Rise of Tempest Merlin

Chapter 16

Volga’s POV

I awoke to a loud whistling noise. I looked around the room. What was making that- My charm. On the nightstand. It was glowing cherry red, whistling, and burning my bedside table. I could smell smoke. This was not good. My mind went back to when I had first gotten the warding charm.

When I was 12, strange things started to happen around the house. Things moving when we weren't looking. Odd noises in the night. I awoke several times to my bed floating a foot above the floor. When I told my parents, they didn't believe me.

I lost sleep, afraid of the things that happened in the night. I grew quiet, and frightened. My parents sent me to a shrink. Then, one night, my mother woke to her bed floating gently in the air. She screamed, and the bed dropped to the ground, waking my father.

After that we got a priest to perform an exorcism on the house. That made all the weird happenings stop. For about a month. Then the weirdness came back full force. Now our food was mysteriously going bad, and things were breaking in the night.

We called the priest again. This time, when he came to perform the exorcism, he tripped over something we couldn't see, and somehow landed wrong and broke his leg. My father went to a psychic next. She came to check out the house, and told us she'd never seen a house so full of spirits. She pointed us to a woman in New York she said could help.

Since the woman didn't have a listed number, just an address, we went to visit her. She had a small shop where she sold herbs, crystals, incense, and various charms. When my parents explained our problem, sounding a little frantic, she told them, "You've come to the right place."

She looked around her shop. "I can sense several spirits hovering around outside my wards. You've brought them with you."

My father swallowed. "W-we have?"

The woman nodded. "Usually spirits are attached to a particular place. You said you performed an exorcism? And they came back?"

"Yes," my mother told her. "And when we called the priest back he broke his leg."

She nodded. "An exorcism makes a place very uncomfortable for spirits. For them to come back so soon, or even come back at all, something must have been drawing them."

She turned to me. "You've entered puberty, yes?"

My mother frowned. "I fail to see how this is-"

The woman held up her hand to silence her. "Trust me, this is relevant. When did you begin to bleed, child?"

I told her, "About four months ago."

She turned to my parents. "And when did the hauntings start?"

My father frowned. "About four months ago... Are you saying they are connected?"

The woman nodded. "Yes. Your daughter is drawing the spirits."

She turned back to me. "You are to them what catnip is to a cat. You attract them, and sometimes, around you, they will act a little odd."

"Is there any way to fix her?" my mother asked, hovering protectively behind me.

The woman nodded. "Yes. Let me go get it."

She went into the back room, and then brought back a charm on a necklace chain. "This will both block the spirits from sensing her and, if they do sense her, keep them away. One hundred dollars, for the consult and the charm. I accept cash, checks, and Visa."

My father pulled out his credit card. The woman swiped it. "The charm has no warranty, but feel free to come back if you have any further troubles," the woman said. She handed the charm to me. "This can never be more than six feet away from you," she told me. "Wear it all the time, even in the shower. It won't rust. When you take it off at bedtime, leave it on your bedside table, and remember to put it on again in the morning!"

I'd followed those instructions to the letter for eleven years. For three years, my life had been uneventful, at least as far as spirits were concerned. Now, I thought as I looked down at the melting charm, that was about to change.

I felt something coming. Something big. The charm stopped whistling. It was now a shapeless lump of metal. For a moment, everything was silent. Then my window shattered.

I felt the cold regard of the thing that had entered my room. It was... Interested. Curious. And my mother suddenly entered the room. My younger sister had already been born then. Her hair was flying and she had completely white hair just like me and then she started chanting something and immediately I heard a hiss. Like whatever was trying to enter and had entered the room was getting away and threatened. I watched her get on with that spirit in a duel and I learnt her moves and felt like that the language she was speaking was something I knew and I had long forgotten.

As I opened my eyes and felt that same sinister energy moving about in the room I knew what I had to do. I had to trap this bastard and then he or she was going to tell me that why on earth was I hurt in this manner and why was there no one in this land. Why was it abandoned?

I knew what were the things that I needed to take for the spell. And even though the spirit was trapped here, this was not the place of origin of the spell. And for that I needed to venture down the abandoned mine. It spooked the hell out of me after this violent altercation with this creature but I had nothing else to go on.

