“Phantom,” came a burly, echoing voice.  I glanced up from my almost feverish writing, having found a tiny bit of relief in spilling my story onto the thin pieces of paper.  The guard was one of the tall ones, a black patch over his right eye.  He studied me for a moment.  “Fight.”

Nodding faintly, I pushed the notebook under my pillow and got to my feet.  The guard stepped to the side to allow me to leave the room.  I took a single step into the hallway before I froze.

Ghosts were standing along the darkened corridor surrounding the one ghost that was lounging carelessly against the wall.  Walker tipped his head to the side.  “Your choice?” he asked simply.  My knife or your parents?  As if to prove his point, he raised his hand.  Dangling from his finger was an old fashioned key that I had no doubt opened the door to my parents’ cell.

I had a hellish time with this section.  Danny kept coming off as annoying and haughty when I wanted him to be scared and seem like a little child.

I stared at the old key, almost mesmerized by it as it swayed back and forth.  I had no idea what to do – I had never felt so incapable of doing anything.  Always before when I’d been angry, frustrated, or outmaneuvered, I’d been able to use raw power to force my way out of losing.  With just a few exceptions, it had been a working strategy.  The collar around my neck completely negated that possibility.  I wouldn’t get more than a few feet before someone pushed a button and sent me collapsing to the ground.

My gaze switched back to Walker.  I’d never been much of a planner; thinking two steps ahead wasn’t my strong point.  Right now, it wasn’t any point.  My options were so limited that they were almost nonexistent.

One – I could lie to him.  Walker would, no doubt, uncover the lie in a matter of minutes, my parents would end up dead, and Walker would find someone else to dangle in front of me.  Two – I could tell him the truth.  Valerie would be dead in just a few hours, Walker would have his key back, and my parents would probably end up dead anyways.  Or three – I could chose to not answer.  My parents would die and someone else would find their way into the Pits.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as young as I did as I stared at him just then.  Walker had experience; he’d maneuvered me perfectly into a corner that I couldn’t escape from.  There wasn’t a good solution and I had no clue what to do next.

My eyes dropped to my feet.  “I don’t know,” I whispered, somewhat truthfully.  I don’t know what to say.

“What was that?”  Walker’s voice was hard.  “One must speak up when spoken to.”

“I don’t know!” I said, louder, frustration seeping into my voice.  There was only one thing I knew for sure – I had to stop being a pawn.  I needed to do something, make a move.  I had to take the initiative.  My parents are dead anyways.

Stomping down on the emotions that came with that thought, I tried to get my mind to work.  I needed to tell Walker something to buy some time for me to come up with an actual plan, talk to Former, and find a way out of here.  I couldn’t tell him the truth, so I had to lie.  I had to tell him a lie that he wouldn’t be able to check quickly.  Stick as close to the truth as you can.  

“You do know,” Walker snapped.  

I took a steadying breath, closing my eyes for a moment.  “I don’t know where it is,” I said softly, letting the all-too-real-fear color my voice.  If Walker figured out I was lying to him, my parents would be dead in minutes.  “But I know who has it.”

Walker’s dried-up eyes narrowed, his glittering gaze focused on me from inside the dark sockets of his skull.  I shivered a little, fighting to keep from taking a step away from the warden.  “Who?”

Licking my lips a little, I stomped down on a few tendrils of fear that were snaking up my stomach.  “What do I get if I tell you?”

The warden seemed to think about that for a moment, his raisin eyes studying me, his fingers brushing over the box on his belt that would activate my shock collar.  I tensed, waiting for the agonizing electricity, but it never came.  “Why should I believe what you tell me?” Walker asked slowly.

“I’m sick of being a pawn,” I answered, keeping my eyes trained on the ground and fighting the desire to edge away from Walker.

He gazed at me for a moment longer.  “All you’ve got is lies.”  Turning away, he waved his hand over his head.  “Throw him in a Pit with his parents.”

It’s a game… and Walker’s holding all the cards.

No!  “Blue eyes,” I called out desperately, hoping that Walker knew about the rat.  “Black hair with blue streaks.  Calls himself a ‘guardian’.”  

