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CS Worlds Destroyed Chapter 6

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Chapter 6


Back inside, our talks were vague and somewhat brief. I told them about what happened to everyone in Greece. They were shocked, but not outright surprised. Told them about this supposed disease, this horrible coincidence, and they felt the same way, that it was an unfounded piece of superstition. It was all quick, to the point- until i told them about Paul and what had transpired, then it became an all-out 'gab a thon' that at this point, that event had happened some years previous. I was happy to finally have it in my peripherals, have my vision clear of the utter frustration and annoyance with how that ended, but a chance to vent a little to a sympathetic ear lifted some of the crushing weight of guilt.  Cempe was noticeably more happy then she should've been about it, Aisa seemed generally relieved too. I forgot exactly which one it was that told me they'd heard a rumor that he had secretly been cheating in my absence, back trapped as an old lady . But since that's the general shit you hear out of a rumor anyways, I waved my hand at it and left the notion at that.

"Well, good riddance, i guess" Cempe picked at her teeth, reclining back on the sofa that was probably more springs then stuffing with the damage it had taken.  "It'll be odd around here without him. Not that i liked his overly cheerful self. Too cheerful. "

"Yeah, i guess." I sighed, scratching my neck and looking around, "You know, there's something gnawing at the back of my mind, something i've forgotten."

"....Excelsis?"  Alvo's voice whimpered from the other side of the barrier as I smacked myself on the forehead.

"Yep, that's what it is."  I got to my feet as Cempe was lowering the barrier, "Go check on Alvo outside Cempe, he was freaking out and probably  still thinks you're dead and beheaded."  

Cempe grumbled at me as she went to attend to him; their dialog was nothing but nervous and reassuring as i stood awkwardly by the doorway with Aisa in the room, thoughts still on the fight from beforehand. Aisa mentioned for me to sit back down .

"So. What are your plans now that you're back here?" She said calmly as I sluffed back onto the couch, tired.  "Just how is Ian? You visited him in a while?"

"I'm going back there first thing tomorrow morning.  He's probably gonna be pissed, I didn't expect things to take this long. I'm not even sure how long "this long" is, to be honest. " I looked back to her as she was already trying to figure out the answer to the next question on the list.  "How long has it been? "  I was expecting around...five, maybe six years tops.  I'd lost all sense of time over in Canada and around the world, though. It could easily be up to...

"It's been about ten, eleven  years, Nona"  She said quickly as I wheezed out a large amount of air. "You okay?"

"ELEVEN...." I tried to calm myself, head in my hands. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck"

"I take it you didn't think it was 11 years"  Aisa grinned as I kept worrying.

"Noooo, no, thought it was around five. Shit." I looked up at her, " Why does this keep happening? Why do these goddamn time jumps come so damn often?  Can someone buy me a watch or something?"

"Calendar watch?" Aisa said quietly as I rubbed my face in my hand some more.  "Sure, we can tie it around your horn or something" She grinned, laughing a little at my behavior.

"UGH" continuously smacking my face, dragging my hands down tiredly, " Should I go now? I feel like I should go now."

"If you think your rest after a battle is worth nothing and seven hours in comparison to eleven years is gonna make all the difference, go ahead."  She folded her arms as Cempe poked her head back inside. "Just take it easy Nona, get your rest and deal with it in the morning"

"Did I miss a freak out?" Cempe grinned  as Alvo looked around the corner, face scrunching up at the design and disarray of our living room. " An yeah, at least stick around to scrap a little. We can use that mud-hole in the middle of the estate for it. Go chase your tail another day. I haven't seen you in over a decade " She grinned as I threw a ripped apart throw pillow for it's namesake.

"I hope this isn't what this room looks like on most days" Alvo said quietly, critiquing our lovely new style of beaten to death and trashed rooms.  He'd normally not be allowed in here, but with all of us in our full forms anyways it didn't matter.

"Maaan, he's gonna hate me. Shit." I lowered my head a little more, turning over to Alvo to look out next to my knees, "No, most of the time this room looks nice. This is a shithole."

"So, once again, what are your plans, Nona?" Aisa crossed her ankles, leaning back. "Unless you plan on freaking out for another decade or so"   I tried to collect myself, taking a deep breath.

"I'll rest for the night, go visit tomorrow morning. As for big-picture stuff, I have to...." I stopped, looking back to Alvo, then up to Cempe as she got the hint, quickly making up some bullshit excuse and leading him back outside. Watching them go, I continued on, voice lowered, "I'm going to tail these leads and see who's been gabbing about what I've done.  Then maybe some PR work, try and build my approval back up, squash any rumors and doubts and make sure that problem is over with so if this Perseus jackass rises back up, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.  You?" Aisa stretched out, smiling.

