Chapter Four: The Paranormal Hotspot
I bit my lip as I looked at the paper in front of me again. Agh! No! I cannot get his eyes right! I don't have the right shade. Bright electric blue with the slightest hint of green and agh! How am I supposed to get the shape of his face right? His eyes are bad enough, but the shape is impossible to draw!
All these thoughts passed by in a mater of seconds as I looked at the drawing. It annoyed me, how perfect he was. How impossible he was to draw. I sighed and set the paper back down on my desk as someone knocked on the door.
"Come in!" I call, massaging my temples.
In walks Xion. "Nami? Are you okay? I can practically taste the frustration you're venting off." Oh, yeah. Cool fact about me and my sisters. We're psychic. We can sense spiritual energy around us, and we can read minds of people that we're either touching or have eye contact with. I must've been pretty frustrated if my sister, whose room was on the other side of the house, could feel my energy. And, at that moment, Hikari came in.
"You okay, Namine?"
"I'm fine."
At that moment, the doorbell rang, and Xion and Hikari dashed for the door. I walked over. When Xion opened the door, two guys came in. One was a freshman in college. He was about our height despite the age difference. He had bluish-purple hair that was styled so it covered his right eye, which was bright blue. The other guy was a junior in college. He, for one, was considerably taller than all of us, and he had bright, flame-red hair slicked back into spikes, and his eyes were a bright emerald green.
"Zexion!" Hikari jumped onto the boy, who seemed surprised at first, but welcomed the greeting.
"Axel!" Axel and Xion had been going out longer than Zexion and Hikari. Axel was the one who introduced him to Hikari. Mom and Dad weren't sure about the age difference at first, they were six years apart, but they soon accepted their relationship. After all, Axel brought Xion back to life.
I probably should explain. We had discovered our psychic powers at the age of eleven and we told all our friends. They didn't believe us, labeled us freaks, and everyone avoided us like the plague. I didn't really take it hard, since I was a bit of a sociopath. My drawing distracted me.
Hikari, although losing practically all of her friends, drew closer to me. We could bring comfort to each other easily. Plus, that was when she met a new friend. And though her new friend didn't believe us, she was there and supported us.
For Xion, however, things went downhill. She had been a popular kid, and then she was kicked out, left alone, basically to rot. We tried to help her, but we couldn't bring her out of an ever-growing abyss of depression. That's when we moved to Tahlequah, this town.
We went to the school here, looking for a fresh start. And we found it. We met Sora Leonhart, Riku Fair, and Kairi Esthiem, who became our friends.
Except for Xion. As soon as we moved up here, she started wearing black hoodies over everything and always had her hood up. Compared to her, I was the most talkative person in the world. She gave a new meaning to sociopath.
And then the trio came over one night to have dinner with us and meet our parents. Kairi's older brother, Axel, came over too, and that's when he met Xion. Axel had introduced himself, and cracked jokes throughout the meal. And for the first time in about three months, Xion put her hood down. The spiritual energy she emitted was much lighter than it had been.
So we would hang out with those four, and Axel told us that he and his friend Zexion were paranormal investigators. That's when Xion, yes Xion, told them that we were psychics. When they asked us to go into detail, Xion explained the basics of our powers. Naturally, Axel wanted to test it. So Xion asked if she could read his mind.
Well, Axel decided to see. He asked her to tell him what number he was thinking of. Xion told him she couldn't answer that, and just as we were getting skeptic looks from our friends, Xion said he was thinking about campfires and roasted marshmallows.
There wasn't doubt after that. Xion never wore her hood up unless the weather called for it, and we joined in with Axel and Zexion as paranormal investigators. Sora, Riku, and Kairi help we it's needed as well. Not long after become paranormal investigators, Xion and Axel started dating, and I knew they were truly happy. I was happy for them.
Xion grinned and wrapped her arms around him, and he tipped her head up and kissed her. Hikari took this as a good idea and kissed an unsuspecting Zexion, who almost fell over in surprise. After the greetings were done, they asked if we wanted to do some more paranormal work. However, there was a catch. There's always a catch. But of course, we had no trouble with it.
So they came in and greeted Mom and Dad. They were also paranormal investigators, just in case we went past curfew and we were still out and investigating. It happens a lot.
"Hello, Marluxia. Hello, Larxene." Axel greeted. Mom and Dad like Axel and Zexion to call them by their first names.
"To what do we owe this visit to?" Dad asked.
Axel smiled and pulled out a laptop. "We've got a case." He turned it on. "You ready?" He asked. We nodded, and I wondered. What was it about this time?
I looked at the laptop that sat there on the table, my fingers hovering over the keys. Xion had her hands on my arms, looking over my shoulder. Zexion came to sit next to me, currently getting a shoulder massage from Hikari. The triplets must be the goddesses of massages. Anyway, Namine, Marluxia, and Larxene, were standing in the gap between me and Zexion. I clicked a PowerPoint and it popped up. A picture of a beautiful mansion appeared on the first slide.
