By moonlight's shadow

Chapter 30

Lukas did not get a wink of sleep the entire night and he kept on tossing and turning in his bed and crumpled up the sheets. Rhea woke up at five in the morning just like he had asked her to last night and found that her brother was sleeping. From the state of his bed she understood that he needed his sleep, so she did not wake him up. Then she wrote a note about her whereabouts and left for the new school of the Druids which she was supposed to join from that day morning. She had no inkling at all that there was a spirit residing in the basement library of their house.

I awoke to find myself not in my cozy bed, or even in the protection of my house. I awoke to find myself in another world, a world of suffering. As the numbness of sleep slowly faded from my limbs I felt dead grass poking into back, like tiny needles. I opened my eyes and gasped in a breath, but nothing came and I choked on my own dry tongue. There was no air in this menacing world; lack of oxygen descended on my mind in a panic, in desperation I sucked in another breath, burning my lungs with a ferocity that consumed me. Mist descended on my eyes. Through the misty veil surrounding my eyes I could barely make out dead white trees like bony fingers stretching for the dark sunless sky. I could feel my heart beating against my rib cage, slowing every second. Realization dawned on me, I was going to die. I tried to move my chest, tried to suck in air, but none came. My heart stopped. My mind gave one final sigh. Then I felt nothing. Nothing at all. Darkness.

Lukas shrieked out and gasped as he woke up from that terrible dream which plagued his short period of rest. He looked at the surrounding of his room and found that he was still in his own room and on his own bed. His heart was still beating and he was able to breathe properly. Lukas picked up the bottle of water kept on his nightstand and drank it in a single go. Still he felt thirsty. He looked at the clock and found that it was eight in the morning but someone had carefully darkened the shades so that he would sleep. He smiled at the thought that it was rhea probably who had let him sleep for a few hours rather than waking him up like he had wanted to last night.

Last night. The thought of last night was more than enough to send him to a panic attack.

Rhea??? Where was she? What was she doing? Is she fine? This was the thought that made him jump out of the bed and run out of his room towards hers, only to find that her bed was all made up and room was cleaned up. That means that she had woken up properly in the morning. Lukas rushed to the dining room to find that his breakfast and a carafe of juice was waiting on the table with a note stuck on the fridge with a magnet saying that she was going to meet Mirani in order to start her first day of her new school.

Lukas smacked his forehead. He had absolutely forgotten that he was supposed to accompany her as her guardian on the first day of the school but she had to do things alone again, because he had been having nightmares all night. How on earth could a spirit of his mother’s dead sister come in his house and then communicate with him? Such things only happened when plan Chet was done or Ouija board was used to call upon spirits but he had done none of them. Lukas waved it off as the ramblings of a tired mind and poured the juice in the glass and was on the verge of drinking it when he found that woman hovering at a short distance from him again.

Lukas shrieked out once more almost dropping the glass but thankfully he just spilled some juice on his naked torso and nothing else happened.

“So this is the reason that my sister lived with a wolf as long as she did….I guess that she was lucky then…any woman would kill to have a specimen like this in their bed,” said the spirit looking at Lukas’s naked body and it was like she was muttering to herself after scrutinizing his abs.

“Does it bother you to talk like that about me when I am in the same room? And why on earth are you still here?” asked Lukas as he kept the glass on the table and then found the t-shirt from yesterday lying on the floor and picked it up and wore it as soon as possible.

“You ought to learn to take a compliment, dear boy. After all it is good that you look so edible and I like to look at handsome men. I mean it must be the genes of a werewolf which make your muscles so pronounced, isn’t it?” asked the spirit as Lukas blushed red like a beetroot at the words.

“Aren’t you dead already? How come you are saying such things about your own nephew? And moreover should you not be having different kind of thoughts like freedom from the state which you are stuck in and stuff like that? I don’t understand how you can even say such things!!!” said Lukas as he turned towards the refrigerator and made a notion of finding something inside while he was trying to avoid the gaze of the spirit.

