Young Writers Society

Kartiel leaned over the railing and stared down at him. "I thought the plan was to avoid the ghosts," he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth for good measure. "Doesn't chasing after them kind of go against that whole plan?"

"They're not normal ghosts," Dean shouted back. Beside him, Zalio tightened his grip on his daggers; he clearly didn't believe him.

"They-they looked like normal ghosts to me," Charlotte added. She took a step in Hero's direction, who was currently standing absolutely petrified beside the railing.

Dean sighed. At least Lasan seemed to notice the discrepancies with the two ghosts they had just seen. But, for the others, it looked like he was going to have to do some convincing. "There's two types of ghosts: partials and normal ones. Partials are the things you see in horror movies and ghost stories around the campfire. They're bits of soul clinging to life, and they're stuck trying - and failing - to take care of their regrets. Normal ghosts are just like you and me. They're people. They've got worries and fears and while they might be sticking around for a reason, that reason's strong enough to keep their entire souls here."

He pointed in the direction that the two kid ghosts had gone down. "Those two? They were terrified of us. Why do you think they suddenly hurried out of here? I'm not going to lie. Hunters are some of the stupidest humans I know because they never think to check if what they're hunting is good or not. And from the way that they were looking at my bat and Zalio's knives, they're convinced we're the bad guys. We have to change that and get them to move on. Got it?"

"Yeah!" Lasan called out. "But who were these hunters, and what did they do?"

Aegeas didn't know to respond. He hadn't seen Lasan this angry in a long time. The reptile was normally too relaxed and too nice to ever lash out. And that was good, because now Aegeas realized just how small and flimsy he was in comparison to Lasan.

But, if Lasan was angry, there was usually a good reason for it. "We're going to save the day?" Aegeas said. "Count me in."

"Hunters are humans who chase after supernatural beings," Dean hurriedly replied. They needed to catch up to those two girls quickly, or they risked both losing them and ending up getting caught unaware by one of the other ghosts. "Like I said, they're stupid. They only think in black and white. At least, most of them do. I've got my eyes on a few that aren't quite human or hang around with some supernatural people - there's a trio in particular that I've been watching over. But, for the most part, they like to hunt, and they like prey that's a little bit higher than a deer."

Herobrine pulled himself away from the railing. Charlotte gradually regained color to her face, and Kartiel practically was skipping down the stairs to join Zalio and Dean at the bottom. "Then what are we waiting for? We've got some kids to help."

Deer-killers? Eugh. So he was dealing with monsters. Lasan was all too happy to step over the edge of the railing and set his feet down on the first square of light. Looking behind him, he saw Aegeas barreling down the stairs. At least the otter was up and moving.

And they had work to do.

Once everyone had reached the bottom of the staircase, Dean quickly led them down to where he had seen the girls going. (Kartiel had taken a few seconds before then to teleport the water back to their base of operations, seeing that they didn't need it at the moment and it would only slow them down.) He had a large amount of ground to cover, and he didn't want to lose the two girls. If his guess was right, they had heard them moving around outside and had come to check what the source of the noise was. If he was right on that, they hadn't been heading to a specific location. They were likely cowering in one of the buildings.

So he felt.

He didn't do it a lot. There usually wasn't much need to when sitting behind his desk, and most ghosts tended to show themselves when he was on a case. But he, like his younger brother, fell into the category of a death god - among many other things - and if there was one thing that a death god could do, it was pinpoint souls that belonged to the deceased.

He raised a hand and pointed a nearby building.

"They're in there," he said.

Nodding, Lasan ran over to the building. He tested the door, wincing when it toppled and crashed onto the floor. This town had been abandoned for a long time, hadn't it? In any case, he stepped inside, Aegeas right behind. Between the few rooms on this floor and those likely extending past the staircase, there weren't many places for the kids to be. And then he could save them from whatever horrible fate they'd been stuck in.

He didn't follow through with Lasan's surprisingly dramatic entrance. The moment everyone in their little group entered the building, Dean broke off from the group and let his soul guide him to the souls of the two ghosts. He ended up finding them in one of the bedrooms. Or, at least, he found one of them. He had heard the sound of tiny footsteps running as he approached the room, and, when he peeked his head inside, he saw a noticeable lump underneath the dusty old sheets of the bed - with tiny little footprints on the dusty floor leading up to the bed.

And the lump was shivering.

He kept his voice calm and soft to avoid further alarming the ghost, and to avoid alerting the other members of his group to where the ghost was. She must have been the younger of the two, if the size of her footprints were anything to go off of. Which meant her sister was probably someone nearby, so he'd have to keep an eye out for her. "It's okay," he reassured her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

He sat down on the end of the bed. It creaked under his weight, but he paid no attention to the sound. "My name's Dean. I know I look scary, but I'm actually a really nice guy. And I want to help you and your sister."