"This is the site." I said. "It's a serious paranormal hotspot."
"That thing's huge!" Xion gasped.
"I know. This is Raines Mansion. He lived in Tahlequah in the civil war era. He was a huge entrepreneur and was very successful. He was a hunter too. Had a wife once, though the name's lost to time. Not even newspapers say it. He had three kids too. Anyways, signed up for the North, fought for them, but he turned traitor and became a spy for the South."
"Anything else?" Larxene asked.
"Yeah." Zexion said. "All kids died fairly young. We don't know their names or ages of death, but one died of typhoid pneumonia, another got hit by a car and was killed on impact, the last was shot in a shoot-and-run.
"Yikes." Namine said.
"Yikes indeed." I agreed. "Also, his house was used, supposedly, to hold Southerners and spies throughout the civil war. There have been many deaths there, and so there are multiple sightings of several spirits. They want us to investigate."
"Well, that doesn't seem too bad." Xion said.
"One problem." Zexion said. "We don't have enough people to investigate."
"So, just have Axel get his sister and her friends to come."
"We are." I said. "It's still not enough. A few more people will do it."
"What about Roxas?" Namine asked. I was about to ask who, but Xion and Hikari nodded.
"Yeah. Wonder if they'd help." Xion said.
"Well, his sister believes in ghosts, and I don't see harm in asking." Hikari said. No one asked where she got this information. It was obvious that she had read her mind.
"Who?"
"Roxas Strife. He has a sister named-"
"Seirei Strife. Right?" Marluxia answered.
Three sets of eyes turned to stare at their father. "How did you know that, Dad?" Namine asked.
"Met her at the library." He replied.
Xion shrugged it off. "Would two extra people be enough?" She asked me.
I nodded. "That's perfect."
Namine took out her cell phone from her pocket. "I'll give him a call right now." She said and left the room. I turned off my laptop and put it away.
"We'll make a plan of attack when we get there." I said. "That way Roxas and Seirei can be in on it."
Namine came back in. "They'll be there!" She declared. "Tomorrow?"
Zexion nodded. "Tomorrow." Namine repeated the word, said goodbye, and hung up.
"We've got new investigators!" She said. Xion and Hikari grinned. I was kind of surprised. I hadn't expected Namine, being somewhat of a sociopath, to have a cell. Oh, well. Can't judge a book by its cover.
I stood up and put my laptop bag over my shoulder. "Well, that's all we came here for. We'd best be off."
"It was nice seeing you again, Axel." Larxene said.
"You too, Mr. and Mrs. F." I said. They grinned, and I turned to Xion.
"See you tomorrow night." I said, placed a kiss on her forehead, and me and Zexion went off as soon as Zexion said his goodbyes. So, we went back to our dorm, not knowing what would be coming next.
Roxas getting a call from a girl? It's unimaginable! Anyways, it was Namine Farron, and they were going to be doing an investigation at a mansion and they needed our help. I was cool with it, and so was Roxas. Mom and Dad didn't care as long as there were adults, which there would be.
Roxas was sitting on my bed as I printed out my paper. "So, Sis? It's ready?"
"Yep. Ready for bed?" He nodded sleepily and stumbled over to his room, with me following. He crawled in bed and I tucked him in. If we were roommates and there were others too, I think we would still keep this tradition. I kissed his forehead and went back into my room to see someone else sitting on my bed.
"Hello, Demyx." I said as I turned off my laptop.
"Hello, Seirei." He greeted me. Earlier today, while we were having a family breakfast, he had gone into a coughing fit. No one else seemed to hear, so I pretended I didn't either. "Are you going to bed already?"
"School." I reminded him.
"But even when you go to school you've never gone to bed this late."
"Some of Roxas's friends who are paranormal investigators need our help."
"Who?" He asked.
I sighed. I had forgotten that had died just after the civil war. "We are going to help people that try to find ghosts." I explained.
"Oh." He said as I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over myself. "Well, be careful. My world is full of people who enjoy to cause mischief and injury."
"I'll be careful." I assured him as he reclined to lie next to me. By morning he would be snuggled against me, asleep. (And yes, ghosts can sleep.)
"Okay. If the spirit is too aggressive for you guys to handle. Just call me." He told me.
"How?" I asked.
"Just say or think, 'Demyx, help me,' and I'll be over there in a jiffy." He explained. I realized I was falling asleep.
"Could you get the lights?" With a wave of Demyx's hand, the room filled with darkness. "Thanks." And I let myself fall into the comfort of sleep.
(AN: Yay! AkuShi! And hints of other pairings. Also, there's a big hint at something pretty important. Cookies if you find it. And please more reviews! I really like them and they help inspire me to keep this up.
Love,
Destiny.)
Next Chapter…
"These are Axel and Zexion. Our boyfriends."
"I sense high unease and restlessness from the spirits. They are frightened."
"Roxas? Where are you?"
"My name is Abigail. Please. Help me."
"Strange spirit. Something's not right."
"Demons sleep here."
