A Ghost Story

The Plot Thickens

Sitting alone with your thoughts is never a good idea. You start thinking about your new ally who's the only person who can actually see you,  which brings you to why he can actually see you, which brings you to the fact that you're dead, which leads to wondering about the meaning of life after death, and why you're even still on earth in the first place. That, of course, is followed by inevitable hours of hopeless contemplation and brooding about everything that has to do with you being not alive. 

Even better, the whole subject of Brendon had been added to the cocktail of unanswerable questions.

Thus began my evening of headaches (again, why the headaches? I'm dead). 

I stared out the dusty window by the bed at the night landscape. The multitudes of stars observed the earth from far above, and the trees that during the day displayed bright colors were reduced to nothing but dark smudges and faint silhouettes. The rolling hills were nothing but waves of shadows. My eyes wandered to the grounds immediately surrounding the house. 

The ghost wolves were present tonight, as they were all nights. One began to howl, and others echoed it. Yet another found my gaze and held it with unblinking, too-human blue eyes. What are you? I wanted to scream. What does this mean? Why am I here?  

The wolf cocked its head with what had to be some form of intelligence. But it didn't respond. 

Of course it's not going to respond, I chided myself. It's a wolf. Not a normal one, but still a wolf. And not a human. Probably. 

The wolves continued their nightly ritual of howling, and I leaned my head against the chilled window, the cold reminding me that summer was ending. My eyes slipped closed, the eerie baying lulling me into a sense of comfort, of familiarity. 

Until the howls broke.

My eyes flew open as the wolves ceased to howl as one of them started yelping and yipping in pain. I found the creature it was coming from, and what I saw made my heart lurch in terror. 

The wolf was a little farther from the house than the others, and was barking wildly and thrashing at something in the darkness near it. It was acting like it was surrounded, because each time it tried to move away from where it was, its barks became more frantic and pained. I tried to see what was behind the attack, but all I could see was shadow and darkness around the wolf. 

Shadow. It's shadow. 

The impossible thought became reality as one of the wolf's silver-gray haunches was struck by what could only be described as solid darkness. The wolf writhed and yelped in agony, front legs collapsing to the ground. The other wolves barked and growled and leapt up and leapt back again--they didn't seem to want to any closer to the darkness. 

A small cry escaped my lips and I pressed my hands to the glass as the wolf's lower half was enveloped in the shadow, and then its struggling upper half. Even after it had been completely shrouded in darkness, its whimpers and cries continued. My breath caught when the shadow cleared--now that it was gone, I couldn't realize how I hadn't seen it in the first place--and there was nothing left. Not a body, not even a trace of fur. 

The wolves left behind howled, but this time it wasn't just with longing: they howled with heart-wrenching despair, with rage, mourning the loss of one of their members.

My heart pounded with adrenaline and fear. I'd never seen anything other than the wolves at night, much less anything attack and kill one of them. 

Well. This is new. 

A/N

AAAAAaaahhHHHhhh sorry this chapter is short and kinda sucky :/ eh. I tried. 

Anyway! Please comment and like! I'd love to know what you think. What is the shadow? Why can Brendon see her?? Aaaaaahhhhhhhh 

Love you all!

~Pandawaugh