The tunnels were as the arteries of the earth, blackened by the a***e of years. They went on and on into the black without and end in sight or possibility of sunlight, tracks to nowhere that lead only to the cold. I reached out my hand to the walls that blinkered, that told me of no other option but walk. In the mine the blackness is a friend, taking away the stimulation of the world. There are no colours to inspire memories of yesteryear, not the feeling of rain or the hope of a spring morning.

With the flashlight beam on the old tracks I walk down into the mine that hasn't had the echo of footsteps within it for centuries. There is a mustiness, a sudden damp coldness and the natural light is all choked up behind them like ale behind a cork.

I knew that this was a game and that this was a made up world but trust me, it felt extremely real and I could feel the more darker it got the more weirder it felt. I mean, there was something that I could feel in my bones, not in my real ones, the ones of my Avatar, and it was feeling that there was something really trapped beneath these walls. Why was I feeling so I had no idea but I knew that I could feel that there was a groaning sound coming from beneath the walls.

I went even more ahead and then I touched the wall and suddenly felt as someone had clutched my hand. It was like dropping my hand in a bucket of ice cold water all of a sudden and my scream which was going to come out of my throat was choked again all of a sudden.

It seemed like there was one ghost, rather one spirit which had been the cause of the deaths that had happened here in this mine. It was like not a few but scores of miners had been killed here and that was the reason that they were still trapped.

The ghost would whimper like a lost child, clutching at a rag doll, it's eyes brimming with silver tears that shone brightly in the moonlight.

 It would appear to lone travellers on the long road that traversed the marsh. If they came she would reward them with a giggle and beckon them closer, distracting them, entertaining them, right up until they sank into the bog. Then she would soundlessly clap her hands and laugh like she had never seen such a funny thing, if they would not follow she would block their way and take on the form she had at her death. This new apparition was burnt, no hair, no eyebrows, features melted and raw.

 When she spoke it was the same scream as the day she had been burnt for witchcraft. Then without warning the hem of the travellers travelling cloak would flicker into silver flame, yet it combusted the material with the same intense heat as any fire. There was no chance of stamping it out, it spread as fast as if they were doused in paraffin. I did not understand if this was the same spirit which had be trapped in that lighthouse. And if it had been trapped only then why on earth was the town still abandoned?

“Because until and unless her soul is set free she is not going to let anyone live in this town,” said a male voice and I shrieked hearing it.

“Who are you and who is this spirit who is trapped in a game of all the places?” I asked in a voice which made it echo all round the tunnel.

“I am someone who has been waiting for someone else to arrive in this god forsaken place so that I can give you the task. You need to go and let that spirit leave. The poltergeist which is the one is hurting and killing anyone who goes in there does not even know he is doing that,” said the voice again and I said,” Dude you are creeping me out big time. So if you want me to do something then you gotta come out.”

“I cannot. Trust me, I want to but I cannot,” said the voice in an earnest manner and then I tried to ascertain where the voice was coming from. It sounded somewhere near but not that close and I then had a strange revelation.

I picked up the light that I was carrying in my hand and then directed it towards the wall of the tunnel that I was walking through and it was exactly as I had feared. He was nothing but a head stuck in the wall and he was talking to me. His face was covered with black soot and mostly coal it seemed.

 I could not even scream at the sight I felt so bizarre and creeped out.

“How did this happen?” I asked in a whisper.

“The witch is a spirit trapped along with her husband whom she hates and she has been the cause of this situation. Until and unless she is free and reunited with her love we are all doomed,” said the man.

“And how do I know that you are not lying?” I asked with my eyes slanted and he gave a resigned smile.

“I am the one stuck in the wall, dark damp coal mine wall with no chance of getting out from here. Why would I even lie to you?” asked the stuck man.

“Have you see what Caliban, the Prince of Hell does in Sabrina Season Three? I mean he literally makes sure that she does his work for her and then double crosses her by trapping her in the rock in hell. And after seeing that I know one thing for sure, that I am not listening to any man ever again. This is a game, so I know how we are going to know the real story. I don’t need a second hand account of a head stuck in the wall. I can hear the story directly from horses’ mouth,” I said as I sighed and the man looked at me as if I was speaking in Greek.

“I want to hear the story of the poltergeist,” I said in a loud and clear voice out aloud.