Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn.
A/N: Don't worry! I've not abandoned 'And All the World Comes Tumbling Down' – I've actually been working on this story for nearly as long, but was hoping to finish it before I starting posting. xD However, in light of the amount of dissertation work I have, I probably won't be able to work on AATWCTD until the end of July so I thought I'd give you a chapter of 'An Inextinguishable Light' to tide you over until then. (And maybe the other completed chapter for this story too. xD) Ultimately this story probably won't be as long as AATWCTD and will be happy(-ish) despite the premise. :)
An Inextinguishable Light
Chapter One: Dead, but Never Gone
My ghost/ Where'd you go?/
I can't find you in the body sleeping next to me/
My ghost/ Where'd you go?/
What happened to the soul that you used to be?
– Ghost, by Halsey
Beth didn't realise right away that she was dead. Of course, following the sound of your sister's crying, to find her cradling your corpse helped enlighten you pretty fast.
Beth could only sit miserably beside her twin, listening to her quiet sobs echo in the dark cavern and wish fervently, desperately, that she could still reach out and hold Hannah. But her hands were insubstantial, transparent and gently outlined in shimmering silver. If only Hannah could see her – but her sister was ignorant of her presence, so close beside her, a gentle glow of silver light in dark.
So she was forced to just sit and listen to the sound of her sister's grief, her own chest aching at the sight of Hannah so undone.
"I'm sorry, Beth, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault…" Hannah whispered, her voice weak and exhausted from crying.
"No, Hannah, no," Beth murmured, reaching out instinctively. Her hand, instead of coming to rest on Hannah's shoulder, went straight through, and she recoiled in both shock and disappointment. What did you expect you idiot, you're dead.
"It's okay, Hannah, it's okay," she said instead, as reassuring as she could. "I don't blame you. It's not your fault."
She kept speaking to her sister, in the vain hope that some way, somehow she would eventually get through to her. Above them, the clouds slowly rolled away as the snowstorm abated and the moon came out, shining down through the hole in the roof upon the three figures sitting in the dark; the still-living girl, the body of her twin, and the soul that had once inhabited that body, a faint glimmer of silver invisible to the sister that mourned her so deeply.
Somewhere in the east, the sky was lightening; dawn was approaching, and with it, a storm of an entirely different kind.
xxx
It took three days before Beth was able to bring herself to leave Hannah's side. Three days in which no help came; three days in which she followed Hannah dragging herself slowly, painfully, through the darkness of the abandoned mine shafts, handicapped by her broken leg, and seething at her own inability to help her sister in any way.
(Three days during which she watched Hannah dig a grave for her body with only a broken shovel and sheer determination.)
"I'm going see what's taking them so long." Beth took a deep breath. "I'll be back soon, I promise." It still felt like a betrayal, to walk away from her exhausted sister curled up in the dark. But I need to find out what the hell is going on. Why has no one come for Hannah yet?
It wasn't long until she discovered why. These mines were a maze. It was only the fact that she could walk through walls now (and seemed to possess a strange instinct she didn't quite understand, that seemed to tug up, up, towards the surface) that led her to the very top levels of the mines and the exit out to the mountainside, which was swarming with people.
The florescent colours of the emergency services, the barking of search and rescue dogs and the din of human voices, calling out and yelling instructions; Beth could only gape, stunned after the deathly silence of the mines.
There's so many of you! She wanted to cry out. How could you not have found my sister yet? But she knew why. Hannah was at the very bottom of a labyrinth-like set of tunnels, in a mine that was dangerously unstable judging by all the condemned signs everywhere.
What if they never find her? The small, horrible thought pierced through her like a needle, and she shook her head, trying to banish it. No. I won't let it happen. I'll be the worst poltergeist ever if I have to. I'll force them to notice me and I'll lead them to Hannah. Ghosts do it all the time in the movies, right? How hard can it be affect the physical world?
xxx
Very hard, was the answer. Despite her best, and increasingly desperate efforts, Beth couldn't get so much as a piece of paper to twitch. Her new goal consumed her; she spent all her time following Hannah around, trying to interact with various objects around her, with periodic checks on the progress of the search and rescue teams.
(Once she had gone back up to the lodge but never again. The sight of her parents and Josh – and Sam, loyal Sam – so tired and grief-stricken, had driven a spike of pain through her heart so intense that it had driven her away immediately).
It was the twenty-second day before Beth lost her temper with the search and rescue teams. She had been trailing two men with a sniffer dog further and further down through the mines, her heart becoming lighter and more hopeful with every step they took, maybe this is it, they'll find Hannah, they've got to –
Then they stopped. Consulted a map, made a mark, turned around and left. Beth stayed frozen to spot, watching their light bob away through the dark in disbelief. Then she screamed in helpless, impotent rage.
An answering scream made her abruptly fall silent in shock. It had been a terrifying, inhuman sound, and even in her immaterial form, it still sent a bolt of fear through her.
What the hell… she padded cautiously around the corner of the tunnel and came face-to-face with something out of a nightmare. Long, sinewy limbs, all stretched out and elongated; horrible milky-white eyes and a mouth full of vicious, razor-like teeth.
