THIS IS PART ONE OF THE END GUYSSSSSS
I'm working on Part 2 as we speak!!!! Please read! Tell me what you think so far! PART 2 WILL BE OUT IN A FEW HOURS!
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I broke down the rest of the wall, little by little with the bat. Everyone behind me stood still. The lights had come back on now as if nothing had happened and everyone downstairs was starting to stir. I listened to the front door open and many people went outside, anxious to get fresh air after being trapped. I reached down and grasped the edge of the book carefully, only tipping it slightly to get rid of the excess dust. I stood up and stared down at it in wonder.
"What is that..." Sticks asked me and I looked over to him.
His face was distraught, covered in sweat. His long hair stuck to his cheeks and forehead in small strands. Roxas was warm as well, his skin glistening under the hall light. He stared at me with relief in his eyes but they trailed warily towards the object in my hand. The Captain stood beside them, his face drained of all color with wide, manic eyes. He stared at me as if I were a monster.
"A book." I said simply. Thirst swept over me and I became slightly dizzy, wobbling slightly from side to side as Roxas came over to help me. He stood me up straight, asking the same old thing you would ask if you thought someone were to pass out. Once he had me upright, I handed back the flashlight and grasped the book. "I need water."
---
The decision was made that everyone had to leave the house as soon as possible. Captain Roderick had dubbed the place unsafe to live in, stating in his report that there was faulty electrical among other things. It was mostly bullshit but it was enough to get them another place to stay for now. Specks could finally leave and Awful's 18th was coming up soon as well. They were both going to be gone once it was all over.
I wondered as I looked at the group in the living room if I was ever going to see any of them again. I didn't know what was going to become of me once this was all said and done either. I could be dead for good for all I knew. I sure wasn't alive now, even though people could see me again. Something inside of me felt like it had died and somehow I was still awake, going through the motions of this battle without any real emotions to keep me sane. I felt like I was slowly slipping little by little. I wasn't sure if I could ever live a normal life after this if I was even given one. Either I died or lived the rest of my life scarred from everything I've seen.
"I want to keep telling you we need to get you somewhere safe." Sticks leaned down in front of me where I was sitting on the couch. Behind him was a sea of people standing up, talking to one another quietly with their belongings by their sides ready to go. I was wrapped in a blanket with a half-empty glass of water in my left hand. The other clutched the blanket tightly shut. "Then I remember how fucked up this all is..." His face was sad and worn from lack of sleep.
"I know," was all I could say. The book was sitting on the table before me, wrapped in paper towels to keep the others from getting too curious. Sticks stood back up and walked back towards Tim and the Captain, speaking in a whisper to them. Everyone was going to be leaving soon. I felt my eyes well with tears as I thought about each of them, everything I shared with them. They became such a big part of my life that in the end, I considered all of them my family.
"Alright, here's the plan!" Sticks yelled out, summoning everyone's attention. "You're all going into Mystic for now. You'll be staying at an old halfway house until it's all over..." He trailed off uncomfortably, unsure of what to say. "Lights and Roxas are the only two allowed to stay behind. The Captain will make sure you get home safe, as well as Claudette. Please say your goodbyes to your housemates now." He hesitated. "They'll be joining you soon enough..."
Roxas was in the middle of the room with Killer's arms around him. He held her with one arm and rested the side of his head on top of hers. Bass and Cello stood across from him.
"Mitch..."
I looked up at Ghost as he leaned down in front of me in the same fashion Sticks had.
"I can stay and help." He said with a small smile on his face. I immediately began to shake my head but he insisted. "Remember what we dealt with back then? The ghost?"
I rolled my eyes. "It's not the same, Connor. This is so much more than that..."
"Yeah, I know..." He said. "Remember that night though? Stupid, huh?"
I smiled and my eyes began to fill with tears. He was truly saying goodbye to me because he knew this was probably the last time we were going to see each other. It hurt enough thinking it myself, but knowing he thought it too started to tear at me.
"The fucking Ouija board..." I said, looking at the ceiling. It seemed like child's play. He started laughing too. "God, we were so stupid..."
"We were..." He said.
That night we snuck out while our caretaker was sleeping and rummaged through some local dumpsters looking for clothes. We had found an old Ouija board in the mix and Connor suggested we try to summon ghosts in the basement of the house we lived in. I went along with him, because I liked him, not because I wanted to see any ghosts. I knew they were there, honestly. I just chose to ignore them because I was already involved with enough games – boys.
"After that night...I started looking up stuff about ghosts...at the library. I used their computers to look at articles and stuff..."
