Chapter 1

I’m walking through a dark hallway. I know there are ghosts here, the bad kind. I’ve just received my Purpose, I even have the shiny emblem to prove it. It’s been tattooed on my chest. I’ve been sent on a mission of sorts. Something very bad is happening. HE is waking up and re-attempting to enter our world. At headquarters, the node lines have been tied to prevent this, but once in a while, you can feel him trying to come through. The whole room vibrates with his power. I was there during the last occurrence. Only two Elders had been there, and five of us who had been recently Risen.

I don’t know why I was chosen. I was confronted with a magical beast, my Purpose, and survived. My tattoo is the only mark to prove that the Purpose had ever existed.

Very few in this world Rise. Very few are confronted by a Purpose. I’ve been told it usually happens once every three years or so. For five to be Risen in the same year, in the same month is unheard of. We know something very bad is coming. Why else would so many of us be needed? Many of the Elders have slowly been picked off over the years by something, and in this great time of need, the Organization is failing.

I am still untrained. I don’t really know how to use my powers yet, but I’ve been sent on this mission because the Elders decided that the likelihood of me getting killed is slim. But now that I’m here, I’m not so sure. No one was expecting ghosts.

So, I’m walking in a dark hallway in an old abandoned house near the fair. I’m looking for an item of power that a previous occupant has left. That’s when I see the ghost. He’s taller than me, with somewhat long dark hair. His clothes look old, but not in a tattered sort of way. They look like they’ve come from an earlier century. I can’t see the color of his eyes, but they look black or dark gray from this distance. He grins and, with eyes full of power now, walks toward me. As stupid as a rabbit, I stand stock still. I will the Power that I’ve been granted, but it does not come to aid me. I’ve no idea how to grasp it.

“You do not belong here.” he says quietly.

In mid-stride he shifts into a dark-eyed beauty wrapped in a flowing black dress and wind-blown curls.

“Leave this place at once.” her voice is musical.

In the next stride, the woman is gone, as if she’d never been, and the man is back, standing over me.

“I’m just going now.” I murmur, stepping backwards towards a stairway that will take me down and away. There is a large window behind me, and a little bit of cool light shines in. He is solid in the light. Strange. I can feel the Power around him this close, and like a magnet, my own Power is drawn to his.

The first lesson the Elders taught me and the other newly Risen was that Power attracts Power. If you can not learn to control this attraction, you are likely to be killed by a stronger opponent. I’d done well in my class against the other newly Risen, but I’d never had the chance to practice against the Elders, and whatever this ghost man was or had been, he held more Power than any Elder I had met.

I trembled and I tried to will my legs to move away from the man, but the stupid things wouldn’t listen to me. If anything, I could feel every cell in my body leaning toward this man who’s grin had turned menacing, and who was probably going to kill me.

“They sent a lamb into the wolf’s den? How thoughtful.” he whispered. “Goodbye, little lamb.”

He reached out and grabbed my shoulders with very real hands and shoved me backwards. The wall that had been behind me simply wasn’t there anymore as I passed through it.

Everything happened in slow motion. First, awareness dawned on me. I was on the third floor of the building, there was a wall behind me, and this ghost man was pushing me through it as if the wall didn’t exist. On the other side of the wall there was a twenty-four foot drop. The man was going to kill me.

At that moment, something miraculous happened. The man’s eyes widened, and as I started to fall backwards, he tried to pull me back. But I was too far out, so he joined me on my plummet to the earth. Sometime during the fall, the man twisted our bodies. When we hit the ground, he was on the bottom, and I didn’t die. I had the wind knocked out of me but I was alive. And strangely, so was he. I didn’t think he was a ghost anymore, I didn’t know what he was, but the fall hadn’t affected him.

For several moments, I laid where I was, pressed against him. I was alive. The power I’d felt from the man while we’d been in the house had receded. I rolled off of him and stood. It was past time to be leaving.

I turned to flee, but his voice snared me. “Wait.”

The power was back, and against my better judgment, I faced the man who was slowly getting to his feet.

“Who are you?” He asked.

I shuffled for a moment, fighting back the words, but I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. There was something familiar about him… A strong wave of his power washed over me.

“Kate. Kate Avery.”

“You will come to see me again, Kate Avery.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a command, and I felt the permanence of it wash through my body and into my bones. Then the power was gone. I ran away from that place like I’d never run before. And while my feet ran in one direction, the rest of me wanted to run in the other direction. He’d entrapped me.

Awesome start to this story. It reveals just enough to be understood, yet there is so much which can still be revealed and a cliffhanger ending is always a hit.

Nice story.I hope u update.

Very good , Im starting to love this!!

Wow, great start. Keep updating! ^-^

Ohh, I like this story! Very well written and very interesting. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Very interesting, I hope there will be an update soon.

I hope you write more. What a great story, I'm already on the edge of my seat.