The warden’s back stiffened in surprise.  “L’Jai,” he hissed, his fingers clenching so tightly I could hear his ectoplasmic bones snapping and groaning.  When he turned to face me, his eyes burned with hatred.  “The rebel has my knife?”

“Had,” I answer softly, one of my feet moving backwards to keep myself away from Walker’s growing spectral presence.  Swallowing heavily, I glanced up into his eyes.

The warden was swelling, his head seeming to brush the ceiling, his shoulders touching the walls.  “Where is my knife?” Walker screamed, stalking up to me and glaring down at me.

Locking my knees, I kept my gaze locked on his, struggling to keep Walker from knowing just how afraid of him I was.  Huge, menacing, and very dangerous, it was all I could do to not collapse to the ground and cower.  “What do I get in exchange?” I responded, my voice trembling slightly.

“Your life,” Walker snarled.  He pulled the box off his belt and waved it in my face, his huge fingers nearly as big around as my head.

“Not good enough,” I answered.  “My life’s not worth that much.”

Walker slowly shrunk back to his normal size, seemingly taken aback by my response.  He stared at me for a long moment, but I just met his gaze.  I was sure that my fear was leaking through, but I had no doubt that he could see the truth in my answer.  I’m a murderer; I’m not sure what home I have to go back to even if I do survive this.  Life as I knew it, for all intents and purposes, is over.  

I’ve got a kind of sequel planned.  It’s a few extra chapters to add on to the end of ‘Final Exam’.  Not really a story.  Just a post-story thing that deals with that concept.

What’s left of my life isn’t worth the knowledge Walker was asking for.

“Your parents’ lives, then,” he said slowly.  “You tell me and I’ll free them.”

My gaze drifted away from Walker and landed on the nearby door.  The sign painted in blood red clearly showed that two humans were being kept inside, my heart skipping a beat.   I have to tell him something. “LJ brought me the knife,” I said quietly.

Walker rocked back on his heels, then a strange grin slipped onto his face.  His skin rustled as the expression twisted his skin.  “Leave us,” he hissed to the guards.  “Wait for us around the corner.”  After the three guards had vanished, Walker chuckled.  “I thought you knew about the rebel – he’s been plotting around behind my back, poisoning the minds of my workers.  He’s been behind the little ghost rebellion as well, I’ve learned.”  His eyes narrowed dangerously, his fingers dancing over the box at his belt.  “Before, he was just a nuisance.  Now that he’s stolen my knife…  I assume you know what my knife really is.”

“The jewel is the key to the Pits,” I answer, nodding my head.

“Exactly,” Walker said with a small, almost pleasant smile on his face.  The effect of his furious eyes and the smile made me want to race in the opposite direction as fast as I could.  “And you then realized why I want it back.  Where is it?”

I shivered, dropping my gaze back to the floor.  I can’t tell him the truth; he’ll go check the moment I tell him where it is and find out that the jewel is missing. “Let my parents go, then I’ll tell you,” I said, my mouth dry.

“No.”  His rebuke was hard and quick, his eyes narrowed and his tone booking no argument.  “I want my knife back now, I want that rebel on a stick, and I will have those before anything else happens.”

“But-“

“You are a child, Punk,” he hissed, “and I have been doing this longer than you can imagine.  Don’t bargain with me – you will lose.  Tell me where my knife is.  Now.”  Fury sparkled in his words, energy flaring around him in lethal swirls of power.  “My knife for your parents.  Either I get mine, or you lose yours.  Choose.”

Taking a small step backwards, my breath caught in my throat.  I couldn’t tell him where the knife was.  But what could I say?   “I…”  Walker snarled, cutting off what I was about to say, and I glanced down at the small box on his belt, licking my lips.

I’m employing my favorite conversational tool.  When you don’t know what you want the characters to say, have them trail off or get cut off or interrupted.  XD  It happens all the time in my stories when I converse myself into a dead end.

