Sol: The True Self

by Joshua Chou

  You’ll hit another train if you don’t stop that one in a few minutes!

  Nora was the first to regain her composure. “Mrs. Iris,” said Nora. “Where is the Wraith?”

  Scanning now, said Iris. I detect the Wraith! It’s on the other end of the train! Get it to stop the transport!

  Nora pointed forward. “The Wraith has to be messing the controls in the front car. We have to get to the console as soon as possible!”

  Ethan was the first to charge. His classmates followed closely behind. They ran straight across the car while maneuvering around black gunk that their Wraith leaked on its path.

  Although they were making quick progress, there was no telling how much time they had to get to the other end of the train. The other train they were on crash course with could be a few minutes away or a few seconds.

  Time was not a luxury they could waste, and Ethan kept running. As they ran, the intercom overhead bleated something grating to their ears.

  “Dude, what is that sound?” said Winston.

  “The Wraith, duh,” said Nora.

  Suddenly, that noise became more tangible. Laughter erupted from above. It was distorted and laced with a sinister tone.

  “W-wretches!” Sophie’s Wraith cried. Its voice was ragged and cracked. “All of them! Filthy cutthroat worms!”

  Instead of coming from the speakers installed into the ceiling of the train, a demonic vibe was making the sound blare from above to the passengers below.

  The A.X.E.L. field team knew immediately that things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  “Dammit, double time!” commanded Ethan.

  Ethan’s sense of anxiety hadn’t subsided for a moment. They were running out of time.

  After a few anxious minutes of running, they were only stopped by a metal barrier between them and the Wraith. Nora peered inside a viewport to the front car’s cabin.

  She could only gasp. Nora covered her mouth in terror. Ethan peeked inside as well.

  The cabin itself had just enough room for two people. Something long and scaly filled most of the space. Most of its details were not visible from the small viewport in the door.

  Ethan could make out one ghastly detail. It had millions upon millions of small appendages coming out of its sides like a millipede’s legs. They were malformed fingers twitching in unison.

  A control panel that manipulated the actions of the train was in the very front of the cabin, and two seats just in front of it. Sophie’s Wraith struggled to squeeze through. Though they couldn’t see enough of it, they saw that it had at least twelve “legs” pushing the big lever accelerating the A-train.

  “Get this door open!” shouted Ethan.

  Nora twisted the door handle to no effect. “How?”

  “Move out of the way! Winston! Hit it!”

  The two students stepped out of the way as Winston came running up. He conjured his Sol while doing so.

  Training with magic was kicking in. This was a move he had been working on when sparring with Ethan. Winston yelled. He balled his fist, and Sir Kay did the same.

  Winston’s Sol conjured a fist full of lightning and hit the door with a deafening smash. It seemed to weaken the door, but not enough to open it.

  With a sound that loud, Sophie’s Wraith definitely heard them. Something like a pair of eyes turned in their direction, but Ethan’ wasn’t sure if he was looking at a human face or not.

  The door earned a charred patch of black where the blow struck, but it didn’t budge. A few cracks formed in the viewport, but Ethan glanced inside to check.

  Behind the door, they could see the black mist clustering around the Wraith. Soon, the entire cabin was engulfed in black mist.

  Now it was Ethan’s turn to hit the door. He summoned Gabriel and fired away.

  Gabriel pelted away at the metal barrier with ice. Shards stuck to it like shrapnel from a shotgun. A few hinges were becoming undone, so all they needed to do was give it a good push.

  Ethan kicked the door with his heel. It still didn’t budge. He turned to his friends.

  “Help me out!” he commanded “On three!”

  Winston and Nora ran to Ethan’s side and prepared to kick.

  “Three!”

  The two pounded in unison and punched a crack in the door. They kicked once more, and then the door budged.

  More accurately, it was sucked into the driver’s cabin. Black mist leaked from where the door’s integrity gave way. Sophie’s Wraith pulled the door into the cabin and unfurled its full form.

