by Joshua Chou
Nora, can you hear me?
“I have Ethan!” the petite girl replied. Nora flipped the safety switch off. “We’re at the armory!”
Liam and I almost finished one of them off, Iris replied. But it got away. And there are two of them!
“What does that mean?” asked Ethan out loud.
Paramour, there’s another Wraith coming for you!
A loud bashing came from outside. It sounded close enough to reach a paw and break through the wide window into the command room. Nora jumped at the noise.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed. “Two Wraiths?”
Head for the roof! Iris replied. We’ll cut it off as soon as we’re finished here!
The two rushed out of the command room. Now other students in West dorm were beginning to awaken. Some stepped out of their rooms half-dressed or wearing pajamas. But their confusion was turning into fear.
“AXEL business!” Nora called. “Remain in your rooms! And get out of the way!”
The hallways thinned out. Students stepped aside to let Nora pass through. Nora rushed up the nearest flight of stairs to the rooftop.
This time, Ethan felt fear intoxicate his mind as he ran up. An unseen enemy was behind them, or maybe waiting for them. They were definitely going to fight it very soon.
Ethan started to feel himself run short of breath. Nora held the revolver firmly in her hand. He left his sword with Liam, and that was still in the parking lot. Gabriel could still fight, but Ethan needed his own weapon to fight himself.
He glanced at Nora’s gun and wondered if the little thing was enough to defend them.
After a quick dash up four flights of stairs, Ethan and Nora reached the door leading to the rooftop. Nora turned the handle and shoved against the metal exit with her shoulder. The door didn’t budge. Something was keeping it closed.
“Did someone lock it from outside?”Nora asked. “Help me push!”
Nora and Ethan lined up parallel to each other and ready to shove. They ran into the door shoulders first. It still didn’t budge.
Frustrated, Nora glanced around the barrier. She saw that two metal hinges, one at eye level and another at waist level, were holding the door. In that moment, Nora got a desperate idea.
“Stand back!” she shouted. Nora flashed the revolver and pointed it at the hinges.
She fired two shots into an upper hinge and two more shots in the lower hinge. Each shot had the magnitude of a rickety gas engine, and the noise carried throughout the entire dorm.
Ethan reactively plugged his ears and turned away to avoid any ricocheting bullets. His hearing was momentarily shot, but he realized that the hinges were now busted. He gave the door another good shove. It seemed to give way slightly.
Then they both heard a dull thud hit the building. The impact seemed to rattle everything fixed to the floor, and all the walls seemed to shudder in response.
It’s here.
Ethan took a ramming position with Nora without further debate. The two shoved once more, and the door blew open.
The door fell apart as it hung from its handle rather than its hinges. Ethan and Nora stood in the open air of the roof, and the night sky was well above them.
An ominous moon illuminated everything around them, and the concrete below them glowed with a slightly green tint. Aside from them, there was another person on the roof.
Winston Wright.
They realized there was something else with them. In the shroud of night, what they saw was nearly invisible against the dark sky. Standing beside Winston was a person masked in black mist.
It had a savage aura about it. The most disturbing feature of the entity was that it dressed, smirked, and physically resembled Winston in every way. This was Winston’s Wraith. Aside from having a pair of golden irises, it was a perfect doppelganger of the student himself.
Ethan felt a chill run down his spine when he looked at it. This was worse than when he faced down Hector’s Wraith. He compared the feeling in his gut to that of a sheep looking at a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.
Winston’s Wraith smiled back. It was more than eager to bite Ethan’s head off.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nora gasped.
Despite the amount of noise the two newcomers had produced, Winston seemed to not notice. He stood on the opposite end of the rooftop and all his attention was fixed on the thing in front of him. He was just as shocked as those of his classmates.
“Oh look,” said the Winston shrouded in mist. It pointed to Ethan. “It’s him.”
The real Winston turned. He was furious. “Ethan,” he said. “Got something you wanna say?”
