The Ghost

Chapter 1

The Ghost

A Story by Sheila Wisz Ellayn

Earth is now a very different place. There is no war anymore, no poverty, no crime... We all live in peace and respect of each other, a world that works as smoothly as a dream. Many would say that we live in a perfect world... Except that it's not our world anymore.

A few years ago, something changed in the most powerful world leaders. Their eyes turned glowing red for no apparent reason, and soon after that, the same happened to millions of people the world over. At night, we could see countless red sparks descending from the sky...

We could not understand what was happening, and soon we discovered that our weapons were of little help. They were all around us, cold, ethereal, unstoppable... We called them The Ghosts, a form of sentient energy that enters our bodies and takes away our very lives and selves.

The war was lost. There are few remaining strongholds of human resistance. We are trying to take our world back, to send these Ghosts to the dark sky from where they come...

My name is Natalie Scryer. The war started when I was seventeen three years ago, and I lost almost all of my family during the battles. I barely escaped with my life after Arizona was conquered by the Ghosts, and after that, I came to live up in Alaska with my little brother and my uncle.

Uncle Jab is very respected up here, as he is the leader of one of the few remaining organizations of humans vowing to fight and win a second war against the Ghosts. I have tried to help in any way that I can, because seriously, we must send those things back to the wide and starry sky!

At first, my uncle and the others did not know what to do with me, but eventually I was given the task to leave our headquarters and spy on the Ghosts sometimes. We want to figure out a way to remove a Ghost from a person's body without killing the human, but so far, we have had little success.

My latest mission has taken me to the city of Anchorage that is already under the control of the Ghosts, with the intention to steal some of the invaders' weaponry and take it to our base so we can reverse-engineer these things. Everything was going just fine, but the enemy has discovered me and now I am running for my life.

The last thing I remember is my fall from the seventh story of the military building, and then, everything was dark...

2-

The Ghost Seekers were dashing after me. I could not steal the energy weapons. They were just about to catch me, and I knew what would be my fate after falling in their hands. Death seemed a better way to end it all, so I jumped through the window and fell to the frozen ground outside surrounded by countless fragments of glass...

I should be dead by now. However, I am waking up after what seems like a long time spent in the dark... Why am I not dead? What happened after I hit the ground?

The pain is overwhelming, and then I discover a pair of glowing red eyes looking down into my face...

"She is coming back" says a female voice, speaking with the cold, emotionless tone that is characteristic of a Ghost- "We have to heal her now. Is the Incoming Ghost ready for Inception?"

I am lying on a cold metallic table, secured to it by means of a shiny purple rope. The room is all white and almost empty, with a boring lamp hanging from the ceiling and a window that provides a view of the snowy forest outside. The pain from my broken bones and damaged organs is nearly unbearable, so I start to howl and cry...

"Just let me die!" I yell, trying to break free- "All I want is to depart, let me die, you parasitic alien monsters!"

I can barely catch air, which means that my lungs must be damaged. I start to cough up blood, my body is all covered in blood as well and this tall, blond woman just keeps looking down at me with her emotionless red eyes...