Seeing the Unseen

What Lies in a Name

Green-eyed Logan Lerman as Mason.

Seeing the Unseen Chapter Three:

"What Lies in a Name"

I awoke with the inability to move. My eyes traveled around my room, but all I could see was the fuzzy screen of my alarm clock. I sighed. It was just another dream.

"Are you okay?"

I quickly sat up, bonking heads with a vaguely familiar person.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked the guy cautiously.

He rubbed his head as his open green eye met mine. "I'm a reaper."

"Reaper? Like with death scythes, black hoods, and the stealing of souls?" I asked, holding back a laugh. "Yeah. Like I believe that."

"I'm telling the truth, Beatrice. I'm a new inductee. I'm not a full fledged reaper yet, but I am one," he explained, his green eyes seemed to be pleading with me to believe him.

I begrudgingly scooted back in my bed, eyeing the stranger suspiciously. "Why are you here?"

"You were attacked last night. I came to warn and help you," he explained calmly.

I closed my eyes, recounting my memories from the night prior. Older memories resurfaced too. None of those ghastly images that I had seen had been dreams at all. They were a reality.

"What were those... those things?" I asked, scared of what the stranger had to say.

"Well, they were ghosts. Negatives if you will. There really isn't a precise enough translation in any human language," he explained. "Humans who have unfinished business remain tied to the living dimension. If they can tie up loose ends fast enough, they move on. If not, reapers intervene, for if they don't, their souls get devoured by their obsession, causing them to shift into Negatives, chaos driven ghosts who sustain their presence off of souls. Negatives overthrow the balance of the dimensions. Us reapers exist solely to maintain the balance."

I closed my eyes, trying my best to absorb all of the information. "How can I see ghosts when no one else can?"

"You're not the only one. You're apart of the minority of humans who just simply haven't evolved."

"Excuse me?" I snapped, glaring at the so called 'reaper'.

"Don't take offense." He raised his hands in defense. "I'm simply stating the facts. People used to be able to see into the spectral dimension, but they lost this ability long, long ago. It kept them safe. This was a unique case where ignorance actually was bliss. However, not everyone was so lucky. People born needing glasses were born without this evolutionary trait, blurring the living and spectral dimensions into one when they had since shifted apart. That's why you can clearly see Negatives when you cannot properly see what's on the board in math class. People who mess up their eyesight themselves are exempt."

I looked at my glasses on my bedside table. "So you're saying that I won't see you if I put on my glasses?"

He nodded. "That's correct. Unless I have a host that's apart of the living world, I cannot be seen by you with your corrective lenses on."

I reached for my glasses and put them on, surprised to see that the brown haired green eyed stranger had disappeared. I brought the prescription away from my eyes and like magic, the so-called reaper was again visible.

"This is weird," I concluded. "Who the hell are you?"

"I don't have a name. Names are what help bind the soul to the body and I no longer have a soul," he explained.