Something was churning down in my stomach. I wish…  Closing my eyes, I didn’t know what I was really wishing for.  Everything was falling apart and I didn’t know what to do.  And to make it all worse, I had this strange feeling brewing inside of me… almost like I wanted to tell him.  He was stronger and faster and… he was the ruler.  

I understood the feeling suddenly, my mind connecting the dots without a problem.  My ghost emotions and instincts were coming into play.  Walker was talking directly to something inside of me – something my human side had always been able to override.  Now, locked in the Pits and terrified and unsure of myself, he was playing the ‘boss’ card and my ghost side was falling for it.  Gritting my teeth and fighting against the growing feeling, I looked down at my feet.  I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

“Now.”

“It’s in my room still.” The words jumped out of my mouth unbidden.  For a moment, I just stood there, blinking and startled.  Then, an empty feeling gnawing at my stomach, I whispered, “I can get it for you after the fight.”

Strong, wrinkled fingers grabbed my chin and jerked upwards, forcing my eyes to meet Walker’s eyes.  He stared at me for a moment.  “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you, Punk?”  A grin split his face, his dry skin cracking at the movement.  “I’m breaking you.  Slowly but surely, I’m winning.”  His nose moved closer until it was inches from mine, his rancid breath blowing in my face.  “Soon, you’ll do whatever I ask, won’t you?”

I shook my head, but Walker’s strong fingers dug into my jaw and moved my head up and down for me. What did I just do?  I gave in.  Why did I tell him?  WHY!?

“After the fight, then,” he murmured, “we have a date.  Die in the fight and your parents will follow you into the afterlife. Lie to me,” he snarled, “and your parents will not see their next meal.  Are we clear?”  Fingernails dug into my skin as he tightened his grip.

“Crystal,” I whispered painfully.

He let go, a small smile on his face as he placed a hand gently on my shoulder.  “Good boy.  Now, let’s get you to your fight.”  He pushed my shoulder a little and I walked alongside without a struggle, still going over what had happened in my head.  I’d given in – was it as simple as that?  Walker knew I had the knife.  He knew where it was.  Walker knew I knew about the rat.  Walker had my parents.  He had me.  The rat had deserted me.  I didn’t have the key anymore.

After all this, after everything I’d been through, was Walker going to win after all?

Dear reader, you have no idea how much pain that thought brought me.  I’d been through so much, done so much to survive, given so many things to try to win… was I just going to lose anyways?  Was I just going to give in and let Walker win?

“Tracing back the rebel’s plotting has taken quite a while,” Walker said almost conversationally as we walked down the hallway, the guards catching up with us as we rounded the corner.  “The elephant was helpful – you remember her, correct?  She was the one that brought you to me.  She had a most interesting story to tell about LJ and how he helped her get you in here with some poisoned darts.”

The rat…?  I felt the ground drop out from under me, my feet moving mechanically down the corridor.  The rat got me in here? Walker had to be lying about that.  Why would LJ get me locked in here?

But, at the same time, it made a sickening sort of sense…

It’s time for Danny to learn what you all already knew.  The rat is EVIL!

Walker was still talking, not apparently noticing how startled I was at that piece of information.  “I’m surprised you kept his secrets as long as you have; I wasn’t sure you even knew about the rebel.  But after I knew that he had helped you get captured, I was sure that he was planning to use you on his latest ‘overthrow Walker’ plot.”  Walker snorted.  “Idiot boy.  When I get my hands on him, I will destroy him – he’s been nothing but an annoyance.  I haven’t figured out how he gets around my Pits without being noticed, but I will.”

Just an annoyance.  I looked at Walker out of the corner of my eye. Is that all he sees me as too?  An annoyance?  

In one word: yes.

Walker, who had stolen the Pits from its original owner.  Walker, who was busy unraveling LJ’s supposedly ‘secret’ plot.  Walker, who had, apparently, out-maneuvered me just minutes before.  Excellent.  I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to ignore Walker’s victory speech, desperate for some kind of plan.

“I’m not sure what you thought you were doing, Punk,” Walker continued, more to himself than to anyone else.  “Mere children going up against me?  What kind of world would this be if I didn’t win?  I’m bigger, I’m smarter, and I am the rules.  I can’t help but win.”

