Lost in Translation: A Collaborative Story

Part 7: Naomi

It was dark and silent. There was nothing that was distinguishable when the four stepped into what had earlier seemed like a portal. Darkness surrounded every single living being that was there, and in a horrifying way, nothing seemed to have a physical bind.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, as if there was a flash grenade that had popped off right in the middle of the room. Rebecca tried to scream but there was no voice that came out. Her eyes closed as an automatic response to a light that blinded her, trying to cover her face and hide from whatever might show up. There was a brief moment of screeches and sirens wailing, and then there were bombs. When Rebecca opened her eyes again, what she saw shocked her in confusion and fear.

They were in the middle of a war.

The swastikas displayed on the arms of soldiers and the blitzkrieg was enough to coerce the ragtag team of ghostbusters into thinking that they were in the middle of World War II. The loud explosions of bombs and guns blazing struck fear into their minds and they scurried off trying to get away from the lines of fire, looking for the way back. Mike had been the first to turn heel, turning around only to find out that the door they had gone through is now gone. There was too much noise for them to hear each other screaming at each other, questioning what to do. To their surprise, Aunt pulled on all of them and quickly ran for a broken wall nearby. Finally they could hear each other, albeit shouting.

"What the fuck happened? How did we end up in the middle of a fucking war?" Mike shouted out, directing his questions to his aunt.

"The only possible answer is that this was the timeline that started it all. Considering how it's a war and there's too many dead bodies lying around I'd say someone was tinkering with trying to make a war machine to raise the dead to make themselves an undead army." Aunt replied with a grin on her face, excitement showing. She was clearly in on the idea of trying to take down some madman.

"Well how are we supposed to find out whatever the fuck is happening when we're in the middle of everything right now?" Devian looked around concerned, trying to see if there was anywhere safer than this broken wall that they were hiding behind.

There was a squeak of sorts and the three looked beside them. Rebecca pointed at the sky. It was the same green tinted sky with the creepy smiles looking down on them from the roof of their school. And there was a thin funnel like cyclone in the middle of what seemed to be a thunderstorm, with grey and black spots circling around it. It was the spirits of the dead around them, getting sucked into the cyclone and raised up to the sky where there was lightning flashing by everytime a ghost got sucked in.

"That's it! That's where the energy is coming from! This is where it all started!" Aunt had stood up, arms wide laughing maniacally at the sky. Devian quickly pulled her back down as a bullet shot right past her ear. "Stay down goddammit!"

"Guys! We need to get out of here now!" Rebecca shouted at them. But there was something off about her. And it took Mike a long second to realize that she was getting paler with every moment that passed. "Rebecca...you..."

Rebecca gave Mike a questioning look and looked down on her body. She had started faintly glowing, and her feet were no longer touching the ground. "Oh no." Aunt had noticed this and banged the device that she had at hand on the wall, making it whirr loudly again. There was another glowing light in front of them and the door had reappeared. The four of them held hands once more but there was no hand to hold.
"Okay I definitely need to cut back on the weed for sure." Mike exclaimed out loud.

"You don't say?" Devian gave him a quivering smile, trying his hardest not to panic.

Before any of them could even try to reach for the door, it had disappeared once again. And the wall behind the four had been destroyed by the flurry of bullets and explosions. Each of them had ducked, praying they didn't get hit. But to their surprise, the group of armed men had just gone past them, completely ignoring the outsiders.

Devian had the quickest wit. "I think we're seeing a reflection of what happened." He slowly started walking over to a dying soldier a few feet away from where the others had stood despite Rebecca's qualms. He tried to touch the man, but his hand only got through his body. "I think we're ghosts right now."

"We couldn't have died trying to get past the door did we?" Mike slowly started getting up, still wary of everything that was around him.

The machine in Aunt's hand beeped. Without a second's notice, she started sprinting towards an alley that was up ahead from where they stood. Rebecca quickly followed behind her and had a look of shock on her face. There was a little girl sitting in front of them behind another broken wall. Her catlike eyes were enough of a sign to tell Rebecca that this was the same ghost she had earlier tried to touch, egg salad in hand. The thought of egg salad made her hungry and crave for it.

The machine beeped again and Aunt exclaimed towards the green sky. "There has to be something that's triggering that to happen."

"Yo, this is some Back to the Future bullshit." Devian exasperatedly said out loud, sighing in contempt at what was happening. "Let me guess, there's a time machine in there that's causing an influx of whatever energy there is that's causing the ghost phenomenon in our time making the ghosts from the war appear?"

"Actually, that is quite possible." Aunt said without a doubt in her voice.

"Guys! Look what I found!" Rebecca waved at the boys. She was pointing towards the ground. The little drawing was quite faded but it one could still tell what it was. Aunt had walked over as well and scratched her chin, dumbfounded.

It was clear as day that the sign on the ground was a drawing of a pentagram, and the little girl was right in the vicinity of it. Mike, being the punk that he was, had scuffled his foot over the lines and broke the circle. The little girl had suddenly collapsed, dead. Rebecca held back from screaming, tears welling up on her eyes as she watched the life of the little girl fade away. But thanks to Mike's messing with the pentagram, the cyclone in the sky seemed to get angered, however slowing down.

"More like a scene out of a poltergeist movie." Mike put his hands on his pockets as he watched the world literally burn with the bombs and guns going off. "We need to head back to our own time first, I think."

Aunt had been looking at the sky this whole time. Her machine continued its beeping. And the sky had become even greener than it was. "We need to go. Now." She racked up the machine again, pressing buttons and cursing under her breath. Finally, with a wide grin on her face, the machine started whirring once more and the door opened up in front of them. She motioned for everyone to quickly get through.

Devian looked at the carnage. He was devastated. "Guess Hitler really wanted to win the war." Mike and Rebecca were standing in front of the door while Aunt had already gone through. Devian quickly walked up to them and nodded.

"Guess we're doing this again huh?" Devian sighed.

"I guess we are." Mike had started to light another joint.

"Hopefully we don't end up in some time like this." Rebecca's anxiety kept rising, her craving for egg salad even stronger now. At the back of her mind, she had pieced the puzzle together and came up with the theory that whatever machine or ritual was involved, it was fueled by either egg salads or the physical bodies of the ghosts that were in the vicinity of the pentagrams they saw. The taste of blood had come up to her cheeks now, but she refused to acknowledge it.

Then they all stepped through the door once more.

---

Written by Naomi, just an emo cat who tries.my twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nekoasumi

https://wattpad.com/user/nekoasumi