Young Writers Society

One rather stormy and dangerous evening, a steam engine rocketed down the SAL line, carrying ten cars which contained twenty couples, none of whom cared much for the other. If it happened they went too sharp around a turn and someone was flung out their cabin, Dawn Mitchell remarked that not even the conductor would miss them. In her head, she wished that perhaps Rose Saunder would accidentally fall out the window in the hall lavatory, which she had earlier noted had no latch.

These were not the people she wished to be on a train with in this occasion, and cursed her business partner for dragging her along in this mess. It wasn’t her fault that Charles had other tastes which couldn’t be brought along on a business trip like this, those certain tastes that would certainly lead to his death and the destruction of her reputation. Certainly she shouldn’t have valued her reputation with the same weight as his life, but if anyone ever paid close attention to his lifestyle, it was her excuses that would often save the man.

The trip was designed to go across the different Seaboard Air Line routes, which mostly clung close to the coastline, trying to keep true to its name and advertising. They had started a few days ago in New York City, would stop every so often at a hub station or just a local track out in the country, and then continue onwards towards Key West. Part of the reason Dawn Mitchell disliked the majority population of the people on this train, is because they had never been out of New York in their lives. Even the ones who had grown up at some estate a hundred miles out from the city, were so amused by the cows and the flowers, and the frequent nice things in the pastures they passed.

When they were like this, her opinion of them sank even further into calling them children, while waiting for more creative insults to come to her mind. She had hated New York and the people and everything about it that wasn’t home, but since it was good for the company and for Charles, she had made it good for herself. She had become one of the ladies of high society, who all happened to have a penchant for gambling and drinking, and most surprising was their ability to hunt.
The hunting of course was like the English sport, where they spent more time showing off their pretty ponies and jackets, than focusing on the rabbit. But it was still something she was offered every fall, to go out and show off the marksman skills that had previously guaranteed her survival.

That memory was however a long ways in the past and now she sat in a comfortable dining car, in the most casual attire she could manage with the culture vultures glaring so often, trying to determine her age. It had also been a very long time since anyone had correctly guessed that, the last being the unfortunate man to set this curse upon her. And that original age, had been twenty-nine, making her one of the first people in history to never lie about her age when she said she was twenty-nine.

She thought back to the time when the difference would often cause issues, how she had crawled through centuries of terror without ever changing, being called witch wherever she may go. If only she had been a proper witch though, rather than someone whose soul had been locked away in a temple, given a sight which came with no instructions. Here at the dinner table wasn’t the time to be thinking of all of the horrors she had foreseen, tried to warn people of, and watched from a great distance as another city fell in flame. Her one wish after each occurrence was to be allowed to die, asking upon the heavens, “what good is this sight, if no one shall believe what I am saying?”

And the horrors continued to haunt her, cause issue to her, until she realized that besides the terrors that may come in the future, she could also correctly predict market and business happenings. This came while she still resided in England, considering whether or not she should approach a life in the Americas, knowing already how their revolution would end. They had barely started considering having one and she already knew they would win, there would be no need for her to try and prove herself to them. In the long run, it could be a fresh start, if only she would focus on the business happenings, rather than the murders that echoed in her mind, moments before the shots rang out on a nearby street.
London wasn’t conducive to her cure. The New World, the Americas, were relatively peaceful. If there weren’t enough people around to be constantly killing each and she was far enough away from the countries that were, perhaps she could mend one thousand years of damage.

And she did.
And she would have continued on with her thoughts of thinking about all of her successes, if it were not for Charles pulling her from her day dream.

“You’re going to let your soup get cold, darling.”
He added the last part on slowly, trying to keep up whatever this charade of love was up, like he had been trying to do since the 1700s. At this point it was getting stale and she almost felt like letting him out of his contract, almost a sense of feeling sorry for him. But like all of the other times, it would quickly fade.
“I don’t need to worry as much about the soup being hot, as you being hot under the collar and getting into a fight with one of these dandies. It’s not the 1800s anymore, it’s 1923, you can’t just pull a knife in public and expect to get away with it.”
“Well, you do.”
“These people still have such a low opinion and expectations of women, that the only way they would believe a woman is capable of killing, is if the prosecution proves her to be a witch. Times will change eventually, but for now and for all of the future, you need to start avoiding fights.”

In the nearby bar room, a skirmish started to go down, and a few men hit the floor with it. Charles glanced back once over his shoulder and then turned back to his soup, which was nowhere near getting cold, considering the current weather. Even in all of this rain and darkness, the temperature maintained a spot in the high 80s, the humidity ever rising and his clothes clinging closer to his skin.