The door to Former’s office appeared before us and Walker dragged me to a stop.  “One fight,” he said.  “Win and you live.  Lose and everyone you hold dear will die.”

I looked up at him for a moment, then nodded slowly in understanding.  What else was I going to do?  

“Good luck,” Walker chuckled.

I slipped through the door, my mouth dry and my stomach churning painfully.  I took a deep, unsteady breath as I looked around Former’s office, searching for the familiar face.  Former had some sort of escape plan…

Oh, I cannot let you have that small piece of hope.  My goal was to strip everything away.

Only there was no Former.  A strange man with red hair was sitting at the desk, pen in his hand.  He looked up when the door clicked shut, his eyes narrowing as he studied me.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice cracking.  

“Joe,” he said simply, not getting out of his seat.  He looked back down at his book and started to write again.

I waited a beat, but when he didn’t continue I asked the question that was floating around in my head.  “Where’s Former?”

“Dead.”

King of the one-liners.

For about the umpteenth time, I felt like a rug had been dragged out from under my feet.  “What?” I breathed.  My mouth was open, my mind not entirely sure what it was trying to think or feel.  Too many things had happened in the past few minutes for my brain to keep up.  Anything more, and my head would turn into mush.

Joe shrugged, looking down at his book and scribbled for a second, not answering my question.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“Pits.”

A few moments of silence passed as I realized that he wasn’t going to continue.  “Thanks for being so descriptive,” I muttered.  

He glanced up at me, arching an eyebrow.  Then he picked up a thick envelope and held it out to me, bouncing it a few times in his hand when I didn’t make a move to take it.  “Yours,” he said simply.

“Mine?”  I reached out and took it from his fingers, looking down at it.  Neat handwriting was scrawled across the front of the old-style envelope. To Phantom, it read, please give it to him when you see him next.  The envelope was thick, something hard inside.  My world still feeling a little unsteady, my whole universe having been upturned in the past few hours, and I just stood there, staring blankly down at the envelope.  

Joe grunted and I glanced up at him.  “Open?”

Slowly, I ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents into my hand.  The only thing in the envelope was something that looked like a dirty circuit board, hand-welded by someone who didn’t know what they were doing, three buttons fixed to one side.  I looked at it for a long moment before moving my thumb over to gently press one of the buttons.

Nothing happened.

Hey, wonder what it is.  You COULD know, if you go read chapter 18 where I tell you.

The door leading into the Pits suddenly creaked and I jumped, stuffing the small object into my pocket.  One of the guards stuck his head around the door and gestured at me.  “Fight’s ready.  Come on.”

Pulling my arm slowly out of my pocket, I walked over to the guard and stepped through the door, stopping next to the guard as he pulled the thick door shut.  “How did Former die?” I asked after the door had banged shut.

“Rumor has it,” the guard said as we started to walk the corridor towards the arenas, “he attacked Walker.  Cut off a guard’s hand before we even knew he was there.”  The ghost sounded startled that Former had been able to pull it off.  “The guards that were there said he was screaming and yelling about how his brother was dead.”

“So, Walker killed him?”  My gaze had drifted to the floor, watching the well-worn rock pass under my feet.

“Nah,” the guard said.  “Knocked him out and threw him into a cell.  Don’t know when Former’s scheduled to fight, but if he’s not dead yet, he will be soon.”  

I nodded silently, swallowing heavily as we stepped up to the big arena.  I could hear the screaming of the crowds, strangely quiet compared to usual, even before I stepped out onto the cold sand.  “Thanks,” I said softly.

The guard dropped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.  “Fight well, kid.”

Aww… the guards are almost nice by this point.  Wonder if that’ll help the ending at all.

Then the fight was on.

--

My opponent was waiting for me, her head held high, black hair cascading down to her knees.  “We despise these garments,” she said haughty as I took my place and the guards flipped on the shield around us.  “We would much rather wear our dress.”

I’m sorry.  I stole her right out of ‘Bleach’.  I had to kill the annoyance.  This was originally supposed to be the Box Ghost returns.