"Head-on-a-pike was a vacation for me, so it's back to work tomorrow, i believe. Which that's fine, it's warmer in Florida anyways. " We both gave a quick laugh , happy to be in each others company. "So. Beyond the horrible things you found out in Greece, was it nice to go back?"  I thought on it for a second, looking off vaguely down the hall to the utter chaos and mess we'd have to start cleaning up  shortly, a light at the farthest end coming off it's hinge to crash into the ground noisily. I frowned some more.

"It was...nostalgic, I'd like to say. But it made me happy to remember the person I had been.  Made me appreciate who I am today, more so. " I grinned, giving her a sort of sideways hug, "I tend to forget what a selfish jackass I was, you guys put up with a lot of shit from me. "

"We still put up with a lot of shit from you, that hasn't changed. " Cempe strolled back into the room, laughing as I threw the other pillow at her, stuffing going everywhere.  We laughed and talked for a while more, long into the night.



I stood, distraught and annoyed just on the inside of the door to my room, water pooling around my ankles with a heavy sigh as the entrance finally shut.  Eleven years.  So he'd be... well, he was 11 when I left, so he'd be 22 now.  I was planning to come back at 16 or 17, when kids stop being righteous little shits and start acting like people again, give him some space and time to himself to wean off of my help. I wasn't going to baby him, I wasn't going to coddle and  protect, just try and help guide him if he started going off course. Which now that he was 22, I guess I failed on that mission.  I hoped he just remembered who I was.

Looking around the room I started to dream back, started to remember just what had gone on in our time line together here in hell, sitting around, talking, playing card games, just resting comfortably around one another.  How that was interrupted by Pauls' sympathy pains, how we raced out of this haven towards the man who was trying to weasel his way out of my life without explanation. I suddenly slammed my head against the door behind me to get the flashback to stop, pain bringing me back into this moment. No more backwards anymore, only forward, only the future ahead now, I had to remember that.

Trudging through the water, I stood at the top of the water basin, edges of the stones ground down, water spilling over the side against the rocks. Most of the out-cropping slabs of rock along the side had fallen to the ground, large, dark cracks between them looking like good places for spiders to congregate. If hell had spiders.  

Splashing back through the water to the original light switch, i pressed my hand to it, concentrating.  Beneath my palm became a flurry of activity, the mushrooms re-sprouting with a determined punch, energy spreading back towards the lines to the ceiling, glowing pinpricks of light doubling and reproducing, lighting the room back up in a determined haze.  Opening an eye I concentrated harder, brightening the glow back to what it had been, even a little more so, like daylight, like a bright blue sky. Looking up at it I took my hand off, admiring my work, walking back towards the waterfall, two hands out towards it, easing off it's torrent.  The water receded  like I asked it, making this whole task almost enjoyable. Maybe it was time for me to rearrange my room, change it up. Doing so would probably ease away the flashbacks a bit, which was always good.

I pushed the waterfall's output back to a trickle for the time being, water soaking into the fictitious lava-rock ground. Looking around I walked over by where Perseus and his attendant had been sitting, seeing graffiti and initials carved into the rock with what looked like a sword.  I frowned, hands on my hips like an annoyed mom.  There was a bit of everything in there. An assortment of "Nona Sucks" " Down with the regime" "Death doesn't need more corrupt officials like life does" and my favorite "Fate is for pussies" There was an assortment of Initials carved everywhere, some tiny, some taking up the sides of rocks.  The initials I saw off the bat were  " SLP, ALR, MLH,  JTB, SHP, and someone who's initials may or may not have been ASS.  Though I think that should've been massed with the previous group of insults.

  Looking at the group of them, I suddenly felt very tired, very hollow.  Maybe it stung a little more because I knew i was a little out of the game, that I hadn't been at my best in years and years now. That my vacations were visible to everyone, that the ruse I tried so desperately to hide was showing through.  That being said, this is not the first time someone's tried thier hand at the supposed power and supposed glory.  They'd just gotten past the defenses, struck me not only in the public eye, but tore at a place I held very dear. I sighed again. I hadn't been the same since Raziel and I parted ways.

