AN: I extended te story. Why? Becuase my idol told me a while ago it felt incomplete, and its been bugging me lately. Enjoy!!
The Storyteller
By Silver Child of the Sea
You know the funny thing about humans? They all have their own version of reality. Their own way of seeing things. Not that there's much difference between them. The sky is always blue, the grass is always green, and the clouds always float. They are different though. In some realities, aliens exist. In others, aliens don't. In some realities, the dark is scary. In others, the dark is a friend.
In some ghosts exist.
In others they don't.
Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners? I'm a ghost, at your service. My name? I've been around so long I don't even rember what I was in life; let alone what I was called. I'm pretty sure I had more than one cell though…
Oh well. No use in trying to bring it back now. I've been haunting since the beginning of time. I saw the dinosaurs dominate the world and I saw them wiped out. I saw mammals crawl out from their little hidey holes and evolve. I saw them eventually grow into humans. I saw man build up from caves and sticks to castles and swords. I watched them explore the world. I saw them build cities, sail the seas, fly through the skies, land on the moon, and so much more.
Oh, you still want to call me something? Why? Well, I suppose do need something to call myself besides me. I guess you can call me The Storyteller. Yes, I like that. I can tell you any tale you like. I've been around long enough to know knowledge is meant to be shared. And I've got some good ones too. For some reason or another, I was always around during the great triumphs and tragedies. What do you want to hear about?
The accident? What accident? There are so many to choose from. Hindenburg, Titanic, Apollo 13, the Challenger-
Oh. That accident.
It's not one of my most glorious tales, but it does lead to so much… I guess it's worth hearing about.
It all started with the Ghost portal. A married ghost hunter couple had noticed that, even though they had been working on the subject for 20 years, they had never actually seen a ghost.
They had a firm belief ghosts existed. That was their reality. Ghost did exist and everyone else just needed convincing.
The Couple came up with this theory. They though ghosts lived in a different dimension and only came across rarely. They were right, of course. There are very few natural portals to the human world in the Ghost Zone, and none of them are stable. They only reason I'm here is because the Ghost Zone didn't exist back when I died. It came to be shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct. Their spirits all had to go somewhere…
Oh, sorry. I got side tracked.
Any who, the two decide the need a way for ghosts to come to them. They start working on a portal that would "punch a whole directly into the ghost zone". They worked for months. Skipping meals, going nights without sleep, collapsing over their work, and enjoying it. They loved working on their invention. They were having the time of their lives.
While they were building, their kids got nervous. The couple had two children, a Daughter and a Son. In both of their realities, ghosts didn't exist and their parent's inventions would never work. They were worried about the fateful day it would be completed and fail. They knew it would crush the ghost hunters. The two never voiced that opinion though; it wouldn't convince them.
Eventually, that fateful day came. The whole family was dragged down to the basement to see the starting up of the greatest of the ghost hunters' inventions. The two were so incredibly proud that they seemed to glow brighter then the florescent bulbs. The Man even made a big show out of plugging it in.
And nothing happened.
Not that it wasn't expected. The two children didn't even try to act surprised. They just watched their father plug it in again and again and again, desperately trying to make it work. The Couple double checked every plug, circuit, and wire. The connections where fine. The calculations redone down to the last decimal point. They were on the dot. Why didn't it work?
Maybe ghosts don't exist…
It was too late to stop the thought. It jumped through the firm wall of belief that had just started to crumble.
Both of The Couple's realities shook. Admitting ghosts didn't exist meant admitting the last 20 years of their lives had been a complete waste. Admitting they were wrong…
Their reality was a hairs breath away from collapsing like a dry sand castle. The couple went up to their room.
They wouldn't go downstairs for a long, long time.
The Son was worried. He had never seen his parents act this way. Every time an invention failed, they always where downstairs the next day, trying to fix it. They had never been this depressed.
This is how he and his two best friends ended up the basement a few days later.
Actually, best friends are an understatement. The group of three, The Son, a boy and a girl, where inseparable. Like a tri-solar system. Three stars surrounded by planets of faith, trust, happiness and memories. Solar Flares of friendship leaped between them. Comets of secrets skirted around the edges of the beautiful planets and nebulas.
The stars where in an incredibly delicate balance. They depended on each other more than almost any other people I had ever seen. If anything happened to one of the suns, the other two were sure to follow.
The Son knew his parents very well. His father wasn't the smartest person around, and it was very likely that he had just over looked something simple. At least, that's what he told himself. He knew deep down that the chances of him changing anything where very slim.
The Boy understood why the son was upset, but didn't think they could do anything about it. He was the pessimistic one of the group, after all.
The Girl, however, was excited. She loved the idea of their being something more out there. Her reality was that there was something, be it ghosts, gods, or demons. It just hadn't presented itself yet. She encouraged him when his lack of confidence had began to make itself known, and insisted that the hazmat suit he was wearing didn't make him look like a dork. (Lies exist even in the tightest friendships)
The Son stepped into the machine, armed only with a small glow-stick and a white and black hazmat suit. I watched his eyes dart nervously from one panel to the other, desperately trying to find some sort of excuse to leave. In his haste to spot something, he tripped on a wire that had slithered out of its casing.
Stumbling for a second, regained his balance by grapping the wall for support.
Click.
Hearing the small but deafening noise, The Son looked up to see he had accidently pushed a misplaced 'On' switch. He smiled for about a millisecond, and then he realized exactly what he had done.
The poor boy was screaming before the pain hit.