  Chapter 23 – Runaway Train

  Sophie’s Wraith was by far the worst thing Ethan had ever seen in his short career.

  Its hideous form was still masked in black mist, but it had an extended appendage to pull the door out. Once the door was pulled into the cabin with great force, A.X.E.L. saw what they were going to fight.

  They were too late. When Winston’s Wraith had materialized slowly, Sophie’s Wraith manifested much faster tonight. Despite having barely a second and dim lighting to see the monster, Ethan saw enough.

  Sophie’s Wraith had manifested into a hideous hybrid of a woman and a centipede. The tail end was Sophie’s body, which hung like a piece of meat. The bug-portion was really her “neck.”

  Its skin was tinted with mismatched patches of black and white, and each part of its body seemed to be fighting each other for attention.

  The most striking feature was the brute’s head. It was human enough in terms of skull shape, but it wore Sophie’s face for a mask. The Wraith’s head had one thousand curls of hair extending from the back of its head.

  Each lock of hair formed a tendril that wrapped around something in the driver’s cabin. Once such lock held the displaced door, and the other held Sophie.

  It looked at Nora. “You,” said the monster. “You made me into this!”

  Sophie’s body was limp. Chances were that she would die, but her Wraith needed to be purified. Nora tightened her jaw and held a talisman in hand.

  “Iris!” said Nora. “How much time do we have?”

  Two minutes, said Iris, and hurry!

  The trio knew what to do. Nora whipped out her revolver and started popping caps into the Wraith. Ethan and Winston started casting their spells while charging with weapons ready.

  The boys attacked from both sides. The tendrils of hair stretched from their alcoves and formed a net. As they fired their magic, the mesh was woven into a web-like barrier that absorbed the attacks.

  Ethan swung away with his blade. His weapon bounced off the carapace

  The train swerved at a turn in the tunnel. Due to the limited space in the car, both Gabriel and Sir Kay bumped into opposite sides of the cabin.

  Ethan and Winston felt the pain and keeled over. Wraith Sophie laughed. “Some maggots you turned out to be!” she taunted.

  The demon sharpened a small number of tendrils to form a sharp pike. The shape was then pointed to Sophie, who was unable to move.

  Nora saw the attack and shot Wraith Sophie in the face. The lead would have done little, but the attack was enough to hinder the Wraith’s concentration.

  “We’ll get you out of there, Sophie!” said Nora as she reloaded her revolver.

  Ethan and Winston recovered and conjured their respective Sols. After a few nights of literally butting heads and exchanging punches, they both earned a higher tolerance for pain.

  “Ideas?” asked Winston. “Because we need to hurry up!”

  Nora glanced behind their target. The console for controlling the A-train was still in working order. Sophie’s Wraith leaned against the lever that was controlling their speed. She also realized the back was exposed.

  “Send Sir Kay behind her,” said Nora. “Ethan, shank it when I say so.”

  The classmates gave each other quick glances, and then nodded. A counterattack was in order.

  They and Nora regrouped and sent another coordinated attack. The three had their blows hit the Wraith head-on.
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  Sophie’s Wraith shrieked with ice, lightning, and lead hitting her with blunt force. She quickly straightened up and screamed.

  The entire cabin rattled with the force of the noise, and the air grew twice as thick from before. Everyone was pushed back.

  “Wait for it, Ethan,” said Nora. “Winston! Now!”

  Winston conjured Sir Kay and commanded him to charge. Wraith Sophie sent a wave of tendril hair at the Sol again. Ethan grunted as he summoned Gabriel, and the air grew very cold.

  The tendrils were frozen into rigid blocks, and fell apart soon after. Sir Kay kept charging.

  Nora kept shooting at Wraith Sophie. Meanwhile, Winston focused on that decisive moment to get his Sol behind the target.

  In the blink of an eye, Winston’s Sol maneuvered around Wraith Sophie and primed his sword to thrust. Sophie’s Wraith turned to react, but Ethan sent Gabriel to charge at her front.