The glow-worm lights above me suddenly gave out, sending the whole room into darkness. That was odd. I probably didn't put enough energy into it, drained from fighting earlier. Too tired, too out of it and too annoyed, I stood there for a moment more before sitting down, thinking on the edge of that waterfall while I just didn't feel like fighting back right now.  My mind was occupied elsewhere, and that's where I needed to be.  Maybe a few hours of rest wouldn't make the difference in this situation. Then again, maybe it would.   After spending about an hour in the dark, mind racing nonstop, I stormed out of the room, through the living room which was being put back together by Cempe and Aisa without saying a word, back out the door.  As I walked around the mass of dead bodies in the front of the plot, Aisa called out to me from the estate.

"Tell him we said hi!" she laughed with Cempe as i grinned, still turned away from them. Leaping into the Colus I took a few heavy wing beats, adjusting and headed straight for the surface in a hurry, happy to be back on track.

-


Above ground, it was still night. That thankfully wouldn't stop me from just getting a little closure. Twenty year olds stayed up all hours of the night anyways, it wasn't like I had to keep to a schedule.  I was nervous, giddy, excited with an undertone of shame- i had been gone a long time. But thinking of reuniting with an old friend made me too happy to care. I just hoped he'd be the same way. Hope that he'd be happy to see me. But as i strolled into the cemetery house, realizing that everything was new, reorganized; that the pictures on the walls were of different people, something had gone wrong.

The downstairs,which had been the laundry room, still had my re-entry mark on the wall from the exorcism.  That was something people couldn't see, it wasn't obvious to anyone but those already dead.  But now it was half covered by a painting of a farm, a couch and a pool table set up where the washer had been. The basement had been finished and furnished, carpet on the floor, just some grimy utility like area in the back and piles of clothes there.  Confused, I stormed up the stairs, coming through the door and looking around in surprise.

The family was there, mom, dad and two little girls. They were an older family with younger children, obviously people I didn't know. With Amber, her mother had given this house to her as she went off to retire down south. I was surprised that she'd sell the house and move elsewhere, it had a lot of meaning in the family, not only with all the supernatural stuff happening around, but just between the two of them.  I looked down at the ground; carpet laid over the wood floors, walls a completely different color, and the ceiling was painted an odd, darker tone that made the whole space look small.  I scrunched up my nose, walking through the house quickly like an appraiser.

"Can't believe you covered those floors, those were nice wood floors" I mumbled, walking around like a stranger in a house I shouldn't be in, with the tenants all completely unaware. One of the perks of being a ghost, i guess, I'm the perfect detective. Unless i wanted to talk to the people without popping up in the house like a burglar.  The kitchen had been redone, a new edition with a few more rooms added onto the back, there was a nice wooden deck on the back of the house instead of just the porch-like one in the front that overlooked the road.  Everything was different, wrong. Ian obviously wasn't here, they must've moved somewhere else. My stomach began to knot up in worry.

Peeking in what was his room, a sort of greyish blue with the symphony of stars on the ceiling, was replaced with a bright pink, double-bedded room. I revolted away from that place as soon as I stepped inside of it, back to the hallway.  I barely recognized this house; the entire inside was redone, a lot of the rooms and walls had been changed around.  Hearing more sounds of life and entertainment from the main living room, i wandered back there. Maybe these people knew something about where they moved off to. It was a long shot, but I had to take it.  Scrutinizing them as they sat unaware on the couch, I stormed back down the stairs, back outside to the entrance,  turning my back to the door and shaking my hands out.


Being a poltergeist is a very tricky matter. It allows me to talk to regular people, to appear very human as a visible apparition;  but the time I had in the state was very short, maybe a couple minutes at that.  Like holding your breath. It was something you trained for, something that originated back in those Grecian times, talking with our human envoys to  help carry out our wills.  It never had a purpose as a long-time thing.  Nowadays it was mostly used by the crazy ghosts with too much pent-up energy, appearing as a flash to spook someone from discovering thier hidden diamond mine or whatever they were protecting.  It could be a very useful tool in talking with the living world, as long as I didn't lose my concentration. You tend to started bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose like that if you push your limits too much, but by that time the person you've been talking to has already run away in terror, so it works out.  

Thinking on it, the last time I'd done this was not by my own hand, it had been when Cempe forced me into the state, snapping Raziel in half like that; felt like forever ago.


Shaking my hands out again I tried to ready myself, tried to prepare as I turned around, pushing the doorbell still as a ghost.  It rang, general rustling, the sound of someone coming down the stairs tiredly as I jumped into that physical looking form , starting the timer and swinging around with a friendly grin as the door opened behind me.

"Hello?" The man said tiredly, looking to his watch as his eyes opened in confusion, putting the door between him  and I for a second to shout back upstairs, something about putting the kids to bed, that it was nearly midnight.  I stood there patiently, debating on dropping back into a ghost form while he argued with his wife at the top of the stairs, squandering my precious poltergeist time. He finally put his head back around the door, suspicious as I tried to smile again, gagging a little.  I was rusty at this. "Is there something we can help you with, it's very late." I coughed a little, standing up tall. I could already taste the blood in my mouth.