Charles wasn’t used to this sort of weather and wondered how his traveling companion loved it, thrived in it even. The deal had always been the same between them. He kept to his end of the bargain and got to stay north, where the weather may sometimes freeze your toes off, but never melted your skin. And Dawn would always stay in her region, which was a hell on multiple levels for him.

It was the 20th century and New York was one of the more accepting cities, and perhaps he had gotten a bit careless, but that was no reason for her to pull him onto this trip. To drag him through some countryside where the slightest mentioning of the word within fifty miles of his name, had the ability for him to wind up with a broken body in a drainage ditch.
No, he didn’t like the thought of that at all. He didn’t have many hopes for the future, no matter what she might say about how it all gets better, and his time will eventually come. And supposedly once this preferred time is met, she would let him loose of the contract, which was always held over his head as something that had saved him. Maybe it would have been better to have been killed by those pirates, certainly would have been simpler to get run through or eaten by sharks, than to spend two centuries in this damn contract.

Their conversations always managed to reach this point, where both sides of the table sat in a pensive mood, recalling every memory that they could. The silence was soon broken by the booming voice of Mr. McHenry, the person Dawn described as the “Jolly Scot” and Charles generally ran away from, trying to avoid another hour and drink in the lounge.

“Well look what we go here. What are you two love birds up to this dreary evening?”
Charles sunk back farther into the leather cushion and Dawn turned up the charm, replying with the standard smart aleck replies he didn’t approve of.
“We were between world domination and our favorite Opry singers.”
“For your information, I don’t listen to such programs voluntarily, I prefer classical.”
“Of course you do Chuck, I should have predicted that.”
McHenry pushed Charles against the window as he slid into the booth.
“Michael, where’s your wife on this journey?”
“Oh, Elaine? Probably off somewhere drinking gin and hustling the bartenders at cards, and knowing you, it’s probably something you would enjoy.”
“That sounds like a bit more fun than this and I think we all know who really runs your business.”
With that line she winked and Charles thought, “and she tells me to rope in what I say.”

As Dawn slipped away, she heard the standard jokes about women and sighed to herself, thinking about how she couldn’t wait for a new age. The laughing coming from the McHenry cabin wasn’t hard to find but neither was the scream that the occupants all soon heard. Dawn drew a small pistol from under neath her skirt and ditched her heels as she ran back through the train cars, finding the loose window in the lavatory quite open and Rose Saunder quite dead.

It was the year of 2018 and you, as one of those curious citizens of the town, decided to go to the anniversary party of the house. The House on the Hill, whose name was almost always capitalized out of fear from the ghosts, was celebrating its 300th anniversary of standing. Or maybe it was the 400th. No one really knew how long the old house had been there but they would use any excuse to go up there and drink for a spell. As long as you were drunk enough, there wasn’t that much worry of ghosts, that only seemed to haunt the sober. As they said in the town, “yet another reason to become an alcoholic.”

Well not much of the town really said that. Most of that talking was down by Old Bill McGregor, who was truly very old, even though this what yet another number no one knew. You didn’t have a clue and supposedly you had lived there for all of your life, though it might actually be your second lifetime. But you weren’t completely there anymore, even though this fact wasn’t apparent as you walked up to the house with all the other teenage ruffians. At times, it seemed that you would forget who you were, and have to make up stories about where you came from and what your name was.

It wasn’t the most pleasant process and whenever you would go to ask a parent, then would come the sudden realization that they were dead. That they had left you alone in the cabin, gone off to hunt, and been killed by some poachers. You had run from the building on the edge of the old man’s estate, up to the main house, knocking on the door and asking to be let in and for some mercy. You waited there on the step, hearing more gunshots in the distance. Someone came out of the brush in the lower field and pointed towards you, shouting something like “There. Them.”

The memory was old but the man walking down the stairs in a gray Confederate was clear as it could be. He had no name and no voice, simply leading you inside, flipping on a light to illuminate the dusty room. With a swipe of his hand, you watched all of the candles light up around the room. From the corners of the room and the ceiling, came different figures, dressed in different eras of clothing and their bodies in different conditions. You looked down at your own slightly wrinkled purple calico dress, wishing that perhaps you were wearing something nicer, your mother’s one muslin dress.