Electricity crackled, stabbing through him like a thousand daggers. His eyes rolled in his sockets. His skin burned. His hair flapped and singed around like flames in the torrent of electric wind.
As horrible as that all was, his scream was by far the worst.
I can't think of a way to tell you exactly how ghastly it is, a man's dying scream. Every cell puts the last of its energy forward, into that hideous, atrocious sound. The body knows it's dying. It gives itself a proper send off by creating one of the most horrifying sounds known to sentient creatures.
How do I describe such a noise?
I could talk about how some of the glass beakers shattered.
I could talk about how The Boy turned away and threw up.
I could even talk about how far the cry would have traveled if that basement hadn't been sound-proof.
But I think the best way to describe that scream is to say The Boy and The Girl, years later, even when they knew The Son was in perfect health, would wake up in a cold sweat with nightmares about that scream.
The Son, somehow, in all of the pain and confusion, came stumbling out of the electricity that was killing him. He collapsed on the floor, filling the lab with the smell of burning hair, clothes, and flesh.
The Girl was by his side immediately, fighting back tears and screaming curses to the heavens. She screeched and shook him, yelling at him to wake up, to move to "Live, Damn it!" She cried in pure anger, horror, and most of all, guilt. She knew who the blame fell on.
She was the one that had convinced him to go in to it. She was the one that had gotten him killed.
Her Star had not been able to take the pressure of the remorse. It had exploded in a flash of gamma radiation and tears.
The Boy's Star had a quiet death. Its core simply couldn't stand the weight of his best friend's death, so it merely folded in on itself and went out. He was sitting on the floor, legs sprawled out beneath him, muttering "No, No, No, No, No" over and over again, like saying it enough would undo the tragedy.
Their realities had shattered like a pane of glass dropped from the Eiffel Tower.
They were caught in a nose dive, spiraling down into an abyss that would take years of professional treatment and therapy to crawl out of.
Claws of loss and despair ripped at their chests, tearing through flesh and bone to get to the hearts that had died with The Son.
The only thing that saved them from the horrid depression that was about to take their ability to smile was the small, pathetic groan.
They were at his side in an instant, watching his eyes flutter open. The first thing The Son felt was the cold, wet sensation of tears falling on his face. The two friends held him, crying with joy that he was breathing. The darkness burned away in front of the blinding hope that encompassed their entire being. The solar system rebuilt in seconds instead of millions of years. The monsters' claws retracted and fled.
He was burned, misshapen, and full of pain, but still alive.
Nothing else mattered.
He was still alive.
This moment of perfect bliss and relief lasted a grand total of 3.7 seconds. It is a little difficult to point out exactly what ended it, seeing as it all came at once, but these are the three basic reasons.
-The Girl noticed she was weeping into white hair, not black
-The Boy got a good look at a stranger's glowing green eyes staring from his friends face
-The Son abruptly stopped being solid.
Being around as long as I have, you run into many awkward moments. Moments that stretch into silence, making everyone involved want to talk, to end it, but afraid to. But few could even compare to the complete and total (For lack of a better word) awkward-ness of realizing your hand was going through your best friend's chest. Most girls want to crawl under a rock and die if they find themselves, even touching a guy's chest, let alone leaning through it.
Snapping her hand back like it had been burned, The Girl stared in horror at what was her closest friend.
His raven black hair had turned snow white, the kind that can never be accomplished by bleaches or dyes. His icy blue, but always warm, eyes had turned what could only be described as ectoplasmic green, glowing dimly from within. The jumpsuit's colors had been inverted; what had been white was black, and what had been black was white. (Which was a major improvement, if I do say so myself)
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was that she could see the dim outline of the lab behind him, through him, and his hands and feet where slowly sinking into the cold metallic floor.
He wasn't just dead, He was a ghost.
By now, The Son had realized that something was wrong with him. He thought he had seen the Girls arm go through his body, (He quickly wrote that off as post agony hallucinations) and she was staring at him in total and complete surprise. The Boy, watching from a distance, had the same gapping look on his face.
"What?" The Son asked, slightly annoyed. He was obviously going into shock, considering he was seeing things and he didn't hurt anymore. Weren't they going to do something about it?
Still shocked silent, The Girl slowly raised her finger, pointing to the reflective surface of the lab table. The Son slowly stood up, his feet sinking into the floor, but not enough for him to notice. He walked at a snail's pace; dragging what should have been a short trip into eternity. His feet sank into the ground with each step, forcing him to pick up his feet like someone marching. It reminded me of a soldier before he saw battle.
When he finally reached the table, it took him a minute to see what he was staring at. The image was so familiar in his brain; it projected itself into reality, if only for a second. Then his eyes asserted themselves over his psyche, and he saw what was.
He blinked. The image remained. He moved his hand, and the reflection followed. He blinked again. The image remained utterly unchanged.
Then, for the second time in five minutes, he was out cold. Two types of shock occurring at the same time can do that to a person.
Once he had landed on the floor, something strange started appearing at his waist. A ring of blue energy slowly formed, growing clearer and more defined every second. Then it split, traveling steadily up and down his body. When both had completed their run a long his fallen form they vanished, leaving behind a sleeping, very much alive, black-haired blue-eyed teen. His friends gapped for a few more seconds, then, in an almost comical manner, turned to face each other. They blinked again, and then did what anyone else in the situation would do.
They ran for the adults, screaming and babbling.
That is the story of the accident, in its entirety. What happens after that is an entirely different story, and one best heard at another time. Good-Bye, and return soon!
The End
AN: This story is supposed to be a one-shot, but I may write more, depending on the response I get.