The Psychic Legacy

Chapter 1: Nothing

The darkness was empty.

Everywhere I looked was nothing. A dark, empty void. I wasn't sure which way was up. Here, there was no gravity, no light, no current, no sensation. Just me, my racing heart, and the endless black nothing stretching on and on in every direction. I floated in this nothing, like I was suspended in water, though I felt no wetness on my skin and I could breath just as easily as I did on land.

Where was I?

The last thing I remembered was falling, solid ground giving way to...

My eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness. I could see my hands in front of me, see my hair floating around my head from the corners of my eyes. I turned, trying to make sense of where I was. Above me were splotches of slightly lighter darkness, like being beneath the surface of a murky lake... Only it was like I was sinking to the bottom, never to be found. A shiver of panic began to creep through me.

Where was I?!

I thrashed my limbs, trying to push myself upwards, reaching for the surface, but it did nothing. I couldn't move. I was stuck. I could only float helplessly in the middle of this nothing and sink further and further down.

My heart was pounding in my chest, in my ears. I wanted out. I needed out. It was like the darkness was pressing in... I glanced around frantically looking for something to help me. Anything.

Something caught my eye. In the distance, just beyond the shadow's edge... Something was just floating there, like me. I squinted, trying to make it out...

When my eyes finally focussed on it, my pounding heart stuttered.

Floating there, in the nothingness, was a corpse.

I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. I tried to push away from it, clawing at the nothingness to get away, but of course that did nothing.

I was stuck in here with a dead body.

It took another moment for me to realize that I... I recognized the body. It was the very same corpse from my dream. The floating corpse of the drowned girl. One of the ghost girls...

⟢ ⟡ ⟣

A small, rusted-out compact shot out of the cloud. It flew past me, missing me by inches. I was spun around—propelled by the force of the passing car—and came face to face with a bloated corpse. I choked on my scream and toppled over, the grit of the pavement gouging into the palms of my hands. I ignored the pain and scrambled back, eager to get away.

But waterlogged body didn't chase after me, like I expected it to; it hung limp in the air, hovering a few inches above the ground. Its hair drifted around its rotten head like it was still floating in the water from which it was dragged.

I staggered back to my feet, readying myself to run in any direction... But something caught my eye. Something about the body... It—she? The state of her body made it hard to tell—was wearing pajamas. Wet pajamas. They clung to the grey, swollen body.

⟢ ⟡ ⟣

She had appeared in my dream, in my world. Now it was like I was in her world, floating in the nothing just like she was. I watched her, floating, waiting for her to move or jump or lunge like they do in horror movies...

Suddenly the lights overhead began to glow brighter, chasing back the darkness and blinding me. I barely had enough time to shield my eyes when something whipped out of nowhere and wrapped tightly around my middle. It squeezed the air out of me as it ripped me upwards, into the light.