Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn.

A/N: Thank you so much guys for the feedback! ^_^ I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, and hopefully you'll continue to do so. :)

An Inextinguishable Light

Chapter Two: Solitude (Is Not Always a Good Thing)

Beth kept her distance after that. Somehow the spirit inhabiting her sister's body had injured her – puncture marks from claws had appeared in her ethereal form and were slow in closing up. Damage to a physical body was one thing; she had no idea what the limits for healing for a spiritual body were.

So she kept her distance, watching in agonised helplessness, as her sister warped and changed more every day. There was nothing she could do, but she couldn't do nothing either – so she lingered, keeping a silent, painful vigil until the day the last flicker of Hannah's silver light was completely swallowed up by red.

The-thing-that-was-once-Hannah stretched, as if working out the kinks in its new, elongated body, and then let out a terrible, piercing shriek, before leaping up the nearest rocky wall, scuttling up into the shadows like the nightmare creature it was; Beth left the mines, feeling like her heart was tearing in two. She wished she could cry, as she rarely had in life, if only for the release it would bring.

xxx

Beth roamed the mountainside for a long while after that, seeking solace in emptiness and the beauty of the snowbound peak. She could go places she had never been able to in a body, no longer constrained by cold, or hunger, or exhaustion, the snow glittering under her weightless feet, the stars glimmering in an endless velvet-black sky far overhead.

When she finally came back down to the area around her parents' lodge, it didn't take her long to discover that the building was in complete darkness. With a start, she realised she had no idea how much time had passed while she'd been wandering in a haze of grief.

It didn't take her long to scout out the area and discover that while there were traces of human activity, like forgotten police tape attached to trees here and there, it was clear there no one had been here recently. Beth wasn't sure if she was disturbed that she had lost so much time, or grateful that the rescue workers, and her family, were no longer on the mountain.

After all, there was no one left to rescue.

Trying to ignore her increasingly dark thoughts, she almost missed it. Then her eyes caught it and she halted, staring down in astonishment at the snow. A single set of footprints, leading away into the gathering dusk, already starting to be filled in by the lightly falling snow.

A person? She glanced up the mountain, where the footprints disappeared into the forest. Well, it's not like I've got anything better to do.

xxx

There was a man living on the mountain. Not that that was so unusual – her family lived part-time on the mountain after all – but everything else about his living situation was. He stayed in the old sanatorium for one, a place so crackling with spiritual static that it made her hairs stand on end. And he had freaking wolves for roommates! (Hannah would have loved that, a part of her whispered mournfully, and Beth ruthlessly crushed that thought back down into the depths of her mind.) And – this was the biggest 'and' of all – he knew about the creatures down in the mines. Not only that, he actively hunted them.

Beth trailed after him, watching day after day with mounting astonishment, as he went out on what seemed like his normal routine – setting traps, creating talismans, and occasionally actually crossing paths with one of the nightmarish monsters.

"Unbelievable," she muttered, watching as the creature fled, shrieking in agony from a wave of fire, straight into the waiting jaws of a trap.

On the thirteenth day of her ghostly stalking, he left his journal sitting open on a table and she learned that the monsters were called 'wendigos' – and that they were created when a human resorted to cannibalism. This triggered an avalanche of repressed emotion and she had to flee out into the open air for a while to regain her equilibrium. She had suspected – but it was different to have confirmation.

She stayed out on the mountainside, taking deep, unnecessary breaths that calmed her more out of force of habit than anything else, before finally returning to the sanatorium.

Only to walk straight into a trap of her own.

As she passed through the door, unfamiliar symbols blazed to life on the floor and walls and doorframe, burning a brilliant white. Beth found her feet suddenly fixed to the ground and an odd sensation of being more there than before; not as strong as having a corporeal body but more substantial than anything she'd felt since she died. "What the hell?!"

She stared wildly around and the wendigo hunter stepped into view at the far side of the room, looking straight at her. Looking straight at her. Hardly daring to breathe, she risked a glance down at her body. There definitely something different about it, a hint of colour and a touch more substance instead of the usual transparent, intangible silver shimmer. He can see me?

Beth raised her stunned eyes from her body, and met his appraising gaze. "Thought there was something floating about after me. I didn't expect you though. You're one of the Washington girls, aren't ya?"

"Beth Washington," Beth said, still a little dazed. "Hannah – my sister – she's one of those things now. Wendigos." Her voice broke halfway through the word. "I read about them in your journal, after I saw you hunting them."

"Ah." He was silent for a moment, then asked. "Ate you, did she?"

Beth flinched back, her form hazing for an instant in shock at his bluntness on such a raw subject. "Not while I was alive!" she snapped, stung immediately into defence of her twin. "I died in the fall!" And God, it was weirdto talk about herself like that out loud, no matter how long she'd had to come to terms with it.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Well, there's that at least." He hesitated and then added. "I'm sorry."

Beth frowned. "For what?"

He cleared his throat. "I tried to save you both that night, and failed," he said gruffly, averting his eyes. "And I couldn't find you when I searched the mines after. I'm sorry for that."

Beth blinked in surprise. She had forgotten that until he mentioned it – a dark figure wearing goggles, leaning down from the edge of the cliff and offering her a hand, a lifeline. But to take it, she would have had to drop her sister.

If I had let go of Hannah's hand… would I still be alive?

She brushed the thought aside, dismissing it as pointless and painful. "Don't beat yourself up," she responded, equalling his bluntness. "You tried." She hesitated and then added, "Thank you, by the way. You didn't even know us and you risked your life to help us."