“Winston?” said Ethan. “You need to listen very carefully to me.”
“Shut up!” Winston spat back. “You were there when Hector died, weren’t you?”
Nora kept her gun ready. She held it with both hands. Ethan held his hands up and stepped forward carefully. Winston stood his ground, but he was rearing to attack at any second.
“You aren’t yourself, Winston,” said Ethan. “Just calm down, and I can tell you the truth.”
The other Winston made a mocking motion with his hands. “He’s lying,” it whispered to its host.
Winston kept his eyes trained on Ethan. “Why hide anything, man?” Winston retorted. “Was it ‘cause you didn’t want to make me mad?”
Ethan shook his head. He dared to step closer. “No! I was there when Hector got eaten by a Wraith. And I’m sorry I couldn’t save him!”
The black mist surrounding Winston began to thicken. Winston’s demeanor grew even angrier.
“Liar,” Winston said. “You’re all liars!”
Meanwhile, Nora realized where this was going. She knew that Winston was just as vulnerable as a minnow to a shark. Nora lifted the revolver. Ethan saw this and cupped his hands around his mouth
“Winston!” he shouted. “Get out of there!”
Winston didn’t seem to hear Ethan. His mind was failing the man as his own confusion was growing. In his state, there was no stopping what he would say next.
Winston’s Wraith started laughing like a madman. The black mist around him thickened and swirled around him. Whatever unholy work was being done here, it needed to end now.
Nora took the initiative to pull the trigger twice. The lead passed straight through the other Winston. He laughed as the mist swallowed the lead. The real Winston stumbled over himself while avoiding getting shot.
Nora was stuck at a standstill. She just used the last of her ammunition, and she had no idea of what to do next. The other Winston was now completely engulfed in black mist and was doing something too sinister to allow happen.
Behind the mist, his body contorted dramatically. He grew new appendages across his torso and his torso elongated to impossible proportions. The other Winston prepared to go in for the kill.
The world slowed down for the moment. In Ethan’s eye, the other Winston stopped engulfing himself in mist so quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan caught a glimpse of Gabriel.
The mysterious boy looked at Ethan straight in the eye. He then raised his right hand and pointed his index finger at his temple.
“Go on,” he said, “You know what you have to do.”
The world still moved in slow motion. The child disappeared, but another presence took its place. Ethan heard a voice in his head and unwittingly chanted a single word.
"I’m coming, Winston," he said to himself. “Whether you want help or not.”
Time returned to normal. Winston’s Wraith began to emerge from its cocoon. Ethan prepared to summon his Sol. He could not back down. He wouldn’t fail like he did with Hector’s Wraith.
This was where Ethan had to redeem himself.
The mist thinned out. Ethan saw a monstrous being appear before him. Winston’s Wraith was a twisted stag’s body. It was easily bigger than Ethan or Nora. Matted fur grazed with sweat and stress covered its muscles.
It
s antlers were the most horrid. Rather than bone, each branch was a separate arm. They grew out of each other to form a gnarled mess of hands atop a rabid animal’s head.
Ethan stood with Gabriel at his side. The Sol drew his blade. It flew at the mist and charged right in. Winston’s Wraith charged with hands-for-antlers forward.
Gabriel’s blade clashed. The Wraith’s antlers caught the blade before it could cut anything. They locked and began to violently thrash around the rooftop. Ethan felt every push, every tug and punch from hitting Winston’s Wraith head on.
He tightened his diaphragm to numb the pain and continued to fight. Winston’s Wraith needed to be stalled, if Ethan couldn’t beat it now. His team was coming, and they needed time to get to the rooftop.
Ethan conjured ice and threw it at the beast. Winston’s Wraith shrugged off the projectiles and continued to wrangle Gabriel.
Nora stepped back. The fight only grew more intense. She needed to get more ground before it came to her.
Winston’s Wraith threw Ethan’s Sol aside. It set its sight on Nora. Ethan himself forced Gabriel to run back in. Winston’s Wraith caught this charge too.