“Okay,” I answered with a small shrug, pushing all of my problems to the back of my mind.  Parents trapped in Pits, Walker about to ruin my life, my only chances of escape vanishing… not important at the moment.  I had to win this fight.  Shifting onto the balls of my feet, my blades shimmered into existence with a cool trickle of metal.

“Thou art merely a peasant.”  Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me.  “We shalt not challenge one lower than us.”

“Not really an option,” I answered, walking in a circle around her, studying her, ignoring the odd way she was talking and the implied derogatory comments.  She didn’t have anything special that I could see – would Walker really throw me up against someone who couldn’t defend herself?  

Her head twisted, watching me move with a scowl.  “We demand it!”

Rather than answering in words, I slipped towards her, flicking one of the blades towards her face to see how she’d react.  Her eyes widened and she took a small step backwards – one that was a bit too small.  The tip of my blade slid across her cheek and opened up a tiny slice that sluggishly started to ooze ectoplasm.

Her hand came up to her cheek, touching the cut with trembling fingers.  “Thou hast hurt us,” she whispered.  She stared at the green liquid dripping down her fingers, then up at me, her princess-like eyes wide and surprised.

I crouched, ready to attack again.  Getting rid of the ghost wouldn’t take more than a few moments, and I could go back to everything falling apart.  I tensed…

And she screamed.  Power cascaded into her voice and created visible waves of an eerie red power that slammed through the air and crashed into me.  I tripped over backwards, my hands coming up to cover my ears in pain.  Suddenly, I realized that I was screaming as well – screaming in agony.

“Thou shalt not hurt us!” she shrieked, energy gathering around her in a visible haze, the power in her voice keeping me curled up in a ball on the ground.  I watched through narrowed, watering eyes as the ghost’s aura grew and surrounded her in a mist of energy.  Within a few moments, I couldn’t see the ghost anymore.  “Thou shalt PERISH!”

A fierce wind raced through the small arena, blasting away the reddish fog and banishing the last of the agonizing shrieks from the ghost.  Into the suddenly quiet, I could hear my own voice, still screaming.  I forced my mouth shut and scrambled to my feet, staring up into the bloody-red eyes of my opponent.

Who was, not too much to my surprise, a dragon.

Of course.  Aren’t all princesses really dragons in disguise?

The black scales on her face pulled back into a snarl, two-foot-long fangs glistening in the Pits’ lights.  “Perish,” she growled, energy flooding into the simple word, forcing me to stumble backwards a few feet.  Throwing herself onto her hind legs and spreading her night-black wings, the dragon’s head nearly brushed the shield flickering about two-dozen feet overhead.

I blinked up at her for a few moments, trying to figure out the best way to slay a dragon.  My relatively short blades wouldn’t be able to do much more than inflict surface wounds – nothing fatal.  Gaze drifting over the lithe form, I finally centered on the dragon’s neck.  Ghosts didn’t have jugulars, per say, but that was the thinnest place on the ghost’s body.  I’d be able to slice almost half-way through it.

She moved before I could.  Dropping down onto all fours, her head slashed down, snapping at me.  I backpedaled out of the way, slicing at her fangs with my blades.  The sharp, star-silver metal bounced painfully off the dragon’s teeth, sending a shudder through my whole body.  I took a few more steps backwards and then threw myself into the air.  

Her head followed me like a snake, twisting around to follow my flight, murder glinting in her eyes.  When I came too close to her back, her wings suddenly shot out and bashed me out of the way, sending me skidding through the air towards a wall.  “Peasant.  Don’t touch us.”

I caught my balance in the air just before I hit the wall, my feet coming to a rest on the plants like it was a floor as I craned my neck up to look at my opponent.  “How fast are you, dragon?” I whispered, pushing myself back into the air with a burst of speed.  The sudden acceleration left my stomach feeling queasy, the air torn from my lungs, but I got behind her head.  I twisted around and sliced towards her neck, confident that my fight was nearly over.

K-Cling.

The blades bounced right off the dragon’s scales, without even leaving a scratch.