  This was the final blow. The Sols brought up their swords and thrust them into the Wraith. She gasped as two blade tips punched through her heart.

  Two blades pierced the heart. Sophie’s Wraith continued to make guttural noises. The sound produced was a mix of anguish and anger. It retracted its tendrils to grab both Sols close to her. Both were subdued and restrained.

  Ethan and Winston found difficulty in breathing. As their Sols were being strangled, they were also feeling short of breath. They looked to their friend.

  Nora had her talisman still in hand. During that whole skirmish, she was chanting in Latin. Her palm glowed with white burning light from the note in her palm.

  She continued to chant all the while. “Exorcizote, omnisspiritusimmunde, in noimne Dei Patrixomnipotentis, et in noimine Jesu Christi Filliejus,”

  No one noticed because she was busy channeling the power within those runes to produce something far more potent than an average purifying talisman.

  “Domini et Judicis nostril, et in virtute Spiritus Sancti, Utdescedas ab hoc plasmate Dei Sophie!”

  Nora finished her incantation. The talisman blazed with a light too bright to look at. Sophie’s Wraith wailed and involuntarily released the two boys’ Sols.

  Ethan, the first to recover, sent his Sol to raise its blade once more. With one fell swoop, Gabriel brought down the blade into the demon’s heart once more.

  Nora ran over and shoved the burning talisman into the monster’s forehead. Sophie’s Wraith let out a death groan and fell over. Her form deteriorated into black mist and dissipated into the constrained space of the cabin.

  When the majority of the mist was gone, the demon in its human form was left standing where the original figure was. Only the limp form of Sophie Crawford remained.

  Thirty seconds left! said Iris. Stop that train!

  Everyone remembered where they were and realized how close they were to certain death.

  Ethan’s team rushed to the console, but the train suddenly swerved on another turn. Everyone was thrown to the side of the train. Ethan was the only person left standing while everybody else was too far back.

  “What the—” said Winston. “Why are we still moving?”

  “We’re going too fast!” shouted Nora.

  Stop that train! Iris exclaimed.

  “Dammit! How do we stop this thing?” said Winston.

  Her confidence blew away with the rushing wind of the A-train. Nora screamed.

  Ethan saw a wide array of unlabeled buttons and levers. All of the components of the console looked equally as hazardous as the next. A few of them had Sophie’s Wraith’s black gunk splattered over the controls, but there was no telling which one would stop the train.

  They now saw another train on the same tracks they were on. It was certain that they were due for collision within the next fifteen seconds. A Sol couldn’t save them now.

  There was no time to guess which one turned on the brakes. Ethan had to make his best guess.

  Everyone screamed in panic. He reached for a large black lever installed in the ground, gripped the handle and pulled back as hard as he could.

  There was a roar from the train engine and a shout from the student himself. He had no time to reach for any other levers. Ethan pulled with the full weight of his body.

  The train started making a screeching noise. Every part of the train shuddered from the floor to the ceiling. Stationary coffins in the other cars were also falling over.

  Everything on that transport was toppling with the momentum carried up until that moment in time. Could they stop?

  Ethan gritted his teeth and waited. Ten, fifteen, then twenty seconds passed.

  There was nothing.

  He slowly opened his eyes, and then he saw the rear end of another train just five meters away from him. Their own train had made a sudden stop in time.

  Ethan dropped to the floor out of exhaustion. He laughed for the first time in weeks.

  Everyone struggled to regain their balance. After a rocky ride, the attack team was very tired.

  “Is it over?” asked Winston.

  Nora hobbled closer to Ethan. “I think so,” she said.

  What’s going on over there? Iris asked.

  “We stopped the train,” said Nora.

  “Dude, I’m sweating like a pig,” said Winston.

  A sigh of relief was heard. I’m glad you all are okay. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything on my end. Liam and I haven’t seen any Shadows over here and I don’t detect any more of them near you. Good job.

  Winston looked at Ethan. “How’d you know what to do?” he asked.

