Here is a list of excuses for why this chapter was so late: I had a lot of writers block, my other story was almost over so I wrote three chapters of that instead of this, I started the sequel to that other story, and my computer wouldn't let me log in to my profile to post chapters after I had finished this one.
The pain in my socket was still raging the next day, and that was very odd, because since I was a ghost, pain was a rare thing. My parents never said anything to me, and most of the time they didn't look at me either.
Stepper came to our cell later that day. He must have realized that I was strong enough to blow his head off, so he simply talked to me from the outside. "You have a visitor Dark, and he isn't a friend of yours."
"So they finally caught the teenage renegade." A deep voice said. I looked up and positioned myself so that I could see most of the door with my eye. There was a dark purple and black suit of armor was standing there, and it took me a minute to remember my childhood enemy.
The Fright Night glared at me and then he took off his helmet. His face was still the handsome one that allowed him to manipulate people, and there was a smirk spread across it. "I see that Stepper has permanently damaged your royal face."
I glared at him with my one eye and he laughed wickedly. "This is more than I paid for. I'll have to hire the warden more often." My eye widened and once again Fred chuckled. "That's right Jeremiah." He said "The reason you're here instead of rotting in hiding somewhere is because of me. I paid for your capture; the damage done to you is an added bonus."
Fred smiled and said, "What do you think of that pretty boy? Your freedom was bought by me, and if things go my way, which they will, you'll be in here for the rest of your afterlife." He looked somewhat disappointed by my silence. "What's the matter? Has Stepper taken your tongue as well as your eye?"
My eye burned, but not out of pain. Since I couldn't release a beam through both of my eyes, the power that usually was in both of them joined in my remaining eye. "My name is not Jeremiah." I hissed. "It's Pariah." The single beam launched from my eye and I was sent flying backwards from the force.
The beam melted the bars and hit Fred directly in his face. He screamed in agony and ran out of my range of vision. "What do you think of that pretty boy?" I stood up and looked at the door of the cell. It had been melted and there was now a very large hole.
My parents looked stunned. They looked at me and still said nothing. I ran from the cell and instead of towards the door I ran towards the warden's office. There was still a score to be settled.
I turned invisible at the sound of footsteps and watched as Fred stormed past. His face was mangled and burnt, and I watched as he put his helmet on and then welded it shut with a small ecto ray. No one was going to see what I had done to his perfect face.
He floated away and I remained invisible as I continued my revenge mission. Eventually I came to the warden's office and found Stepper running around grabbing things of shelves and stuffing it into a bag. He was also talking to himself.
"I've got to git out of here before that psycho hunts me down." He looked around nervously. "If he caused that much damage to the Fright Knight in a ghost power proof cell, the thought of him finding me now scares me more than a hundred rattlers."
At that moment I chose to appear, and he had to look at me twice to figure out that I was real. Then he seemed to gain either newfound bravery, or good acting skills. "What do you want? Don't you git that I am stronger than you? I pulled out your eye!"
I laughed, and I was amazed at how evil and cruel the laugh sounded. Stepper looked scared as I spoke. My voice was more menacing than any other ghost I had heard before. "You may have stolen my eye, but that was when I was in six pairs of handcuffs and weak from fighting. Now I have the power and the reason needed to fight you."
Before the warden could say anything else I created a large ecto-blast and had launched it within seconds. The room flashed in a green light and when it cleared there was nothing left of the warden. It turns out that you can kill a ghost.
I stared at the burned spot on the floor where the warden had been standing. Then I stared at my hands. What made me so powerful? Was it simply because I was a ghost with royal blood, or did it have a deeper connection to everything that had happened to me?
The sound of guards coming down the hallway woke me from my thoughts. Before they could cut me off I turned invisible and slipped out the door. As soon as I left guards flooded the office and started an alarm.
I flew surprisingly fast through the prison, and before anyone could realize where I was I was gone. The prison still had alarms blaring, and I left to find a quieter area. I still had my sense of direction and found a door that led to a quiet empty field.
The grass was surprisingly soft, so I laid down, and I stared up into the black sky. Before the servants left one of them had told me that the human world's sky was a beautiful blue color. The quiet reminded me of the time long ago when Clockwork and I had watched people float by and would talk about everything.
Loneliness hit me as more memories of my previous best friend came back to me. Then suddenly I was not alone.
I sensed someone else's presence and sat up. The other ghost was sitting in front of me and watched me as if he knew what I would do. It was Clockwork. He had changed into his adult form and I stared at him as emotions flooded my brain. I wanted to kill him for lying to me, abandoning me, and now coming back, but I also wanted to hug him for saving my life by telling me not to go home on my fourteenth birthday. If I had the rebels would have tortured me- or worse.
Instead of doing anything I simply sat in a shocked silence. Clockwork smiled and said, "Two years without seeing your former best friend is a long time. I can tell that you are feeling the same way." He looked around as if expecting someone to appear any minute.
Finally I found my voice. "Clockwork…" I stopped, and sighed, then started again. "I killed someone, permanently." I hadn't realized how much the guilt was affecting me. Mostly I had brushed it off, telling myself that Stepper had deserved it, but now that I had told Clockwork, who had already known already anyway, I felt like I could fly; if I couldn't fly that is.
My friend watched my face and said, "Mercy to the criminal may be cruelty to the people." Clockwork looked like he was torn, unable to decide what to do, and I had only seen him like that once before, on my fourteenth birthday when he asked me to come to his house.
Then his face became determined and he said, "Pariah, this is hard for me to say. Partly because it goes against the rules of time, but mostly because you need to know, and I don't want to tell you. You will have to kill many more people to fulfill your future and your destiny. I had hoped that maybe there would be away to prevent that future from happening." He lowered his head. "I'm afraid there is not."
My eye widened and looked down at my hands. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew that Clockwork never lied. Fate was dragging me down and turning me evil, and there was no way to stop it.
The strange thing about wrighting a story is that most of the things that happen are a surprise for me too. I can't try and think of what's going to happen next, because my mind wanders onto other topics, so I have to type the words in order to see what happens next.