They all silently invited you in, the dead can only speak to the half dead, not the half living. By this point, you were nearly half dead, from the freeze on the porch to the buckshot resting in your side. You didn’t notice the wound, the blood seeping out through the corset, the fabric and bindings being the only thing keeping you together. A bit of cloth and prayers were all that you were living on, and as their voices became more apparent, you were drawn up the stairs. The chandelier swung to the slight breeze and the ghostly figures swung to the music, all set in dancing gowns of some kind, like they were ready for a party.

The lady in the wide hoop skirt led you into one of the bathrooms, setting you down in the tub and tending to your wound. In her slightly silent, gentle Alabama voice, she said “this won’t hurt much. I don’t want you to have a scar on the other side.”
The warm water ran over your body, mixing with blood as she pulled the buckshot carefully out of your side, artifully stitching the skin back together. There wasn’t much feeling left in any of your limbs and no matter how warm the water got, what was left of your blood was running cold. You realized now that she was bleeding you out, trying to make the movement to the next world as easy and painless as possible. In that comfort, you finally fell to the spell cast over your head.

When you awoke the year was first 1928 instead of 1918. Then came 1938, 1948, 1958, all of the decades just flying by. 1968, that year was rowdy. 1978, they marched up the hill in disco pants. 1988, you fortunately don’t remember that much about that decade. 1998 was just very tiring. 2008 led to a lot more photography of the house.

And now it was 2018, and you had gone down to the town to join in. You found yourself wondering why all of these people wanted to go up to the house, what was the draw for them? For you, you knew why you had to go back. When they invited you inside, you knew somewhere in the back of your mind, that you would never be able to leave that place.

Many questions flooded your mind.
Why must these thoughts be happening now? Why must you be remembering that night a hundred years ago, when the house opened up to let some lonesome souls in? Why did you have to run away that night, when your soul was ripped from your body and you were set in attachment to the house?
And most importantly, these ones came.
Why did you leave the house and come down to join these teenagers? Why don’t you warn them of what will happen?

But you couldn’t tell them.

You were only half-alive for one night every ten years and you wasted it every time. As you, the loyal soldier marched up the long hill in a slightly wrinkled purple calico dress, screams echoed in the distance. Lovely screams, bloodcurdling, and precious last words.

There would be new people now. You picked up your pace to go and meet them, welcome them to the never ending party and their new home.

Three days ago, the world was calm.
It followed what had been written long before, the planet settled and everyone came to attention. The light in the skies told them things and the people in their beliefs, found that this must be an answer to their troubles. The Lights must be the answer to the Sins.

The Sins had controlled this land for a long, long time, breaking every commandment that had ever been written. On this world, the people had no gods, for the Sins had killed them and cared not to put something in that empty place. People would curse the old gods, taking their names in vain, asking if they were so mighty, how was it that they fell to Sin.
In their questionings of falling to the Sins, they became Sinners themselves.

They had no gods to worship, no pictures or representations left to remember them by. Instead they found themselves falling at the fit of mortal made objects left over from the time before last. They worshipped the wheat itself in the field, rather than the deity or grace that let it survive. As they walked along the roads of substance, they would kiss the bricks, and praise the road for being there, forgetting who made it in the first place. Inanimate objects became their idols, powerless ideas that could never respond to the wantings of the people.

The names of the gods that had come and gone, were now used in the common dialects as slang terms. If you were to speak the name of Zeus, it would be the equivalent of bastard, or some worse foul term for a male. There was no longer prestige that came with these names and they were thrown round wildly, with little care of the consequences. Calling to the gods would never be met with any answer, so what was the harm of calling out their names in pain and anger?

Not only was there the lack of respect for ancestors, but it did not exist for elders either. Parents had no respect for those who had given them life, and knew the children that they gave life too, would have nothing for them. This is the way that it had been for many generations and the world found no use in returning to what it once was. The only way to find respect was through good actions, the right actions, respect is not just given automatically.

In some ways this system was correct in saying that unless a parent is good, you should not respect them in the same manner. But the further the generations went, the further the lack spread until no one liked anyone anymore. People would distance themselves farther and farther away from the ones that they knew, spreading to more outposts and out-planets, looking for some form of escape from this world.

From these four Sins and breaking of the Commandments, the society started to destroy itself. It became more lawless with time, ridding itself of a day of rest, because there was no longer a need to have a day of praise. They spent each day praising the Sins and the Objects, whose only response was to cause more discourse and threaten them to work harder. In this land there was no longer a Heaven, a Hell and a Purgatory.