Let go, Gabriel said to Ethan’s mind. I can handle this
Ethan purged the thought out. “Enough!”
In that instance, he made the first mistake. Gabriel leaned in to push more. Winston’s Wraith smiled, if that was possible for an animal-demon hybrid. The hands broke apart on its antlers and grabbed Gabriel’s arms.
Ethan widened his eyes. He tried to pull free. But the Wraith caught him. As Gabriel was forced into a position with his arms helplessly held apart, Ethan felt the pull on his own body. Soon he was restrained as well.
Winston’s Wraith snarled. “Die, worm!”
Gabriel’s arms began to twist the opposite direction they were supposed to. Ethan felt his elbows threaten to snap. They were about to, and he could no longer fight.
A hurried pace of footsteps came from behind. Two familiar people emerged from the broken rooftop access doors. One held a fully loaded shotgun and the other a pistol.
Liam and Iris took aim and opened fire.
Winston’s Wraith was blindsided by a volley of lead. Liam and Iris kept shooting until they were both empty. After the air filled with gunshots and smoke, the discord of screams stopped.
Ethan was released. He fell to the ground and struggled to get fresh air in his lungs. Iris ran forward with talisman in hand. She placed it upon the forehead of the dark monster.
A burst of light came from the purifying weapon. It worked. The Wraith began to dissolve back into the black mist it emerged from.
Then all was still. The black mist cleared up. Lying on the pavement of the roof was the broken form of the other Winston in a crumpled heap, but still alive.
Gabriel stood still and glaring at the two newcomers. Bullet holes riddled its metallic hide and its form seemed to shimmer like static on a television screen.
He started to disappear from its toes all the way to its serpentine helmet. Rather than make another scream, it focused on Ethan, who was still kneeling in shock. Without another word, Gabriel faded into the night soon after.
Iris now stood in a place littered with empty shells. She kicked some aside as she made her way to Nora. The girl was unharmed, but the events of the past night were too much stress for her to handle.
As soon as Iris had picked her up, she started sobbing and dug her face into Iris's shoulder. Ethan couldn't blame Nora for crying after the events that transpired tonight.
“She’s alive,” said Iris. “How is Winston?”
“Winston’s spirit is safe,” Liam noted. He nursed his injured shoulder. “And Ethan?”
Ethan gave a feeble thumbs-up.
Liam was still badly injured, but he managed to hobble over to the real Winston sprawled over the floor. The latter was alive, but hopelessly confused by what just happened.
Before Winston, a wick of blue fire lit in the air. It hovered where Winston’s Wraith was, but the flame was not burning anything.
Ethan stared at it. He never saw this before. Meanwhile, Liam and Iris glanced at each other. Even they didn’t believe in what they were seeing.
“Oh man,” Winston groaned. “What was that? And what just happened?”
Liam helped him stand. The upperclassman held out a hand and pulled Winston to his feet. He then pointed to the broken form lying down before them.
"That is your Wraith," he finally said. He took shallow breaths to articulate every word he used. "It is a demon that was born from your emotions and appeared tonight to devour your soul. We got him in time."
Winston sucked in a deep breath of air. His brain was still charged with fear. "So that’s it?" he asked. “It’s over?”
Liam shook his head. He pointed to the blue flame.
"A Wraith cannot die if it came directly from a living person," Liam said, "the only way to keep it down is to accept it. Whatever it said about you, whatever you heard that you didn't want to hear, that's what you need to admit. You can't deny what your Wraith said to you."
“This is too weird.”
“Just do it!”
Winston looked at the other man with slight disbelief, but decided to believe him. If more than one supernatural shenanigan happened in one night, there was no chance that Winston could afford to pretend none of it was real.
Winston stood next to the Wraith. The fire was between him and Ethan. Winston realized he almost made eye contact. He spoke aloud.
"I got angry because no one could tell me about Hector’s death,” said Winston. “I let that get the better of me. And I attacked you before I got all the details. I’m not going to let Hector’s death slide. But I went too far, and I’m sorry."