  “I guessed,” said Ethan.

  Chapter 24 – The Hunt Begins

  Ethan and his team emerged from the nearest station. They were somewhere near Central Park from the looks of it.

  It was well past sundown. Plenty of neon lights lit up the night atmosphere. A long stretch of greenery was beyond the yellow tape trapping them from the outside world.

  The North Precinct already walled off the area to contain Sophie’s Wraith, should it emerge from this subway station. Chances were that they had people stationed at every other station for the Wraith.

  These were all precautions before Ethan’s team took it down. Now A.X.E.L. could say with confidence that they had the situation under control.

  Ethan held his blade in hand. He forgot to check if any of the black gunk was caught on it before sheathing the weapon. If so, he would be seeing some annoying stains for the next few weeks. Hopefully he wiped enough of it off earlier.

  Another patrol is inbound to mop things up, said Iris. Are any of you injured?

  Aside from a few aches in his side, Ethan couldn’t complain. He nodded to Nora.

  “Nothing to report, ma’am,” she replied. “Sophie could use a stretcher. I found a pulse in her.”

  Acknowledged, Iris replied. We’ll get her out of there.

  Ethan pointed to a curb on the corner of the street. “Wanna take a seat?”

  They did. Ethan laid back and put his katana against the inner part of his knee. He looked out to the scene before him.

  Central Park was in view. Dark green hills and lampposts as far as the eye could see were before him. His view was limited from the street curb, but he could tell that a nice park was past the street.

  The law forbade anyone from going there at night. Too bad, or else he would have gone there to decompress.

  Not many people walked around either, since there were more than a few sirens and cops walling off this station. No one wanted to be near them while they were conducting their business.

  Red and blue danced around. Those lights were almost hypnotic to the eye. Ethan found himself finally relaxing, despite the adrenaline still running through his blood.

  The view was rather relaxing compared to nearly crashing to their deaths earlier. Winston nearly melted where he sat.

  A.X.E.L. agents entered the subway. A stretcher came with them. They returned shortly after with Sophie, and an ambulance opened its doors for its patient.


  Nora watched their classmate get taken away. Ethan saw a lost expression in her eyes as she watched Sophie be taken away.

  “She’ll get better,” he said.

  “I know,” Nora replied. “At least I believe she will.”

  Iris showed up before Ethan knew it. She rode up with Liam and witnessed the North Precinct lift Sophie’s unconscious body to the ambulance.

  Their field leader hadn’t relaxed since urgently telling them to get in the car. Now that the worst was over, she finally let herself relax her shoulders, arms, and nerves.

  “Nora,” she said with a steely calm voice.

  The girl in question sat up straighter. Ethan followed her example to save face. Iris turned around.

  “I’m surprised you all managed to stop the train,” she continued. “But it’s a miracle you saved her spirit.”

  “I guess so,” Nora replied.

  A pair of doors closed. The ambulance was ready to leave. Its flashing sirens continued to blare its lights as the engine came to life once more. Ethan and his team watched the medical emergency vehicle leave and race to the nearest hospital.

  “I should go now,” said Iris. “They press will want a statement. I’ll have to figure out how to spin this whole story.”

  “A’ight,” Ethan replied.

  He realized too late the slur in his tone. That fight took out more of him than he thought. Thankfully Iris lacked the energy to point that out. She turned away to speak with the other police officers on the scene.

  Someone nudged his shoulder. Ethan looked to Nora.

  “Thanks for giving me a chance,” she said.

  Ethan smiled. “It’s what friends do, right?”

  She returned the smile. That quickly turned into a neutral scowl. “But the sooner we find this Cero guy, the sooner I can give him a piece of my mind.”

  Ethan realized that he was feeling just as bitter. Sure, they won the fight. But as long as someone was distributing these drugs out there, no one was safe.

  If Cero could force a Wraith to emerge from anyone, then they had to catch him as soon as possible.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan spotted his Sol. Gabriel stood by in his boyish form and with his arms folded.