When you died, there was no heaven left to go to, for the Sins had darkened it and made it the Worse Hell. If you were a good person, you were sent to the Purgatory, to be corrupted and sent somewhere downstairs, so that the pain endured on the top side would be nothing in comparison. Those who were not broken, remained in the Purgatory for all of eternity, having no release except the hope that they might escape to the top side.

The Top Side grew worse and the commandment of “Thou shall not commit murder”, was now a faint memory. Murder became the answer to everything, whether it be a fight between mortal enemies or a disagreement over a merchant’s prices. No one had any rights, least of all the dead and their families, who could not fight back against murderers in peaceful ways. If you wanted justice for a loved one, you must do it through the blade and there was no other way.

Adultery and the coveting of one’s house, property and spouse, went hand in hand down the road to Hell and Worse Hell. There were so many temptations with such strength in this world, and sex and violence fell first. They were followed by many drunken states to forget the other two and stealing as an effect of coveting what other people had. The only way to get those things in this world, was to simply steal them from someone else, only to then have them stolen from you.

If any law had once existed on these barren worlds, it certainly did not exist now as people were slaughtered and robbed, blamed others for their crimes (and were believed), and sought only to make a success for themselves. A success in this world could be nothing outside of remaining alive, or on the more extreme end, building an empire based on the crushed beliefs of others. They thought that there was no hope to this end in the land of the Sins, but still somehow the Lights managed to shine through.

They came one day out of the mist and darkness, blowing the heavenly trumpets that had not been heard for so long. The people came out of their dwellings, heard the sweet songs and felt the sound pass throughout the planet core as it shook they ground they stood upon. At first all they could see was the light and feel the rumbling beneath their feet, causing the kingdoms of the Sins to come tumbling down the Mountains.

The temperature shifted from the extreme colds and hots of the different regions, to a peaceful in between that was suitable to everyone who lived there. From the blackened soul that produced only plain wheat and foul roots, arose flowers and fruits, not yet fully colorful but still possessing the lovely taste that had been so missed.

All the waters of the land ran clear now, and those who had thirsted for so long, were now relieved of that pain. Those who had been hungry for ages, found that they were no longer on the brink of dying of starvation. They all turned in thanks to the Lights, which had not yet descended for them to see. They were fine with giving thanks to these powers, it didn’t bother them as they had done such similar things in the past with the Sins.

I watched them from far back in my caverns, with my soldiers seated at my side, knowing that the Lights would come for me again. My sister stood at the front of them as always, Fortitude (the other of Courage) leading them forward to reclaim this broken world.

She had always loved Gari and it didn’t surprise me she had returned to save it once again, always repairing the moments of darkness after each reset. Up to my fortress, she came alone and asked for a private company, ridding us of the soldiers who once guarded me.

“Dawn, my darling, how are you doing?”
“Fair, Fori. How is Patience?”
“Patience is good, as always. She wants such human bonds as marriage and my compliance after years has caused some peace to return. And how is Gabriel?”
“Good. We’re both enjoying hiding out from every god and every heaven in existence, thanks once again for that.”
“I am not welcome in most places anymore and unfortunately I haven’t managed to find our home.”
“Then why come here and stir up the place?”
“I’m sorry that you find issue in me fixing up the planet, it was getting a bit too wild for my tastes.”
“You’ve replaced their dark powers with an even worse one. You will soon find yourself going by your true name and true powers, an unfair lady of darkness, Fear.”

She winced at the name and her armor disappeared.
“You have no right to call me that Dari, you were not even alive during those times.”
“I read enough to know what you are. My mother took you in as a broken huntress, sick from the poison of the Sins, and called you my sibling. She used you to replace the lack of my father, thinking she needed someone to protect and train us. You are nothing but a vengeful goddess of destruction, who shielded her own fears in making others fearful.”
“Patience is a virtue. So am I. That is all the world knows and that is all it needs to know.”
“But you are also a Sin, you are both Fortitude and Fear.”
“Yes. But it takes a sin to know one, doesn’t it, Wrath?”

That conversation was three days ago and the world still remained calm. But a new mission had arisen for me and I had to leave the paradise that I had sought so long for. A return to Earth was necessary. Fori said that she played a role in the Greek council now and that they were in need of another huntress, someone outside of Artmesis’s reach.

And a huntress of Zar, like my mother ancestors before me, was just what they needed.

8.02 Psychodynamic

In a room of a basement, in the bottom of a church somewhere in Indiana, sat seven people each dealing with their own problems. Each participant had a problem that was seemingly unique to them, but connected once reaching the point that all of them were struggling with the involvement of defense mechanisms in their life.