The blue flame dispersed into stardust. Each spark and speck of light coalesced into Winston’s chest. The remains of Winston’s Wraith were no more. Winston clenched a fist before his heart as if to grab any of that light.
Ethan managed to squeeze out the last of his energy to watch these events unfold about him. Fighting a giant stag really put a big strain on his body.
As soon as Winston was finished, Ethan fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 11 - Recovery
Ethan knew he couldn’t be dead.
If he were dead, he would be roasting over an open fire in a cave deep underground. At least that was what he supposed the afterlife was like. Religious guilt had that effect on him.
Instead a blank ceiling greeted him and the smell of antiseptic intoxicated the air. Ethan glanced down and realized that he was lying down in a hospital bed. He was in a patient’s tunic and hooked up to an IV dripper.
Iris was across the room. She paced about with her thumbnail between her teeth. From the look of it, she hadn’t gotten much rest since the fight.
What happened while I was out? Ethan asked.
He raised his head higher. Iris noticed and stopped pacing. “Ethan?” she asked.
“Hey, Iris,” Ethan replied. His voice was groggier than usual, so they began to slur. “What happened?”
Iris walked over. Ethan kept his eyes trained up to her. “It’s been a whole week,” she said. “I’ve filled Winston in. It was about time he knew the truth about Hector.”
Iris looked down. So did Ethan. He felt another presence beside him. It wasn’t Gabriel. Ethan glanced to his side.
To his surprise, Nora was sitting straight in a chair with her head down. She already dozed off before he regained consciousness.
“So was he our guy in the hood?” asked Ethan.
“No,” said Iris. She gently shook Nora’s shoulder. “But you could speak with him yourself after you’re discharged.”
Iris shook Nora awake. The former’s eyes fluttered, and then opened wide-eyed.
“You’re awake!” Nora said with relief. “Um, how do you feel?”
“Good I guess,” Ethan replied. He really didn’t feel any pain.
“You finally came to,” Nora s
ighed. “It’s been a whole week! I was so worried about you.”
Ethan stared at her. It was one thing for a Wraith to come out of nowhere and threaten to bite his head off.
But it was something different for a girl to be worried for him. He felt his cheeks grow warm, so he glanced away.
“I’m fine,” said Ethan. “So where am I?”
Nora realized the magnitude of the words she just said. She tried to maintain a neutral expression to keep the situation from getting any more awkward.
“Right,” she said. “This is the State General Hospital. We had you carted off here after, well, you know. Do you remember what happened?”
“It is what it is,” said Iris.
Ethan looked to Nora, who wiped a trail of drool running off the corner of her mouth. “That’s probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Wraith,” Nora noted. “Things never get that bad.”
“I mean it could’ve been worse,” he replied. “Right?”
Iris glanced to Nora. Nora almost squirmed under her gaze. Ethan would have done the same, if his shoulder didn’t send pain shooting up his spine if he moved it.
Iris meant well. But that was the unfortunate part about looking like a professional Wraith hunter: Iris’ attempts to be reassuring were intimidating.
“I figured I was ready,” said Nora. “Maybe you’d be better off if I wasn’t so weak.”
Ethan leaned out of his bed."You did what you could, Nora,” he said. “That’s what mattered.”
Nora smiled. She looked at her right hand. The other night she was holding a gun with it. Even though she was armed, there was little she could do about fighting off Winston’s Wraith.
“Thanks,” she said. “But still…”
She started to feel anxiety overwhelm her chain of thought. Nora caught herself in mid-sentence. “I’m sorry. Here I am giving you an earful the minute you wake up. So, um, get well soon?”
“I’ll tell Liam that you’re awake,” Iris chimed in. “Try to get more rest.”
Nora gently pressed Ethan down with her hand. “Take it easy, okay? Be a good patient! And don’t hesitate to call the nurse. You’ll be fine here.”