"It's more than that now..." I said. "It's a lot more than that...I wish you could help, Connor but you can't. I just have to tough it out..."
His eyes were started to mist and I tried to hold back my own tears. "I might never see you again." He said. "We never even made up. You still hate me."
I shook my head. "If you were in the position I was in you would understand that it's kind of hard to hold stupid grudges..."
"So we're okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah, we're okay."
He smiled and came up to hug me. I let go of the blanket and held one arm around him, rubbing his back a bit as he hung onto me. The force of my other hand around the glass made me think I was going to smash it into a million pieces.
"CON DA BON!" Specks called out, summoning him across the room.
Connor looked to him and then me, smiling slightly with misty eyes. He leaned and kissed me on the cheek before turning away. Specks and Connor talked lightly in the corner as Blue made his way over. I felt myself beginning to crumble. He bent down and took the glass out of my hand, placing it carefully next to the book before taking the blanket off of me and taking my hands.
"Come outside."
---
We walked out onto the deck and I took a long deep breath. Blue had his hands on the back of his neck and he walked halfway down the deck before turning towards me. He looked deep in thought. The quiet around us was relaxing, instead of sitting in a stuffy crowd of people trying to get to me. I felt like I could think.
"Do you think this is it?" He finally asked me. "Is this the end?"
I smiled. "I know it's the end." I said. "Something inside of me is just telling me it is..."
He came towards me and put his hands on my arms. "But is it the end of you? Am I ever going to see you again?"
"You know I can't answer that, Blue..." I said, looking into his doe like eyes.
He stared back at me, unsure of what to say next. "Mitch..." He said, his hands rested on the railing of the porch wall. He stared at me, his blue eyes wide and scared. "Everything that's happened here doesn't even feel real...I mean...you got here and I figured I had made a new friend...someone to distract me from when Specks was being a jerk...and then all of this happened. It just doesn't seem like it's possible. It made me rethink so many things about life because there were times I thought something was going to happen to me...we're all in so much danger..."
I felt guilt bubble up in my stomach and work its way through my chest. I averted eye contact with him and held my arms closer to my body. I hated feeling like people were in danger because of me.
"Thank you."
I shot my eyes back up to him. "What?"
He smiled lightly and pushed his hair out of his face. "I feel like I could survive anything now...because of you. If this hadn't of all started I wouldn't be feeling like this...I know it seems weird."
I studied him hard before he started to come towards me, holding his arms out. I melted into them and wrapped my arms around his scrawny frame. "I'm sorry I put you in danger."
"It's okay." He said back. "You're going to make it out of this, Lights. I know it."
I wanted to believe him more than anything else in the world. I wasn't so sure now, seeing how far in deep I was. In all honesty, as long as Roxas survived I didn't care what became of me. I had friends on the other side and I had friends here. Plus...I was tired. Beyond tired. The past few months had drained years off of me.
Then there was my heart.
It was broken, shredded by black magic and unable to be repaired. If I defeated Eddie and Catherine, there was no telling what would become of me. It was their spell, tied to them. Either I would drop dead or everything would repair itself and be okay. I wasn't feeling so hopeful anymore.
I said goodbye to everyone individually. Even Specks hugged me tight, as if we were old friends. We may not have gotten a long, but after everything we went through together I wasn't going to reject him. Semi was the same way, hugging me like I meant the world to him. I started to think my roommates didn't have as much faith in me as Blue and Roxas did. Killer told me I could do it, whatever I was going to do. Bass and Cello said the same. Awful even had faith in me, and as he said goodbye to me he said, "Mute's smart. He can help you, I know he can." He was right. I had my friends on the other side waiting to help.
Claudette was refusing to leave, but she knew her duty to the others. She had to get them to safety and the Captain finally agreed to go with her. "I shouldn't leave you." She said, putting her hands on my arms. "I feel like I'm leaving my child behind..." Her eyes welled with tears as did mine, and I leaned forward to wrap my arms around her neck. In the same respect, I felt like my mother was about to leave me all over again.
I walked outside to see them off, and it took everything I had to stand strong. Sticks and Roxas were with me, standing on the porch talking quietly as I watched everyone begin to get onto the bus. Uneasy looks were given to me, déjà vu, just as they did the last time they had to evacuate the house. This time they wouldn't be coming back. They were going somewhere safe, far away from the evil.
The Captain nodded to me and I nodded back before he got onto the bus. His eyes told a story, and that was that he still wasn't completely sure of what he had seen. He was stuck somewhere between belief and disbelief.
