On Christmas Eve, Cade dared Blake and Drew to race to the top of Gloomy Peak. Blake double dared Cade and Drew. Drew triple dared Cade and Blake. Finally, when they had all been dared up to 100 times, they agreed to go for it. This rough, relatively steep mountain is covered in heavy dark blue mist. It flattens out near the top. Then it has high piles of snow with winding slick blue ice paths cutting through. If you’re daring enough, you can get a running start, then slide on the ice paths going slightly up slope to the peak, but if you don’t hit it right, you won’t have enough to get to the top, and you will slide back. Guess who was crazy enough to take the ice paths? Blake powered through the snow drifts to reach the peak. He pulled out a small Cashes Dade flag and planted it with great drama. Drew winded through the snow piles, tunneling like a madman until he reached the top and collapsed, sprawled out awkwardly on the snow covered peak. Cade went flying past up the blue path, crashing in the snow pile at the center of the peak. They had worked hard to climb the mountain under heavy shadow, a mysterious mountain that few people want to climb because it’s a rough climb up thick soil. You take steps, dig in, but slide back so it’s a slow, rough climb. But people also don’t want to climb it because it’s covered in heavy blue mist so they figure they won’t be able to see anything from the peak. But the Cashes Dade Ghost Strikers didn’t care. They wanted to reach the peak anyway just to see what was up there and to see if they could see through the mist at the top. The kids strained to see through the mist. At first they couldn’t see anything, but they waited and waited, then stood between the twin ice pillars covered in dim glittering lights that slowly light up in the deeper dark of the late night, believing it would clear at the peak. Finally they could begin to see the murky outlines of the surrounding mountains. Staring out intensely, they could barely see the ice slopes in the far north where it was cold, dark, and empty. But then at midnight, they couldn’t believe what they saw…
Few people in DarkCorner Land have seen the Christmas Ghost Express. It’s a legend for many people they don’t really believe exists because so few people have even met someone who’s claimed to see it and they have no evidence. The legend goes that at near midnight on Christmas Eve, a great host of ghosts light up in brilliant colours singing Silent Night in various pitches at the same time and they fly across the northern ice slopes in blazing speeds. They aren’t scary. These ghosts are the ones who are haunted, haunted by the way they were ignored in their lives. They only want to be seen by the right people, people who understand them and will give them a chance, a chance to see who they really are. It takes a lot just to see the Christmas Ghost Express even from the distance. The ghosts change the cold, dark landscape around them as they move. If you can reach them, they will carry you all the way. Visuals of colourful spiraling trees spring up along the route. Visuals of small shops lit up with gold candle clusters in the windows shop up on both sides as other ghosts sing Christmas Carols as they pass. At midnight, they reach their destination at Carolmire, the land where it’s always Christmas.
Alien lights burned bright at various towers around them. Dark spirits have been rolling in more and more. Numerous aliens ships have been seen flying in to land among the towers. A great attack is coming soon now that a strong fort has been built at Ghost Peak. The aliens want it, because if they take it, they might gain a weapon to break the power that protects the new Cashes Dade. Will they outlast the alien attack? Can the ghost strikers figure out how to hold them back? There’s a mystery in how the fort can be defended against them. Will they solve it in time? We’ll find out in the spring.
There is something magical about Christmas, something mysterious. I have my own belief about what that is. If you’re interested, you can check out the link below to my facebook post about what I believe is the true meaning of Christmas based on the bible. It will be the top pinned post on my page. Christmas can be a really hard time for some people, but this holiday isn’t about some great joy and happiness, it’s about a faint light in the darkness, a distant and mysterious hope. Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.sanborn.100/
The three kids smiled as they saw the colourful lights dance in the distance blazing the trail of ghosts. The alien lights grew dim in the darker night. But the Christmas Ghost Express only grew brighter and even when the lights were gone and they could no longer be seen, they could still be heard…
