Lost in Translation: A Collaborative Story

Part 9: Lycan

Rebecca wanted to forget, but the itch inside her brain wouldn't allow it. At first it was a buzz. Sensations and emotions that struck her unexpectedly. Tears streamed from her face, but anger swelled in her chest. The impossible feeling of something squirming into her ear and around her brain.

"The portal, did you close it?" She asked as Aunt brought her a hot cup of tea. "We should stop-"

"We can't stop, Becca. The entire universe is at stake. It's not just our world the soul harvesting is messing with. All galaxies, all planes of existence, rely on the balance of the dead and undead souls of the universe."

Rebecca thought it was an earthquake that made her whole body shake, but Aunt looked at her with concern. Then the teacup slipped from her fingers and hot tea splashed all over Rebecca's hands and legs. Even Rebecca knew it was weird not to react to the hot tea, but she hadn't felt it.

Something slithered to the edges of her mind, a ghost of a thought, that something had followed her back through the portal. It tickled her brain, and she knew that wasn't normal. She looked at her shaking hands, old and withered, her once young and mobile hands felt stiff and achy. She longed to look in a mirror but the idea of seeing anyone other than herself from five minutes ago made her wish the thing in the void had finished her off then.

Laughter filled the room and it took Rebecca a moment to realize it came from her own throat.

Aunt stared at her, took a step back.

Rebecca got to her feet and heard the words, 'You'll get your wish,' whispered in her ear. A slimy tendril curled around her brain and squeezed until blinding white pain made her lose her vision. She screamed, the space behind her eyeballs filling up with a pressure so intense, it was as though something wiggled and lodged itself in the space between her eye and the back of the socket.

She heard her aunt shrieking, "Not here, not now!"

Slimy tentacles pushed through her fingertips, they tore her skin like paper, wrapped around her bones and kept her together like some twisted puppet. They wrapped around Aunt's frame and all Rebecca felt was the searing pain from every inch of her body as it fell apart.

Aunts choked gasps grew weaker and weaker.

When Rebecca could see again, she no longer had eyes. Or rather, she watched the tentacles pop her eyes out from her corpse's face. The jaw stretched unnaturally wide to let loose a laughter that was anything but her own. Aunt held an unfortunate, similar fate, and Rebecca flew with desperation to the other room where Mike and Devian casually watched the portal continue to exist.

She knew immediately they couldn't see her. She picked up a book, surprised at the weight of it in her hands. She could interact at least with inanimate objects. What if...

She passed through Mike and Devian, unable to possess them to let them know of the danger they were in. Well, damn. Rebecca searched every corner of the room, but they'd somehow managed to lose all writing utensils into the void where the things you needed but could never find went to die. So instead, she picked up a glass unicorn inscribed with her name and made sure they saw it before she threw it across the room, it hit a wall, and shattered.

They looked at the wall and back at her. Could they see her now?

But their eyes were black, pupiless voids. Their smiles grew beyond the natural ability of their faces, and they saw her. The thing controlling their minds saw her. With both their minds gone, who would stop the soul harvesting?

It was a wonder why Rebecca was the only one who was both dead, and a ghost. Maybe she'd ended up in some parallel universe where her soul could live on, and the others had simply died as normal. It wasn't a far off thought, considering everything they'd been through up until now. But now, her emotions weren't hitting her the same way. Aunt was dead. Mike and Devian were basically dead, or about to die. Yet here she was, devoid of the sadness she knew should be there. It was as though all her emotions were left behind.

But no, she cared what happened to the universe. She at least had to close the portal. If she could do that, perhaps she could stall the things that were happening. With the portal closed, she'd have time to round up a new group of saviors to take down the soul harvesting baddies and comb through Aunt's files until they found a way to save everyone. Aunt's files! That was it! She floated through the walls, to the basement.

There were files everywhere, but Aunt always felt like she'd had secrets.

Rebecca decided to check behind the walls. Secret doors normally existed in a child's imagination and not in real life, but Aunt had never quite grown up, and Rebecca found the secret room almost immediately. She didn't have much time before the thing in the house found her, and she didn't even know if it could interact with her. Or maybe her soul would be harvested before she could close the portal. She didn't have time to waste thinking about that.

The book she needed was laid out on a table. A book about the portals, how to use, and how to close. It looked as though Aunt had been reading it before everything went down, and she'd gotten trapped in the void between time and space. And brought that thing back with her.

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This chapter written by Halfbloodlycan, a writer of weird things in the realm of fantasy and horror.https://www.wattpad.com/user/halfbloodlycan