A quiet voice left the blankets. "...She's my cousin."

"Cousin, then," he corrected, a small smile spreading across his face. She was willing to talk to him. That was a good sign. "I don't have any cousins, but I do have a little brother."

The girl hesitantly poked her head out, accompanied by what must have once been her teddy bear. She stared at him with nervous, wide eyes, but seemed to trust the expression on his face. She fully left the safety of the blankets and scooted over to him. Just as he opened his mouth to ask why she was alone, he felt a heavy blow to the back of his head.

So she wasn't alone, then.

Staggering forward off of the bed, he let his body heal the wound as quickly as possible. He needed to be fully aware of what was going on if he wanted to avoid further frightening the older of the two kids. Because she was the one who had hit him - with the larger part of a folding chair that she had taken from the closet in the bedroom. No wonder it hurt so badly.

"Leave her alone!" she shouted.

There went the plan of keeping the others unaware of where he and the ghosts were.

Lasan's gaze instantly shot towards the stairs where the thump had come from. If it wasn't for Aegeas trying to dart in front of him at the landing, the lizard could've made it up the staircase in only a few seconds. However, thanks to Aegeas's speed, the surprised Lasan tripped over him, causing the both of them to pile up on the landing.

"What was that?" Lasan growled, pushing himself off the ground.

Aegeas slid off his back. "Maybe you shouldn't have been taking up most of the staircase."

"It's not my fault you go up to my stomach," Lasan shot back. "You're not all that easy to see."

"Sure, call me short," Aegeas said. "Let's let whoever's up there run away. That's a great idea."

They glared at each other.

"Are you guys going to move, or do I need to teleport the rest of us to where that noise came from?" Kartiel asked, folding his arms. He, Charlotte, Herobrine and Zalio had also made a beeline for the stairs the moment they heard the noise, but had been far enough away that Lasan and Aegeas got there fist.


The younger girl jumped at the sound, immediately darting over to her elder cousin and grabbing onto her. It helped that she was on the bed and the other girl was standing right beside it - she was easily able to throw her little arms around her shoulders and hoist herself up. The one apparent downside to this plan was that the girl had to put down the chair, but Dean knew that she had already figured out it had no effect on him.

"That-That should have hurt you!" she exclaimed, staring between him and the chair that was now laying at the end of the bed. "I know I hit you."

"I've been told I have a pretty hard head," he said. He lightly tapped against the side of his head with a fist.

The girl shook her head and held her cousin tighter. "No. You-You should be unconscious. That's what happens when I've hit other hunters before."

He crossed his arms and thought for a moment. She was focusing too much on that one detail for him to keep up the story about him being human, so he was going to have to pull out another one of his cards. Saying he was God would be too unbelievable, and something he couldn't easily prove. But he didn't have to say that he was God. All he had to do was say that he was something else, something much more common according to religion, and something that would take an interest in two deceased girls.

"I'm not a normal hunter," he said, giving the two a warm smile. "I'm an angel who wants to help out humans like you."

She narrowed her eyes. "You don't look like one."

He raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever met an angel?"

"...No."

"Then how do you know I'm not one?" He took a small step towards them. He knew they were followers of his religion; he could feel it in his soul. Which meant that if he got just close enough, and he let his soul do the thing it was supposed to, they'd feel like something was different about him. A good, comforting sort of different. That was one of the benefits to being a modern god - the old religions rarely got that sort of reaction, mainly because there weren't many worshipers of their religions left in the world.

Her gaze softened. "I guess...I guess I don't know." Now her brow furrowed in confusion as she undoubtedly was trying to explain the feeling she was experiencing.

"I like you!" the little girl eagerly announced; the younger kids were never hard to calm down. She squirmed out of her cousin's embrace and rushed over to him. He crouched down in front of her and gave her an even larger smile. "Are your friends angels too, Mister Dean?" she excitedly asked, returning his grin with an even bigger one of her own. "Are they hole-y?"

He shook his head. "They're not, but they're all very nice people. I can promise you that. I'm making sure they don't get hurt here."

The older girl scoffed. "Sounds like they already have, if that's what the crash was."

Lasan pulled himself up. "It came from the room right next to us," he said, pointing to the door to the right. "So I don't think so."

He stepped around Aegeas, who had just gotten back onto his feet - they glared at each other one more time - and then pushed the door open. Hopefully he'd be ready for whatever was on the other side.

The moment Aegeas and Lasan stepped into the room, the two girls let out startled, terrified cries and immediately decided to use Dean as a shield. The smaller of the two was currently wrapped around his leg, while the taller was ducking down behind him and hesitantly peeking over his shoulder - he could feel her hands resting on it and the side of his neck.

"Mister Dean," the little girl said, "there's m-mo-monsters!"

"Those are your friends?" the older girl questioned, terror making her unsteady voice higher than before.

