The Thought Keepers: Ability

Chapter 1: The Lightning Dream

The boy's head sat in the leaves like some terrible nightmare. Yes, I am now dead, his wide blank eyes seemed to say. Somehow, he was still just as handsome as before.

Carson stared at his hands, which were covered in an iridescent goo that shined like ghost eyes. "Should've brought some towels," he muttered, clicking his tongue.

Sniffing, he knelt to wipe his sword and hands on the leaves, staining them with that same eerie fluid. It glistened in the sunless daylight the way no natural substance should.

"What is that?" I asked as Carson stood and dusted off the knees of his wet jeans.

"This is ectoplasm. It's a nasty side effect of dealing with shadow demons," he responded.

His sword glowed bright and a few seconds later, it became a small ruby ring. Carefully, he slid the ruby onto his left ring finger, like he was married to it.

I looked at him for a while. His tall frame covered in the essence of shadow demons, then back to the smoking, soiled grass again. The grass he murdered Nathaniel on.

The parking lot was conveniently empty, as was the sidewalk that barred the school from the open street. It seemed as if every human being had disappeared off the face of the earth, and there was just me, stuck in a nightmare like always.

I heard a dull, sizzling noise and turned just in time to watch Nathaniel's head melt into a foul-smelling mist. It mixed with the autumn fog in angry swirls like it was still a living, growling thing protesting its demise.

"Are you okay?"

My eyes were still transfixed on empty air, replaying the horror of what I couldn't unsee. So when I felt a hand brush my shoulder, I recoiled as if burned.

"Don't touch me."

Carson's voice went hoarse, as if my reaction physically pained him. "Is that the thanks I get for saving your life? Talk about ungrateful."

"What did you expect? You just killed someone," I reminded him, waving my hand at the burning grass.

He cast an uncaring look at the smoking remnants of Nathaniel. "He's not a person, he's a demon."

I indicated the headless corpse burning a few feet away from us with wide eyes. It smelled like burnt meat, only fouler. "He looks pretty human to me."

"Well, he isn't," Carson insisted. "Underneath that human skin, he's nothing but darkness."

Like the head, the corpse melted into vapor as well, mixing with the low-hanging clouds. The smell was fading as the crime scene cleaned itself up, leaving no evidence at all.

"What's wrong?" Carson asked, as if this whole ordeal was nothing to him. I didn't know how to express my alarm other than to stare at him incredulously, hoping he would understand. But he wasn't a mind reader.

Taking a step back, I contemplated the chances of running for my life. Considering his long legs and graceful agility, they weren't great.

I simply couldn't understand why this was happening. Why after all this time were my dreams coming to haunt me in real life? I'd never had a nightmare so real before.

Usually, the dream was very clearly a dream. Rippling thunderclouds, purple lightning, invisible eyes. But it was never a real place, or a real person in front of me.

For things to happen at school and not in my typical dreamland meant something was wrong. I had the very distinct feeling that this was no dream, and that I had stumbled upon some unseen part of the world that I shouldn't have. Some horror that my dreams had drawn me to like moth to bitter flame.