Beth froze, paralysed with shock and horror, as its head tilted jerkily from side to side, like some great, grotesque bird. She could see a strange, insubstantial red glow flickering and pulsing just underneath its skin, as it looked around, seemingly looking for something. For one horrified moment, she thought that it was looking for her, as its dead, white gaze fell upon her and remained there for several, long terrible seconds. Then it screamed again, and darted away with unsettling, jerky, scuttling movements, disappearing down the tunnel.
Beth blew out an unnecessary breath of relief and the tension was just starting to leave her body when she remembered that monster was down here with Hannah, who most definitely was not an intangible spirit. Beth sprinted off in search of her twin, terror and horror filling her with equal measure.
xxx
Beth stuck close to her sister after that, refusing to leave her side. Not that I'll be much help if it does come back, she thought bitterly. Her efforts to interact with the physical world had been utterly futile – although she had noticed during one of her attempts that when she was really focusing on trying to touch something, she could see strange flickers of silvery light under Hannah's skin, the same colour as her own insubstantial body.
Regardless, they hadn't encountered the monster again. Beth had heard it several times, a distant, horrible shriek in the darkness of the mines. She thought her sister might have heard it too; her head had jerked up in alarm, although it had quickly sank back down again, Hannah not having the energy to waste on unnecessary movement.
It's entirely possible she thinks she imagined it. Beth bit her lip. Hannah had been steadily less coordinated and coherent over the past couple of days; not that that was surprising. Her sister hadn't eaten for thirty days. Beth wished uselessly that she could pick things up, so she could bring her a cereal bar or something…
Beth was aware of the soft scratching of pencil on paper in the background. Hannah had found a few scraps of paper and a stub of pencil in amongst some old miners' gear, before she had retreated here. Her broken leg finally seemed to have given out, and now she was curled on a bare patch of earth next to Beth's grave, within easy reach of the eerie, black underground lake that was her only source of water.
"I'm sorry, Beth, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" Hannah's faint mumbling reached her ears again and Beth wanted to cry. It's not your fault, Hannah.
She watched as her twin sat up and dragged herself shakily over to her grave…and started digging at the loose soil. What…? She frowned.
"I can't – I can't – I'm sorry, Beth, I'm sorry, I'm dying –" Hannah was crying weakly again.
Beth could only stare, the awful realisation slowly stealing over her as her twin brushed away the dirt covering her face and upper torso. Her body had taken on a horrible greenish cast, the flesh starting to decompose but Hannah was desperate –
It wasn't until her sister's teeth closed over her body's limp forearm that Beth's state of shock broke and she fled, with the horrible sound of tearing flesh echoing in her ears.
xxx
It took Beth two days to come to terms with it and to think past the first emotional impact. It's only logical, she reasoned as she retraced her steps. There's nothing else to eat down here, and I don't want Hannah to die. Some part of her was still horrified but it wasn't like she couldn't understand why Hannah had done it. And I know Hannah. She's going to spend the rest of her life torturing herself with guilt over this, which I don't exactly want her to do either.
It wasn't long until she found her twin, exactly where she had left her, curled up on the underground lakeshore. Beth studiously avoided looking at the open grave next to Hannah, at the pale lifeless body with chunks of flesh missing from its left arm, and focused on her sister, her living sister –
A flicker of red light pulsed briefly under Hannah's skin. Beth halted immediately, a feeling of deep unease crawling up her spine. "Hannah?" she asked uncertainly, despite knowing her sister couldn't hear her anymore. Wrong! An unfamiliar instinct was screaming at her. Run!
"But I'm dead," Beth muttered redundantly to herself. "What could hurt me?"
Then Hannah stirred, raising her head, and everything slid into horrifying, sharp-edged clarity. On the surface, it was immediately apparent something was wrong with Hannah – her eyes were sunken and clouded, her cheekbones stood out like two razor blades in a face that was suddenly far too thin, and most of all, the skin around her lips were twisted and warped, pulling back to reveal lengthening teeth.
All of this was horrifying enough on its own – and some part of her cried out in awful comprehension, recognising the similarities between Hannah and that creature lurking down here – but it wasn't what made Beth go cold all over, feeling true fear for the first time since she had died.
It was the alien thing looking out at her from behind Hannah's unseeing eyes, looking straight at her like nothing or no one had since she'd fallen from the cliff. Beth barely had time to think that she'd rather be ignored for the rest of eternity, than be noticed by whatever this thing was that was trespassing in her sister's body, before the ethereal red light suddenly pulsed under Hannah's skin, stronger and brighter than before, and then reached for her.
Beth's shock delayed her reaction for half a second and before she could move, what felt like claws sank impossibly into her insubstantial body and her senses were swamped by a roiling, burning sea of red, malevolent hunger. Endless hungerhungerhunger, and under that, pure black malice, as thick and clinging and poisonous as tar –
With a stupendous effort of will, Beth tore herself away, and fled. The thing in Hannah's body let out a terrible howl with its stolen vocal chords and the sound echoed through the tunnels, chasing Beth all the way up to the surface as she sprinted for the safety of the light and open air.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! ^_^ Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think. :)