“You do understand sonny boy that I am only a spirit and I am not going to be able to do any specific thing to you which might have made me definitely happier? Now, if you know that, then why are you so scared?” asked the spirit with a good humoured smile.

“But is it really necessary for you to be so crass? I don’t even know your name and I don’t know what I am supposed to do with you, but now it seems that I am stuck with you until you decide to leave me, is it not?” asked Lukas, as he sighed and looked at the spirit who was now standing nose to nose with him making him stumble backwards crashing in the fridge. Thee beer cans which were kept in the door of the refrigerator fell down with a clang and then rolled on the hard wood floor.

“Why are you hell bent on giving me a heart attack woman? What have I done to you at all that you are stalking me and haunting me in this way?” asked Lukas as he bent down to pick up the fallen cans and found that his heart was beating abnormally fast and Luke was snarling inside asking him to let go. But that was not an option at the moment.

"Death, my child, is straightforward. It is not a gate to immortality but simply, a departure from life. It has no pattern in which those of from the Great Beyond control. And it will be there until the time comes for the world to end. Now child, head my words. Death is inevitable. He will turn a blind eye to right and wrong, to give the Eternal Slumber in return for the life of any man, woman, or child no matter how favorable. He does not discriminate, unlike those of the vastly different human race. He is neither fair nor unfair, unmoved by the prayers that grasp him through the nights and days like a statue frozen amongst the crowds. That is the first lesson you need to learn if you want to understand the magic which runs in your veins,” said the spirit as she moved back and then said,” I am Luna, the first sister of the Light Sisters, and the first victim of your mother and two of her younger ones.”

“Why do I need to understand and learn about Death in order to learn about magic? You say that you were a Light sister, then you should be teaching me about the naturalist segment of magic, should you not?” asked Lukas and Luna smiled at him. He had asked a valid question but he had no idea about the atrocities committed by the one who had given birth to him. That was the reason that he had been cursed to bear the dark magic in his veins which was a source of massive power to his wolf.

“Since this is your first day, try to just listen and remember what I am speaking. I am not going to repeat the same things again and again for your sake. You don’t have the Light in your veins Lukas, your power lies in the darkness and you have to understand how to imbibe it and wield the power or the power is  going to consume you whole just like it did for the sisters of your mother. Death and decay are the source of your strength and you can hold the control over life which is something so rare that people would kill you to have your power,” said Luna, as Lukas looked at her with his brows furrowed up. He could not understand what she was saying and why she was saying that.

“Are you sure that you are not making any mistake Aunt Luna?” asked Lukas in a hesitant voice.

“The fact that I am standing here before you, and you can see me and hear my voice and talk to me is the proof that I am correct Lukas. Your sister could not see me, I was sitting right before her. You are the one who can speak and raise the dead, and there lies your strength,” said Luna, as Lukas gasped out loud as he realized the enormity of something that was happening to him.

Holding life and death in each palm is corrupting, a reckless dissolution of joy. I spend each day with these overwhelming weights. Which one will I let go of? Which one will I hold on to? An appalling darkness pierces me, much like the darkness of the ink stains that cover the tips of my crooked fingers. I have not seen a mirror in days, but I know how my eyes are sunken wearily and my pores are full of dirt.

This sudden thought jolted through Lukas making him scream out in horror..

“That is the kind of ting which might happen to you and you might have to encounter when you are not sure about your own powers and strengths and also do not know how to use them at all. That is the reason you need to understand that without darkness light is never going to exist. Lukas, you are fated to carry the burden of darkness because of the atrocities your mother has committed. Thankfully, I have been dead for quite long to understand the intricacies and mysteries of life and death. So tell me Lukas, are you ready for your second lesson?” asked Luna, as Lukas was still breathing hard.

Then suddenly he ran inside the house towards the washroom and started dry-heaving over the toilet bowl. The image that played in his mind made him sick to his core and he could no shake that feeling which was gradually creeping over him like the mist covering the forest floor.

“Alpha? Are you alright???” asked Charlie from the door in his booming voice as Lukas still could not answer.

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