The first started with the soldier, suffering from PTSD and repression, where he could not remember his time overseas. This period of his life was mostly blank, such a bad time, that his mind decided to block it out to relieve the suffering. But there were other things involved with that chunk of time, and no matter how bad his experiences that caused him to forget, he would like to remember.

The next was a child, barely ten years old, but reverting to the habits that would be more appropriate for a toddler. He has set himself against a new younger sibling, trying to win back some love from his parents, that is thought to be gone forever. Each ‘childish’ action, each temper tantrum thrown and each set of soiled sheets, sets him more against his parents, for the only pay brief attention. At least, that’s how it’s seen in his mind. Each of these tries, only provides a temporary solution, and his parents have brought him here to find a permanent one.

The dieter sits with an apple in their one hand and a few pieces of candy with equal calories in the other, trying to find the evidence for which way they should go with the issue. If they skipped that apple as a mid-day snack, they could eat those pieces of candy later. With this person, rested the issue of rationalization, often making the wrong choice but having the evidence to say why this particular thing could be done.

The secretary wonders about his involvement in the high school drama taking place in his workplace. His crush on an IT technician is something that he would never be able to follow through on, without the fear of judgement from his friends. That constant reminder of embarrassment and fear of no longer fitting in with a certain crowd, caused him to always say the opposite of his feelings, to avoid any confrontation. This happened much too often and the choices were rash, so now he found himself in a self-help meeting, trying to decide whether to storm out or not.

The teenage gossiper is thinking about a way to manipulate things while sitting in this very room, wondering about turning people against each other. She finds attraction in one of the others, like she did for those different boys in school, who she would then lie about, saying they had feelings for one of the select friends. Not only was there an issue in the gossiping, the telling lies and hurting friends’ feelings, but she could never follow through with her own attractions to these people. Never could tell them what she thought, and instead set them up in her mind with other people, to avoid the feelings.

Then there was the math teacher, who was dealing with many things at work, but could have no expression of their opinions there. When they would could home at night, they would battle with their partner, causing enough issues in the relationship, for them to show up here today. They took the grudges taken from a day at work, and placed them onto their partner, the only contact they could really express their anger on without a backlash. It got out of hand though and now they found themselves in the room with the others, looking towards the woman at the head of the circle.

The woman sitting at the meeting point of the other chairs, is the only one who has managed to conquer her issues, and has gathered the others to help them on their journeys. Her anger issues caused failure in her previous job, preventing her from advancing and connecting to the people in her workplace. Now, she has channeled her anger into being a counselor, helping people ‘fight’ whatever they are facing.

These people wouldn’t have known each other on the street, they didn’t even live in the same town, this was just a central meeting place. They were all of different ages and backgrounds and genders, having no connections outside of their issues, which managed to bring them together. Some suffered from the denial of the condition as well, only making the leader’s job more difficult.

“Before you begin working on a problem, you first have to recognize that it is there.”
This is the first thing that she says to them and it was the first thing they saw walking under the banner, a recommendation and a catchphrase pasted across every book. The logic behind it was good, this was the necessary thing to do first, but it made all of these people squirm in their seats. They didn’t want people to hear what they had done, they all had the fear of judgement from the outside world accompanying their actions.

But this was perhaps the only place where they would truly be safe, where anyone who had a grievance with something someone else had done, would be reminded of their own actions. In this situation, you could say nothing against anyone else or cause a commotion, or else you would be reminded of your own faults. The system was strict in this way, almost shocking people out of their bad habits, one step away from actually using shocks.

This room was filled with issues but still it tried to make its way past them, all of its members tried to find their place in the group. There was a struggle here and it continues to go on, as these people meet every week in the meeting room, in the basement, in the church somewhere in the middle of Indiana.

And in like every situation, the outside world would continue happening, and it would not realize whatever great things were happening in the basement.

This road has been a very long one, which is has never been pleasant, as would be expected. It has been here since the beginning of eternity, never truly appreciated by any one who ever walked it. No one could ever imagine it as being a good thing. This was the path of the condemned souls who had committed whatever sin they may have found themselves in.

The way the world works is cruel and unfair when it comes to the judgements and the punishments. A child may steal a loaf of bread to protect their younger siblings, be killed on the way home and lack the last rites. Without these, they will suffer condemnation and be forced to walk the road out of punishment.