EXCELLENT!  No more slicing and dicing!

“Don’t touch us!” the dragon shrieked, head coming around to snap at me.  

I dodged with a curse, pushing  myself up into the air.  “What the hell?” I hissed as I twirled and looped away from the dragon’s teeth, trying desperately to keep myself from getting caught.  Why didn’t that work?

A plume of cold air was my only warning; I threw myself to the left as the dragon snapped her jaws shut where I had just been.  Then I had to swerve back to the right to avoid getting slashed by claws that were longer than my arm.  “PERISH!” the dragon screamed.

Looping up and over, I caught a quick glimpse of the black dragon as I skimmed the ghost shield.  She was on her hind legs, her front claws ready to strike, her head following my every movement.  One of my arms came up, palm pointed towards the dragon.  Emerald energy coursed through me, headed for my hand.  The blade intercepted it and the energy curled around it like emerald lightning for a fraction of a moment before sizzling through the air, slamming into the dragon’s face much more powerfully than I would have managed on my own.  

With a yell of agony, the dragon dropped to all fours, pawing at her face.  When she looked back up at me, there wasn’t a visible mark on her.  The twin eyes were glowing a murderous red.  Her whole body expanded as she took in a deep breath, then she let it out in a shriek of power.  Visible sound waves blasted through the air and slammed me, chest-first, into the ghost shield.

I screamed as electricity from the ghost shield zapped into me, trying to throw me back into the pit.  The dragon’s screaming, however, was keeping me in place, pain etching through every molecule of my body.  My hands pushed futilely at the shield, desperately attempting to get me away from the arching energy.

Through the screams and the agony that had my eyes screwed shut, I felt something… odd.  Something that, despite the intense pain that was attacking my mind, caught my attention.  I probably wouldn’t have been able to think through the pain if it weren’t for all of Walker’s zappings with the collar.  I was, just a little, getting used to it.

The feeling was in my hands – warm and prickling.  I worked my eyes open for just a moment, watching as silver light played over the hand that was in front of my face.  My hand… my human hand… slipped through the ghost shield.

Important…

Then the dragon’s shrieking stopped, my body succeeded into throwing itself away from the ghost shield, and I found myself dropping through the air, my hands back to their strange half-ghost, half-human state.  I caught myself inches before I slammed painfully into the ground, stopping my fall just long enough to get my feet under me.  My legs sagged when I put weight on them.

Where’s the dragon? I looked up, my breath rasping in a throat that was sore from screaming.  The dragon was studying me, her red eyes burning.

“Don’t touch us,” she snarled at me, her wings settling down on her back.

“That didn’t work,” I breathed to myself.  “Now what?”  The blades, apparently, didn’t work against dragons.  Neither did ectoblasts.  I took a few unsteady steps forwards before pushing myself back into the air to drift closer to her, just out of range of her snapping jaws and sharp claws.  “You like the cold, dragon?”

Haven’t used any ice powers yet.  Had to throw them in somewhere.

She growled in response, her tail lashing towards me.  I had to dodge, trying to keep her face in sight, looking for that odd core of cold that was always inside of me.  The only real problem with my ice powers is that I couldn’t kill a ghost using it.  Ghosts were too inherently cold themselves to be too affected by it.  Damage them, hurt them, trap them, yes.  But I still wouldn’t be able to cut through the dragon’s scales to finish her off.

Dunno if that’s cannon or not.  I made it up.

Hearing the air whistle as her black-scaled tail flew by inches from my ear, I twirled a section of that frozen cold up through my arms.  It slid through my veins, curling into my hands to form an almost visible blue aura.  Within a heart-beat, I had enough power and I threw out my hand, the energy flying away from me like a baseball.  I twisted in the air, following the first blast of energy with the second I’d created in my other hand.  They crashed into the dragon’s chest at almost the same moment, exploding into blue, crystalline ice.

Encased in ice from her neck to her feet, the dragon struggled, throwing her head from side to side.  “Don’t touch us!” she screamed, flexing her body.  When she took a deep breath, the ice shattered around her, sliding to the ground.  Her head flipped towards me, her mouth opening to scream in my direction, but I was already moving.

