tries to calm me, but in vain.
"The hills! Who lives there? What's her name?" I'm still yelling at her.
"Have you been drinking while I'm off my shift? No-one lives in the hills. The nuclear plant there was shut down and the surrounding area condemned." Kristin shakes me to get me to stop bouncing around.
"No, I haven't. I was just kidnapped. Take me to the station, I need to see Lt. Paige." I finally calm down.
YOU ARE READING
Clueless
ParanormalCaroline Underhill is able to see ghosts. She even exercises ghosts from time to time. Then someone starts targeting her. Will she make it out alive? Or get in even deeper crap?