“They saw us, the ghosts, I mean. The windows turned bright green like on fire. Dark ghostly figures flew out of the windows. The dark spirits were after us.
Blake turned to me and said, ‘Cade, we’ve got to move, now.’ We ran along the ridge. We started to pass the empty ghost city up close. We passed dark, rotting, broken towers with empty streets curving in and out through the city. It was chilling silence except we heard several ghosts in the distance groaning, like in circles, getting louder and louder, then quieter and quieter. I turned back momentarily. I saw dark flashes on the trail along the ridge. Blake pointed to the shadowy forest in the valley below. I said, ‘That’s too scary.’
He looked at me like I was crazy and asked, ‘That’s more scary than being chased by dark spirits?’ I thought about it for a moment while we sprinted ahead. I nodded, ‘Yeah. They may be haunted.’
He was like, ‘Come on, Cade.’ He knows how I joke. He was getting kind of irritated so I told him I had a plan which was mostly true. Bright red clouds crashed directly over us, thundering like an explosion. They cut through the black towers with dark blue stained glass windows. I started to hear singing again, ghosts singing, the same haunting song as before, swaying up and up, then down. Their voices were really hollow and sad. They echoed across the empty streets.
Blake turned to me and said, ‘They’re getting close.’ We started hearing their fast-paced whispers. Chilling winds started pulling at us from behind. ‘If you have a plan, now would be a good time,’ I heard Blake say. I took out my blue shell that flashes a blue light with my shadow. It’s hard to explain. ‘When I count to ten, break right.’
‘Why do you have to count to ten?’
‘So we go at the same time.’
‘Then just say, ‘Break right.’ You don’t have to count.’
‘If I don’t count, you won’t be ready.’
‘Yeah I will. I’ll see the light flash and that’s when we go. I’m not stupid.’
‘I didn’t say you were stupid.’
‘I didn’t say you did.’ I glanced back. I saw dark hands reaching towards us. ‘Ready now,’ I said. I let the light flash. I dove and slid all the way down the hill while Blake sprinted down. I looked up. The dark shadows disappeared over the ridge. Me and Blake celebrated. We tried one of those chest bumps, but I went too high and he went too low and we both went down. Then we started jogging around the rest of the ghost city. It was really quiet even with the ghosts’ singing. I gazed up at the aliens’ flag they raise high over every city. It’s blue with a white star in the center, that always glows softly in the moonlight, but it’s five lines that don’t quite connect. I hate it. They raised it over our city and our school. They think it’s all theirs now. I saw faces in the windows, just staring at us. They had different expressions that were just frozen like that, but I heard them whispering to us. Then we stopped cold. The clouds parted overhead. Breaking moonlight lit up a ghost in hazy green. We could barely see him. He was sitting out on a bench just staring out into the empty street.
He said in a low, hollow voice, ‘They never saw me. They never saw me. I should have been seen, but they never saw me.’ I looked and saw his shirt glowing softly on his shoulders where I saw he had a BlackStar patch. Me and Blake hurried ahead. The slow rhythmic booming started up again, growing louder and louder. The ghosts’ sad song grew quieter but more clear. We were almost at the edge about to break away into the hills back to Dayces Cameron. Then Blake asked the question I didn’t want to ask.
‘What if this is where the BlackStar Students live when they die?’ I would discover the answer to that question much later, and it shocked me. We turned the last corner. Dark shadows fell away behind us. The dark spirits would be back soon. Then we saw it; a massive clock glowing green against the red sky. The haunting song echoed around it, going around and around. I could finally hear what they were singing, over and over, the same lines, over and over and over.”
“The clock is ticking, they wait for their time where they lean
The dark ghosts are singing, their desperate hope to be seen”