Claudette got in last, being helped by the Captain. His eyes changed as he looked at her and I almost began to smile. I could tell he liked her, and it fit well. They were around the same age but I imagined Claudette to be hard-to-get towards men. She looked at me with uneasy, teary eyes. I felt my own tear up, but I forced a smile. No matter the outcome, she had to believe that everything was going to be okay. When she smiled back, I felt relief. Then she was gone.
The bus drove off and I stood in the yard for quite a few minutes, staring off after it before it completely disappeared. Roxas came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders before wrapping his long arms around them. He rested his head against mine before straightening up again.
"What about the Michaelsons?" He asked Sticks.
Sticks came up to the side of us and looked down the road. "Ah, shit...well what do I tell them?" He said. "I don't want them to become victims."
"You could tell them we're going to getting fumigated...and it might get uncomfortable for them because of the fumes?" I offered. "Or that we're getting some crazy yard work getting done tomorrow and it's going to be extremely loud so they should go check into a hotel for a few days?"
Sticks narrowed his eyes at me. "It's scary how fast you come up with lies."
I gave him a dirty look as he started down the yard towards the road.
"What's your plan here, Lights?" He asked me. "What is that book? How'd you know where it was?"
I smiled and looked up towards my bedroom window instinctually. Gregory stood there, looking down at us with a smile. He looked like a normal kid. "Gregory." I said. Roxas turned too but he turned back to me quickly. He hadn't seen Gregory standing there. "The book is the answer. It's going to finally get rid of them..."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure." I smiled.
"And you?"
I felt my face fall. "I don't know, Rox."
My attention quickly went to Sticks running back down the road towards us. I stepped away from Roxas and watched him, his expression. When he got to us, he looked spooked.
"They're dead."
---
The sight we saw at the Michaelson's was unsettling. Mrs. Michaelson was face down in the backyard, near her newly soiled garden with two small holes dug. Bags of seeds were carelessly on the ground next to her. I couldn't see her face from the angle we were at, and that was okay. I didn't want to see the terror on her face from what happened. All I could keep thinking was that we got everyone out of here right on time. They could have been next.
Sticks put his hands through his hair out of stress and took a long, deep breath. "I didn't see Mr. Michaelson but I assumed the same." He nodded to the open cellar doors. The same cellar Specks, Scar, and I traveled down into. Where I met Charlie for the first time.
"This really is a part of the property...I wouldn't have been able to come over here..." I said. "Charlie and I met for the first time down there."
"Yeah, a lot of land on this road was all a part of one property at some point. Before that who knows, all I know was that there was farmland. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a farm at some point..." He said. "Do you see any ghosts here?"
I looked around quickly and shook my head. "Not if they don't want me to see them."
"Alright...I'm going to see if Mr. Michaelson really is down there. You two...don't move. Cover me." Sticks took the flashlight Tim had given him out of his belt and headed down the stairs into the basement. I followed behind quietly and stopped at the entrance.
"I don't like this. It's too damn quiet." I said and turned to Roxas, who looked at me with wide eyes.
"Lights, there's a dead body ten feet away from us."
"You know what I mean." I said. "That book is just sitting in that house by itself. Catherine could get her grimy hands on it and then we won't have anything! I feel bad they're dead but we need to get back to the house."
BANG
Both of us jumped before we ran to the stairs. Roxas stopped me before I went down and looked into the black abyss before us. "Sticks?" He called out. "What happened? Are you alright?"
The speed of which Sticks ran up the stairs sent both of us back and I nearly fell over. The color had drained from his face and he backed up to look back down the stairs. It was as if something was chasing him.
"Get back to the house."
"But what –"
"NOW!" He screamed in my face and stormed off, kicking one door with his boot as he went by, slamming it shut. "Shut the other door." He demanded as he went out the gate into the front yard. Roxas did so quickly and then took my arm as we left the yard. I took one last look at Mrs. Michaelson as we walked by and there I saw Charlie standing next to her body, his mouthless, eyeless face staring back at me with anger.
---
I didn't say anything as we headed back towards the house. Sticks ran into the house first and we ran to catch up to him. I immediately went for the book and hugged it close to my body. The dust and dirt covered my black shirt.
Sticks was quiet, too busy swearing to himself about going down there.
"What did you see?" I finally asked him, getting frustrated. "You need to tell us. No more secrets."
"When I lived here my friend had died...I swear to God...I just saw him in that basement. He was down there near Michaelson's body. Just staring at me. I knew someone was standing there but I didn't see him until I lifted my flashlight up. It was Hale...the one everyone thought I had killed, Lights. He's here. Why would he be here?" He started to go into hysterics and I walked towards him to comfort him.