"Yes, uh, I'm an old friend to the people who lived here before you, just got back from a long vacation in...uh..Canada."  I looked around, trying to clear my throat as it came out froggy and almost drunk.  The man leaned heavier on the door frame, unamused.  "I'm just trying to find out what happened, as I understood it, their house was very precious to them."

"Yeah?" the man said sarcastically, not buying my story as i coughed again, squinting one eye and doing my best not to explode as that time was already starting to run out. "What was their names then?" He thought I was a liar. Well great.  

"They were the Cadewins, Ian and Amber."  I said , frowning a little as someone else came down the stairs, curious.   Something tried to force it's way up my throat like vomit, swallowing and trying to keep this form as long as possible. It hurt like hell.  "If you don't knn.." I swallowed again, coughing into my hand and quickly spying it full of blood. Before either of them noticed, I put that hand behind my back and continued on as quick as possible.

"If you don't know anything if you could at least tell me how long you've lived in this residence, it might give me some information about what happened."  I spit out all at once, holding my breath as the wife joined the husband at the door and he slowly, painfully debriefed her on our conversation while I started to shake, feeling that time tick off it's last seconds at a breakneck speed.

"Hi" the wife said kindly as I smiled, bowing a little in return, "We bought our house foreclosed, something happened to the people living here and the house was abandoned. "  I frowned a little, taking some gasping breaths as the clock ran out, now working on my very last stands of energy. Everything came out in a gurgled mess.

"Canyoutellmehowlongagothatwas" i shook like a crack addict, eyes partially  closed,  using everything in my repertoire to extend those precious seconds for just an answer, some answer at all.  The woman and man both frowned at me, looking to one another worriedly as I tried my best to grin, blood oozing from my teeth; I quickly closed my mouth.  The husband looked like he was about to lose his cool when the wife continued on.

"That was about eight years ago" She said in fear,  "Are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?"

'Nope!" I squeezed out  one last word before accidentally exploding in a little torrent of blood.

I honestly didn't mean to.  It wasn't real blood, but the living would be able to see it for exactly a minute, then it'd disappear. That ...didn't help their screaming, though. Both of them began shouting and bellowing in fear, running back inside, screaming in their newly furnished basement as I stood outside like a dope.

"Sorry! I'm...it's not real! It's alright! Sorry about that!" I shouted back as a regular spirit, hand to my temple. The screams continued, dulling down before they got near an open window on the second floor. As they kept right on freaking out I looked around in paranoia, debating on jumping back into the poltergeist form and explaining myself. But they were in full out hysteria. So I ran away like a punk instead, legging it down the road like I'd committed a crime. I heard sirens go there a short time later.

I stood around in the local park, sitting on the swing-set mulling it all over.  Something had happened, but it didn't make any sense, they'd never abandon that house, it was already paid off long before they moved into it, that was Katherine's gift to her. They both had friends around the area, in the schools,  it didn't make any sense why they'd pick up and leave, especially just abandoning the house like that.  They'd never do that under their free will.

My stomach began to sink faster, a horrible, foreboding premonition hanging over my thoughts as I was back to my feet in a second.  There was something very wrong here.  My first instincts were to go back to the house, to start from the beginning, see if a clue or something had been left for me.  Maybe then I could trace him down, find and keep up the promise I had made.
Chapter 5: [link]

Chapter 7: [link]

:iconnopedotaviplz:


Anyways, this chapter's kinda short. And that's half because I spent like 20 min trying to figure if the ending could be tied up somewhat in another few paragraphs, and that too, the answer is nope. So a short chapter. Then now i've got part of Ch. 7 written. SO THERE.

But yeah, kinda lost my lead on these- being sick kept me from writing and now i'm back to SCROUNGING for words for each chapter each week. This one's pretty much a "setting up" chapter, though I can't decided if the end of 7'll tell you a bunch of stuff, or if that'll be eight. We're kinda working in "I don't have this completely figured out yet" state, while I occasionally go to like chapter 30 and write some of there, then wrote part of the ending another time, and yeah.

BUT YES. Now we're on the hunt for Ian, which if you've had a brain tumor or forgotten, is the kind of extended soul of Raziels that Nona was supposed to watch over.

'Supposed to' being the key words there.
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Carter1215's avatar
XD im dieing. The fact that she says Nope right before exploding was priceless XD