But yet there is a murderer lying in a hospital bed somewhere, dying from whatever they might have found themselves in, able to achieve the necessary rituals. Their sins will be forgiven and they will be exempted from walking the road. For this reason, many of the living found themselves hating it and many of the dead, wished that they had prepared better.

But still the road was not quite as bad as anyone who made the trip back might describe it to be. It took on whatever form the walker might imagine it as, a lonely highway or a bustling intersection. Wherever they might imagine their worst place to be, their own personal bad place to be punished for their crimes. And with this mention, it all comes back to whatever crimes they may have committed. And with that the wonder of what it is that they must have done to deserve such a walk along the road.

I've walked the road three times now and they told me, the ones up in the sky, that if I came here and killed these demons, they would let me free of my curse. It's been just long enough that I was desperate enough to believe what they were saying, wanting more than anything to be free of damnation. Because I wasn't like the other people you were stuck down there and at least had real interactions, I was up here and no one could see me. No one could ever really see me unless I got close to them and whispered these real ancient words, but I don't like to do that work either.

Do you understand why I did these things, ma'am?

I don’t want to walk the road to hell anymore.

--

Dawn looked at the ghost as he finished his speech, trying to decide whether or not to answer him yet, and then slipped out the compartment door. On the way out, she slammed into Charles who had obviously been eavesdropping, though she couldn’t really blame him with this case.

“Well I heard what you found out but I still don’t know how all this happened. Let’s run through this one more time, you were with me in the lavatory when the body was found-”
“And the marshal came and declared that we couldn’t do anything until reaching the next town, so they carted her body off to the freezer in the kitchen. Then everybody went back to their compartments and I started to go in ours, but instead I went to the back of the train to search for him.”

She motioned towards the shadow in the booth as she spoke.

“I found him in the luggage car, weeping of all things, about why he had to do it. So I brought him back here and he told the story about how the angels told him he could go to heaven, if he killed the demons on the train.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said this was the ghost of a serial killer or was a serial killer ghost?”
“He’s been stuck to some object on this train for at least fifty years and I think an organization has taken advantage of the hauntings, to kill people in a way that reflects paranormal violence. This kid couldn’t have killed anyone when he was alive, much less stuck in this kind of loop.”

Chuck lowered his voice to a faint whisper, glanced around to make sure there was no one in the vicinity, and swept his jacket back over his holster.

“Organized? Are you suggesting the mob? You shouldn’t be suggesting the mob considering the type of people that we’re on the train with right now. You said I was doing nothing in New York but sleeping around, but guess who one of them was.”
“Wait a sec. David? David Vincetti?”

He closed his eyes and waited for for the slap.

“Chuck, I’m not going to hit you.”
“Good. How about we deal with the spirit?”
“I can’t do it the standard way, I don’t want to send him straight to hell.”
“What’s your solution then? Give him full form? Help him kill all the ‘demons’ on the train?”
“Exactly.”
“Rock-paper-scissors?”
“Yeah.”

They played for best two out of three.
Chuck lost, started to pull back the door and once more checked that his gun had bullets, the flask of holy water was in his pocket and that the knife in the heel of his boot work. Everything was there and checked and when he had excuses to wait anymore, he went in first to talk to the ghost.

Like Chuck, Dawn did the safety check before walking through the door, trying to clear her head of everything she had seen happening in advance. For now, she needed to focus on what the spirit’s reaction would be to her plans.

“Look buddy, we have a plan for you. She’s gonna help you kill all the ‘demons’ on the train and go upstairs, or anywhere that you want to in the real world.”
“How?”
“It’s a thing we do with ghosts sometimes. Redeem them as full humanoid forms with some special abilities, but no earth shattering stuff like you have right now.”
“Like moving the objects?”
“That’s one of things you have going on right now, yeah.”

That and scaring everybody to death.

Dawn stepped in with, “Moving on. Did they give you a list or a certain order of how to do this?”
“It’s in the walls. If you give me some form, I can get to it easier.”
She reached out, touched his soul and asks the question everyone was thinking.
“What do you mean ‘in the walls’?”

The now half human, half ghost, walked over to the panel of the compartment, threw down the oil lamp and opened up a space in the wall. From this hole, he pulled a tea stained piece of parchment. He shook it off and the room was soon filled dust, causing everyone to cough, including the owl.

“First name on the list is a Michael Vincetti.”

She showed up bloody on the doorstep and the first words exchanged between them were,
“Don’t worry, it’s not my blood.”
“I’m more worried about what the other guys look like.”
“The other guys.”
“Look I know you were down at the station and that can mean a lot of things, but who are you, again?”