"Sticks, it's okay. Maybe he needs help." I said.
"He looked like he was going to murder me, Lights!" He said. "Maybe he killed the Michaelson's? What if he did? What if he's with them?"
"Breathe." My own paranoia began to rise. "Just breathe, don't jump to conclusions."
"No...this isn't good. Why is he showing up now?" He continued to panic, his face void of color.
"Get your head straight." I said to him, clutching the book still in my arms. "We have to get somewhere safe...so I can look through this book."
He started to compose himself and I looked around the quiet house. Anything could have happened at any given moment.
"Let's get outside...the woods are safer than being trapped in here."
"F-fine..." Sticks stuttered and I watched him with caution as he walked by. "I'm sorry. It's different when it's someone I know..."
"Trust me, I get it." I said. "But if this is them, then they could just be trying to throw you off. You need to ignore them and keep your head in the game."
Slowly he began to relax and headed out the front door, rubbing his face to snap himself out of his own freak out. Roxas and I exchanged the same, worrisome glance before he finally turned and started out of the house. I followed behind him, feeling a strange energy wash over me as I reached the threshold. I stopped for the moment and slowly turned around to see Charlie standing at the foot of the bathroom directly down the hall, his small broken body looking tense and angry. I stared at him for a moment and showed him the book. He backed up defensively and I tried to study what he was telling me. Maybe he was scared of the book.
"I need this Charlie. It's the only way."
A creak from upstairs made him tilt his head in the direction of the sound. I peeked up the stairs only to see a shadow pass against the wall, as if it were coming out of my room. I froze from fear for a moment and waited to see if something would happen.
"Lights?!" Roxas's panicked voice came from outside and I ran out, shutting the door behind me in the process. He stood halfway into the front yard, looking up towards where my bay window was. I caught up to him and turned around.
Catherine was kneeling on the windowsill with her gray hands against the panes of the glass. Her white eyes were staring back at us through her matted black hair. I clutched the book tighter against me and grabbed Roxas's hand. He stared up in total, utter fear at the woman in the window until I tugged his hand away from there. I led him through the yard towards the woods where Sticks waited, looking less stressed than before.
"What's wrong?" He asked. "Now what?"
"Just move." I blew past him with Roxas trailing behind me.
He let go of my hand and put his hand on my shoulder as we walked. "She's worse than she was the last time I saw her...when we thought we got rid of her. What happened?"
"She's supposed to be put down and Eddie raised her. So, she's dead already, and she was raised twice." I said. "She's completely broken in more ways than she was before."
I found a random stump and threw the book on top of it. Some of the excess dust billowed off of it as it hit the hard wood, revealing some of the detailing in the cover. I kneeled down and wiped off the rest of into the air. The old leather was carved intricately and by hand, no doubt. It had to be at least a hundred years old or more. Carefully I put my hand on the cover and lowered my thumb underneath it. I began to lift it slowly and the first few pages seemed to stick, but let go as the creaky cover was lifted. On the inside cover was a small, worn note written in cursive.
Dearest Catty, please take care of this book. Use it wisely. – Tessa
I continued on, flipping fast through the pages of the thick book while both Sticks and Roxas sat down on the ground next to me. The grass was thick and green now, as were the leaves on the trees. The breeze blew nicely as sunset was sneaking up on us. Most of the book was in Latin, but small parts were in English, translating what it was saying into small summaries. They were handwritten, I figured by either Catherine or this Tessa person, but either way they were slowly beginning to help me.
As I went on, the handwriting changed suddenly. It was sloppier and failed to fill it's space on the page, crowding the letters of the words into small smudges. I became exceedingly frustrated as I flipped through, realizing it was on almost every page after that. Entire lines of Latin were crossed off inside of the book in dark black ink, and the nice calligraphic writing above was smudged to hell, but some words I could make out. They were in English, but it wasn't what I wanted.
"It's going to get dark soon." Sticks said quietly from my right.
"Sh." I said quickly, still flipping through the pages.
"How do you expect to do this anyway?" Sticks asked. "Are you going to sacrifice me?"
I shot my eyes up to him and he laughed darkly to himself. Behind him, the grayish figure stared over at us, and until my eyes focused I didn't realize who it was. I wanted to jump up and talk to them, but they were right. The sun was setting.
"What's wrong?" Roxas asked me from where he sat to my left. "Lights?"
"Nothing." I lied. "Roxas help me."
He slid over to my side and we looked at the book together. Sticks sat quietly and I failed to tell him who was standing behind him, staring at us desperately for help.