Another twin set of blasts slammed into her before she could scream, one covering her head in a thick layer of ice, the other freezing her wings to her sides.  “Enough with the screaming,” I said, throwing another ball of the icy energy towards her, wrapping her totally in a frozen cocoon.  “Now, how do I end this?”

The silence didn’t last for more than a few seconds.  Red energy exploded around the dragon, the scream that she’d created sending the ice scattering like tiny spears.  I crossed my arms in front of my face, slipping intangible for the few moments it took the ice to fly through me and skewer into the walls.

I lowered my hands to see how much damage she’d received, and blinked in surprise.  The dragon was wrapped in a red mist – one that seemed to be shrinking.  After just a few moments, the mist scattered, leaving a dazed looking woman behind.  “Don’t touch us,” she murmured, looking around in apparent confusion.  “We will not allow peasants to touch us.”

Whatever the cause of the sudden de-dragoning, I wasn’t about to let it go.  If she managed to turn back into a dragon, I’d be in trouble.  I was almost positive that she was more vulnerable in this form.  I was in the air before I’d even finished the thought, arrowing towards her.

She looked up, her red eyes having time to blink at me just once before I removed her head from her shoulders.  In a cascade of ectoplasm, her body disintegrated.  A small green ghost light formed above the pool of freezing liquid that used to be her, hovered for a moment, then twirled its way through the ghost shield and off into the Pit.

Fight ends… abruptly.  But I had no reason for it to continue and every reason to stop.

--

I walked up the hallway leading out of the Pit, listening to the almost-silent crowd discuss my ‘win’.  The stands had been filled with silent, green-cloaked ghosts – Skulker’s rebels.  The few ghosts that hadn’t been wearing green had been the only ones cheering the end of the fight, and even those had been quickly cut off.  It was almost creepy.  I was used to the loud screaming, jeers, and bets being called out overhead.  The silence was…

“Phantom,” a voice said and I jerked out of my thoughts, staring at the ghost being escorted down the hallway.  “Nice to see you again.”

It was the girl from earlier – the one I’d thought was Dani.  White hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her green eyes filled with danger and sparkling with enjoyment.  Her Pits-style uniform was loose on her small frame, but she moved with the lithe grace of someone who knew how to control herself.  

“I’m Specter,” she said when I didn’t say anything, pausing to hold out her hand.  

I took it, feeling the intense power that cascaded inside of her.  She was nearly as powerful as I was.  “Hi,” I murmured before pulling my hand back.  Shivers were running down my spine as she gazed at me like I was some sort of delicious desert.

She nodded to me, then turned to head towards her fight with a sort of sweeping, creepy grace that a normal girl her age wouldn’t have possessed.  “I will see you soon,” she said to me before she vanished around the corner.

Yes, yes you will.  *creepy*

“I sure hope not,” I whispered, shaking my head.

“Sure hope not what, Punk?”

I froze at the sound of Walker’s voice, dread slamming into me like a brick wall.  

“We have a date, remember?  Let’s go get my knife.”

--

“Holly…” the young woman’s voice drifted into silence as she let the notebook fall from her numb fingers.  “Everything’s falling apart.”

Quietly, she picked up the notebook, paged to the back, and stared down at the photograph still tucked in the back page.  The warm, human faces still shown through the scorch marks and the water stains.  “I wonder if you survived,” she whispered, then sighed.  “Of course you didn’t.  The boy didn’t live since Walker did, and you probably died even before he did.”

She pressed the picture to her chest for a moment, grieving for two people she’d never met.  Then, slipping the picture back to where it was, she paged through the notebook to where she’d left off.  Flipping to the next page, her eyes scanned the short entry.  At the bottom, the words ended in a scrawl, cutting off mid-sentence.  Her forehead wrinkled for a moment as she turned the page again.

There was nothing more.

“Last page,” she breathed, a little worried about what she’d do when there was nothing left for her to read.  But, after a moment, she looked down at the final page of the boy’s notebook and continued to read…