He glanced behind at her. "Yeah. Like I said, they're good guys."

"But they're monsters!" the little girl said, nervously looking around from behind his leg. "What-What if they e-eat us?"

He glanced down at her. After a moment of hesitation, he picked her up and easily held her in his arms - he was, after all, a god. A kid was a pretty light thing compared to some of the other stuff he could just as easily pick up. He made sure to look her right in the eye as he spoke, knowing that her cousin would be listening to every word that came out of his mouth.

"Lasan and Aegeas are people just like you and me," he assured her. "You're a ghost, aren't you?"

The girl hesitated, looked over at her anxious cousin, and then earnestly nodded. "I am!"

"Ghosts are scary, aren't they?" he continued.

"Yes!" she eagerly confirmed.

"But are you scary?" he questioned. This caused the girl to pause, and he could feel her cousin tensing up from behind him. The question had its intended effect; they were thinking outside of the box, which was crucial if he wanted them to not freak out about the other members of the little group, who were now beginning to gather in the doorway.

The girl shook her head. "'m not!" she replied. "So...so all ghosts aren't scary?"

He nodded.

"And-And then all monsters aren't, either?"

He nodded again. "Exactly-"

"Holy sh-" the eldest of the two cousins started to say. "That-that man has no-no eyes!" She was pointing at Herobrine as she spoke, eyes wide with a new wave of terror. "Oh my God-"

Resist the urge to make the pun. Resist the urge to make the pun.

"-that man's Herobrine, isn't he? What's an angel doing with Herobrine? Better yet, Herobrine's real?"

Dean sighed.

They really were getting nowhere with this, weren't they?

Lasan glanced around the room. It was just Dean and the two ghost girls. He was honestly relieved - he was all for revenge, but the thought of actually having to fight someone terrified him.

Aegeas scowled. "Sure," he deadpanned. "I love to eat people." But his scowl quickly faded. "Are you alright? Or, as much as you can be, since you're dead?"

"Considering that I'm dead and I'm looking at Herobrine right now, I'm doing just peachy," the older ghost girl replied, causing her cousin to whimper and duck back behind Dean's leg. Dean resisted the urge to groan and sent a meaningful glance back in the older girl's direction.

"He's not what you think he's like," he said.

"You're an angel," the girl said. "I'm not sure you've got the best grasp on this sort of thing - aren't you busy with Heaven stuff?"

He opened his mouth to protest, then promptly closed it. She did have a point there, though her reasoning was a bit off. He did have an incredibly busy schedule due to his duties as the sole member of a religion - save for Luci, but the only thing he could do was deal with the dead, and they carried over all the superstitions they had back when they alive when it came to the Devil.

"Wait, angel?" Kartiel asked, pushing past Aegeas and Lasan - and completely ignoring if they were annoyed by his sudden intrusion. "Since when have you been an angel?"

Dean resisted the urge to groan again.

"Since we first met," he lied, giving him a small, somewhat forced smirk.

"Is that why you asked us about our religion earlier?" Charlotte asked. Her arm were slung around Herobrine's shoulder; were they more intimate than he had originally assumed?

He eagerly nodded. "Yes, that's exactly why."

"I dunno," Kartiel said, "something seems fishy here."

Dean turned around and gave him a look.

"What's an angel?" Lasan said, ignoring the awkward silence and the look.

"And what's Herobrine's deal?" Aegeas continued. He joined Dean in glaring at Kartiel.

Charlotte looked over at Lasan, confusion momentarily flickering across her face until it was replaced by understanding. "Angels are beings who live up in Heaven with God, though I think some other religions also have them. Sometimes I think they're dead people, and other times they're just kind of...there? Whoever they are, they're meant to embody everything good."

Dean nodded. The explanation worked well enough for him to continue his facade, even though his little knowledge of actual angels didn't portray them in such a positive light.

"And Hero is-"

"Herobrine is-"

Kartiel and Zalio turned and stared at each other. Ah. Dean had forgotten that Zalio also had a Herobrine, though he wasn't exactly like the one present. After staring at each other for another awkward few seconds, it was Kartiel who ultimately won out. "Herobrine is from a game, and is a bit of a legend - he's been known to do all sorts of horrible things to players."

"It's not just a game," Zalio corrected with a yawn. "It seems like it to the players, but to the people of Minecraftia, it's very real."

Hero gave a small nod in agreement.

"Hero's not like that, though!" Charlotte hurriedly said. Dean couldn't tell if she was trying to convince the ghosts, Aegeas or the group in its entirety. She looked over at Hero, her grip on his shoulder tightening. "He's just been trying to defend his home, and he's one of the nicest people I know. He's just..."

"Has no idea of social skills and easily offends people?" Kartiel helpfully suggested.

Charlotte gave him a look. "Are we talking about him or you?"