"We need to look for something that makes souls live on after death." I said. "And...something that causes mind control."
"What?" Roxas asked me. "Mind control over who?"
I looked at Lottie where she stood and she looked back at me sadly. "Catherine..." She said sadly. She knew.
"Lights?" Roxas put his hand on my shoulder and snapped me out of it, back into the book.
"I think we're getting close to something." I said to defer his question. "Catherine knew she was slipping and was scratching around desperately for something to fix it...she turned to magic..."
"Okay...but who ended up being controlled? Are you talking about Gregory?"
I shook my head. "She trusted Eddie to help her...and he took advantage of the dark magic she had turned to. He used it to help him experiment...he heightened her sickness and made her worse."
"He experimented on her?" He asked and I nodded back as I continued flipping.
Finally, I came to something and stopped on the page. The sloppy handwriting had to have been Eddie's. Worshipping rituals were spelt out, but his handwriting was fast and messy, as if someone were speaking to him and he was writing it down. Gregory had mentioned that Catherine went out of her way to learn the language, and under his control she probably helped him right along without even realizing it.
"God, what is all this..." The rituals were disgusting and unholy. It was getting harder and harder to read, but finally there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhat of a reversal technique, but it was only partially translated. It was back to the neater handwriting, Catherine's I'm guessing.
"I think she caught on." Roxas said, pointing to what I was looking at. "Maybe she realized what Eddie was doing and tried to stop him?"
"You're probably right." I said. "There's only a partial translation though...we can't do anything with that."
The only way to reverse the effects of this spell are to cut the spiritual of the person who cast it.
"What could that mean?" Roxas asked. "Cut him out spiritually?"
"He's under the spell himself so that doesn't make sense..." I said. "Shit...we don't have anything else translated..."
"Let me see it." Sticks put his arms out.
"If you magically know Latin I'm going to be pissed." I said as he took the book out of my hand and he rolled his eyes at me.
"I don't know what any of this means." He declared and I looked to the sky in annoyance. "No, but listen. Catherine was under mind control..."
"Yeah?" I said. "Are you considering we use mind control?"
"No...but if you're willing to talk to her...maybe you could convince her to help us?"
I stared back at him and immediately went to object, just as Roxas did.
"Are you out of your mind?" He asked. "That's suicide!"
"Or not." I said and he shifted his position so he was facing me. "He might have a point. It's not like we can learn Latin by sunset..."
He stared at me with his wide blue eyes. He wanted to argue so badly, but his eyes moved as he thought. "Shit..." He finally gave up and ran his hand through his hair. "That's really the point we're at, isn't it?"
I sat in between my friends and sadly looked to Lottie again. She stared back at me with the same old expression. This confirmed her death, and guilt washed over me as I stared back at her. My friends were so unaware of the desperation of the other side, especially since I had experienced it firsthand. The fact I was being kept around made me think Catherine had some control over the situation. Maybe she knew I was trying to help her. Either that or Eddie was setting me up for a trap.
I looked to my beautiful friend Sticks, his soft featured face with his long reddish brown hair and goatee. He looked down at the book with determination, studying the symbols as if he would start understanding them. Roxas looked at my face carefully and I smiled back at him, his chiseled features becoming more defined as the time goes on. I figured it was the stress of everything going on, because of me, but either way it made him more appealing. He was absolutely stunning. Both of them had no idea though. They didn't know how many souls stood on the other side silently hoping for someone to help them.
Suddenly the weight of that responsibility was on my shoulders. It wasn't an invisible weight, either. Lottie started back at me, and if that didn't guilt me enough, so did the many others that died here. For the past hour, ghosts have been coming out of their rest and gathering on the grounds. There were spirits littered between the trees throughout the forest. They were all over the yard where the skeletons of many that have passed were littered like trash only a few months before. Some stood in the road. Some were on the porch. In the windows. Behind us they continued on for what seemed like forever, staring at us, waiting for an answer. The boys from the well were among them, standing closer to me than to the well with wide, dark rimmed eyes. They dripped water onto the fresh grass.
My friends couldn't understand this. They could see all the horror, all the things that go bump in the night and scare you. They could see their pasts come back to haunt them, to stare them in the face, but they couldn't see the sadness. The unrest. All these souls wanted was to sleep.
I felt my own exhaustion settle in at the thought and I looked up to meet eyes with Natalie. She stood in between Scar and Mute, close to the house. I watched them carefully.
"Don't give up." Natalie whispered, looking serious.
Hundreds of souls needed rest, and now it was my responsibility. I was on my own.
---
KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR PART 2! IT'LL BE OUT IN A FEW HOURS!