Dawn stepped inside the small apartment, drew back her cloak and reached for her badge. It was unfortunately placed right next to the gun and the person who had just barely welcomed her inside, reached for his own sidearm.

“Don’t bother, kid. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have spoken to you.”
She presented the beaten leather case.
“Dawn Mitchell, MIIA.”
“And that would be?”
“The McGovern International Investigation Agency.”
“Never heard of them before, and I work for the United States of America, so now I’m wondering who you work for.”
“It’s probably best that you’ve never heard of us before. And it’s kinda up in the air, when it comes to who we work for.”
They both paused for a bit.
“I never got your full name either.”
“Alex Grant, Bureau of Prohibition. Do you need to see my badge?”
“I saw your work in the Carolinas with moonshine, wasn’t the smartest move. Probably why they moved you up to Chicago.”

He winced slightly, moving his hand to his side and noticing that the wound was bleeding. “What are you doing to me?”
She glanced at him, tilting her head slightly and answered him slowly.
“Just making you remember what happened. Do you remember that scene, Agent?”
“I was uh standing outside of the car, looking down at the body-”
He reached his hand up a scar on his brow, bleeding there as well.
“And then someone, something, appeared and told me ‘Not to fear, for it will all be forgiven.’”
“Those are the exact words?”
“What does this matter?”
“Those are the exact words?”
“Yes.”

He still held his hands to his wounds.
“Why are you doing that?”
“You made me bleed.”
“Check the floor.”
There was no blood present on the floor.
“How?”
“Those were simply just your fears coming alive. They’re trigger reminders to tell you about what happened, and mainly note that you shouldn’t be up and walking today.”

Grant stood motionless in the hallway, while Dawn moved around the small apartment, shuttering all the windows and closing whatever curtains were there.
Need to find some blankets.
Grant still stood there while she rummaged through the boxes looking for a quilt, realizing that the young agent had not yet unpacked since his transfer.

“Should I maybe question why you’re covering up the windows?”
“I thought you would question me searching through your belongings.”
“It’s not like there’s really anything there. The box with blankets is beside the stove.”

They shook one out with enough dust to blanket, the city of Chicago. It at least covered the car sitting directly under the open window, which would have left some amazement to the little old lady who owned it. Unfortunately (or fortunately), at that moment she was involved in drinking whiskey and playing poker, which is exactly what every grandmother should be doing on a Tuesday night.

So obviously she wasn’t in any state to be a witness to what would soon be happening in Agent Grant’s place of residence. Somehow a box of nails and a hammer had magically appeared out of thin air, and though he wondered what his landlord would say about 20 blankets hanging from the ceiling, this Agent Mitchell person had a gun hanging from her belt. It wasn’t too tough of a decision to make, when he looked at it from that point of view.
Not tough at all.

“May I ask, just who are we hiding from?”
“Um...generally just the mob.”
“Yes, but who?”
“A werewolf.”

To this Grant laughed because even though three weeks prior he had been in a car wreck and resurrected by a god he didn’t believe in, a werewolf still seemed to be too far.
His story is just beginning here and he has no idea what it’s like to be the companion of a huntress, so even though he suffered and rose again, all supernatural things were sounding like bullshit.
A person could tell when what Dawn said was actually bullshit, though they didn’t often live long enough to inform anyone else of that fact.

When the laughing had subsided, he asked her, while really still laughing,
“A werewolf?”
“Yes.”
There was some rummaging around in a bag and a presentation of silver bullets with a cross carved into the base.
“The cross is a just in case manouver.”
“Why would a werewolf even be coming for me?”
“It caught your scent down at the police station. When I looked at you, I could tell you were a resurrection case and that my sister had a reason for bringing you back. There’s a different kind of hunters and huntresses that deal with ill-fate resurrections. A werewolf will hunt a resurrection if they find one, and I gotta say, you’re pretty easy pickings.”
“Why would anyone want to kill me?”
“For them, it’s not about fixing a right in the universe. Resurrections are just sort of a - cultural delicacy, to werewolves.”
“So they want to serve me up on a platter like a ham. Okay. Should I be more concerned than I currently am?”
“Probably. We’re gonna have to wait for awhile and it might not even attack you tonight. But I have other business to discuss.”

They had barely started to discuss the nature of that business, when a certain werewolf decided to show up. It didn’t take the doogy door like a normal and civilized canine, but instead tried to jump several stories through the glass. These attempts were fruitless. Dawn had blessed the windows and drawn on them with blood before covering them up with blankets, much to the horror and shock of the people standing outside.