The older man grunted and looked away. "Fighting wendigos is what I do. Don't go thinking you're special or nothin'."

Beth hid a smirk, recognising his gruff embarrassment at the praise. "It's cool, old man. I can live with that. Or not," she added, glancing down her form with morbid humour.

To her surprise, he chuckled in amusement. Well, someone who lives alone with only murderous mythical creatures for company must have a pretty black sense of humour. Beth smiled. Yeah, we should get on just fine.

xxx

It took a bit of persuading but she eventually convinced the old guy to alter the runes to allow her to wander around the sanatorium freely instead of being anchored to the spot, but still retain her state of visibility. Then she alternatively coaxed and argued him into carrying a set of the runes on his person, so she could tag along with him.

"Girl, you are a massive pain in the ass, you know that?" he grumbled as he shrugged on his flamethrower tanks.

"You know you love me really, old man," Beth grinned, barely resisting the impulse to bounce on her heels in excitement. The portable runes engraved on pebbles weren't as complex or useful as the stationary ones in the sanatorium, because they only allowed him to hear her, not see her, outside of the building. She didn't care though – see her, hear her, it didn't matter as long as she could interact with someone.

The hunter grumbled in indignation that was at least half-feigned and Beth laughed, loud and joyful, for what felt like the first time in forever.

xxx

"Jack!" Beth came hurtling into the sanatorium. "Jack, where are you?!"

"Girl, I didn't give you my name so you could go throwing it around all over the place." The older man's irritated voice floated out of the doorway to the chapel.

"That's what names are for, old man, did no one ever tell you that?" Beth bantered back automatically, before rushing on impatiently to what she actually wanted to say. "My brother came back to the lodge!"

"What?" Jack's grizzled head popped around the doorframe and he regarded her with a disbelieving look. "Now why on earth would he go and do something like that?" And then, with exasperation, "What does it take to keep your family off this goddamn mountain?"

"I don't know!" Beth ignored the second question in favour of the first. "But I definitely saw him coming up in the cable car and he was holding the keys to the lodge!"

She had settled into a comfortable routine over the past seven months, roaming the mountain with or without Jack, keeping an eye on the wendigos from a distance (keeping watch over the-thing-that-was-once-Hannah, even if the mere sight of her sister's empty shell did make her chest hurt like it was splitting open) – and examining every inch of the sanatorium with her newfound tangibility.

It turned out that the complex arrangement of symbols and runes lining the walls of the derelict building that made her both visible and audible also improved, very slightly, her ability to interact with the physical world. Her fingers would now sometimes snag on an object that they had merely passed straight through before.

Essentially, I'm the world's shittiest poltergeist, but hallujah, I can actually touch stuff now! This was something that made her fiendishly gleeful and Jack regret ever agreeing to allow her free run of the place. She spent a great deal of time 'floating' his pots and pans across the room, cackling in delight to herself, and ruffling the ears of Jack's wolves, both of whom bore it with a great deal more patience than their master did.

This morning she had been walking along the ridge near the cable car station, contemplating the fact that she had died almost exactly nine months ago, and been hanging out with Jack for nearly seven (and trying very hard not to think about Christmas, just around the corner, and so often spent with her family on this mountain), when the upper cable car station came to life in a hum of electricity.

She had sat down to watch, idly curious and a little worried about the safety of whatever ranger was using the cable car to come up the mountain (she hoped he'd leave by nightfall, when the monsters stirred). Then the cable car had slowly come into view and that worry had shot up into actual fear when she glimpsed her brother inside, the glint of familiar keys in his hand.

"Why he did come back?" she fretted angrily, pacing across the entrance hall of the sanatorium. "It's not safe!" Not that Josh knew that, but still.

"I've been trying to warn your parents off this mountain for years, girl, you don't have to tell me," Jack said dryly, his voice echoing through from the other room. "Although you all seem to have had the luck of the devil – least, you did right up until February, anyway," he added with black humour. "Coming here year after year, and never once being attacked by the wendigos. Reckon the mountain must like you all."

"The mountain likes us?" Beth repeated in disbelief, going to stand in the doorway to the chapel hall. "What do you mean? It's sentient?"

Jack raised a greying eyebrow at her from where he was sitting in front of a disassembled shotgun, meticulously cleaning the pieces. "D'you really find that so surprising?" He cast a pointed glance at her form. "You're a ghost. And you've seen wendigos."

"…Fair enough," Beth acknowledged, filing that away to think about later and returning to her previous train of thought. "I wouldn't have thought they'd be coming back this soon," she said, a little more subdued. "I wouldn't think they'd want to be here after…" She fell silent. Maybe it was egotistical, to assume that her family wouldn't come back to the site of their disappearance and death. But she knew she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere near this place, couldn't have stayed in the lodge if it had been Hannah and Josh that had vanished into the snow and the dark that night.

"Maybe your brother came back to get something he left here," Jack said, without looking up from the shotgun and his work. "I doubt he'll be staying long."

His tone was offhanded but Beth smiled a little, recognising his version of reassurance. "Maybe. I hope he won't stay long, anyway."

"Well, why don't you go stalk him for a change?" Jack grumbled. "Go be someone else's invisible nuisance. Get you out of my hair for a while."

"What's left of it," Beth snarked automatically. "But that's actually a good idea. Thanks, Jack."

"So glad to be helpful." Jack's voice was as dry as a desert and Beth laughed, before darting away through the closest wall.

A/N: So that's the last of the pre-written chapters. xD I'll do my best to write more soon but my dissertation calls (ugh). Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed, please leave a comment. ^_^