A crack came from in the bathroom.

Well at least she thought she had sealed all the windows.

“I thought you said every part was sealed.”
“I didn’t realize your bathroom was high enough class to have that big of a window.”

Whatever had just broken in, continued to clammer around in the bathroom, obviously knocking over everything in sight. Then it went to the door, first clicking the handle back and forth, stopping for a moment to think about how to proceed since one can’t open a door with claws.
The answer here was to use those claws to bust right through the wood.

Dawn had her gun aimed at where she was estimating the head to come up, while Agent Grant just carefully slipped behind her. If this had been a different time and a completely different place, she would have made a joke, but there was a werewolf trying to kill her assignment.
The shots rang out.
The beast went down.
But it was not dead.

“Why didn’t you kill it?”
“Because we need to ask it some questions.”
“Ask it questions? It’s a fucking werewolf. There is a fucking werewolf in my hallway and a girl I met five minutes ago and some conspiracy plot about god knows what. And you’re gonna casually ask this thing I didn’t even existed, some questions?”
“Well I’m certainly not gonna do it casually.”

A bag that was not in the hallway before, now appeared at her feet. Out of she took a rope lined with silver, a silver knife and several other objects that Grant didn’t even want to question. They were just as odd as the body on the floor and the person rummaging through a magical bag he swore hadn’t been there before. He wanted to question everything that was going on but couldn’t bring himself to do it, maybe he just didn’t want to know that bad.

But instead of questioning her or throwing her out, he just followed the instructions to setting up the chair and the spells and the weird little bottles filled with herbs. There was something about this person that made it so no questions would be asked, rather fortunate for her but unfortunate for everyone surrounding her.

Once they finished and the werewolf was properly secured to the dining room chair, there was the sudden realization of being covered in blood. Dawn started thinking about the last time she had been in a situation like this, thinking about how it was all too often she would find herself covered in blood. The scene popped into her head and it was again not the right time or the place for this sort of thing, but it was happening anyways.

--

“This is our home!”
Her sister had shouted at her, after Dawn had started to give up faith on going home. Fortitude always wanted to make it back home, that was the goal that she carried throughout her life, even though she didn’t really know where it was.
No one really knew where it was.

“This was your home, but according to every record I can find, it no longer exists.”
It was true, she had searched everywhere for her family, while Fortitude was off doing whatever Virtues did. She didn’t know what it was they did outside of leading people around places, and it was often a topic that people didn’t really want to know about.

“It’s out there somewhere. You know it, I know it, every living citizen of that kingdom knows it, no matter how deep in their heart you have to dig.”
“Clara, there aren’t many of us left that can dream about that place. You hold onto your memories like they are the only thing left for you in this world, but you still have me and the others.”
“Dawn, look at me, and say my real name. Clara is just another identity, she is just as fake as Dawn is. Just because we’ve been living these lives for so long, doesn’t mean we have to succumb to them.”

Dawn was however always named Dawn, or the hometown equivalent. Just because she had been given a fancy name like Wrath however many years ago, didn’t mean she would want to use it in conversation. As far as Dawn could tell though, Fortitude had always been Fortitude, except for those periods when she broke down and became Fear. They didn’t happen very often but this conversation felt like it was going to bring one on.

Dawn backed slowly away from the table and soon a feeling of fear came over her, causing her to trip over a chair. When she fell in the memory, it felt the force of falling in real life, and soon she found herself on the floor of the agent’s apartment, thankfully not lying in the werewolf blood. He loomed over her, she was preparing to fight another round in the memory, grabbing his hand and flipping him over onto the wood.

“I’m fine.”
“Good to know. I don’t think I’m doing so well now.”

He slowly stood up, obviously exaggerating the pain when he winked at her, and crossed the room to where the beast was. It was still out cold and barely propped up by the chair, but fear still ran through the people in the room. The room quickly turned cold and the windows frosted up, like a wind had gathered only inside this apartment and someone was blowing on the glass. The cheap curtains moved around the room together, nothing was tying them back and they quickly took on ghostly forms.

It was all the signs of a haunting, causing a bit too much fear for Dawn to be feeling in a situation like this. She thought once more about the incantation that Grant had repeated to her, trying to remember who would choose words like that. She had never heard it before but it wasn’t that uncommon to go off script.

“Not to fear, for it will all be forgiven.”

The pieces clicked and she realized that she would no longer be working this case alone.