Daylight
1048 Words
"Is he really gone?", Idris asked, contemplating whether or not to challenge Kenny if an opportunity ever came again.
"We can't confirm that, now", Ada replied.
They were walking out of the camp to take their bath.
"Only if the guy would return and tell us what's out there", Chuma added. "Look! It's the soldier".
Kenny appeared with new clothes for them. He looked at Chuma with a mild smile on his face. They collected clothes and parted. The girls went to their bathing section and the guys went to theirs.
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"What am I supposed to do? How do I become a ghost and live again?"
Stanley bent down. "Look", he packed some sand and threw it in the air, creating an illusion. As Stanley spoke, images were formed in the sand, illustrating. "You are a mixture of both sides... You can choose to be human, just like you are, now. You can choose to be ghostly. That's how you walked through the wall. The same way, you can get into The Daylight. Every thing you have on you may fall off".
"Uhn? I'll be naked?"
"Literally, yes... You have to turn everything on you, ghostly".
"Hey! Why are you saying it all like you already gave me procedures? do I just say 'hey cloth, turn ghostly' or what?"
"You made a ghostly knife real. It's the same way.... Every thing you convert becomes a subject to your mind."
"The same way I can control the knife"
"Exactly", Stanley said. "We have to go. I'll explain the rest when we get there".
Joe closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled, repeatedly.
"That's it", Stanley said and pulled Joe.
Joe felt like he was walking through a bubble. He got to the other side and felt the unusually satisfying breeze; the kind of breeze that could make a person spend an entire lifetime on bed.
"Wow! it's so cold", Joe commented.
"It's so normal here... Welcome to Daylight".
"Thank you... so what's happening?... I can stay here for a while, right?"
"When we solve the problem, maybe", Joe replied, as he walked behind Stanley.
They walked on what felt like ice but it didn't feel too cold. It felt like paradise and everything seemed to satisfy it's inhabitants.
As they walked on, Joe saw a car approaching. For a second, the car disappeared and reappeared, the next second. The image would go blur, clear and blur again, disappearing and appearing again. The sound of the approaching vehicle was oddly inconsistent. It would make noise for a second and go mute in the next.
"Why does it feel so weird here? you guys have cars, too?"
"No", Stanley replied, without looking back. "The car is a facade, here. You'll see similar things; even things you recognize. They are all from the real world. You can only see and hear".
They kept walking. Joe could see big buildings, in the shape of huts. As they approached, two men walked out of a building. They waved and Stanley waved back.
The two men rushed to the other buildings, banging the doors and shouting, "He found a conduit! Stanley brought us a conduit!".
People ran out of the buildings to meet the two of them.
"It's a new environment, guys", Stanley addressed them. "Let him rest... Then we'll talk".
As they were about to proceed into the building, an horrifically loud lightning struck. Joe looked behind him, instinctively, where they were walking from. He saw a kind of portal open, in the sky, and two people fell down from it.
"What was that, Stan?"
"Many people just died... Two people fell there".
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Akeem couldn't think properly. All he could do was run as fast as he could.
The wild dog kept snarling and growling. Akeem could see bushes around. He was contemplating whether to go in and climb a tree or keep running and avoid the risk of slipping into the jaws of a wild animal.
He turned to his left as he saw a tree which seemed easy to climb. While praying silently and looking back, consistently, he missed a step and fell on his back.
The wild dog jumped on his face, pinning him down with it's claws. Akeem's vision got blurred and the rate of his heartbeats multiplied. He couldn't imagine what he was about to go through.
He simply calmed himself and he felt no pain. His eyes closed and the cold breeze sedated him.
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"The thing is, he can't die but he can be tormented", one man said to Joe as he ate cereals from a bowl. He didn't have to do some meditation and magic to make use of things. Apparently, in Daylight, he could only use ghostly things. If he was going to introduce any tool from the real world, he'd have to convert them. Same applied to the knife. He had to convert it back to it's initial ghostly form.
"You can still feel pain?", Joe asked.
"Yes, we feel pain", Stanley replied. "If any one of us got killed, we'd only take a nap for a few minutes and wake again.... they could kill Toby, over and over again".
"May I ask how he got captured?"
The first man brought a weirdly shaped mirror. "This is godmode... There used to be a time when we were ignorant of conduits so it was impossible for us to interfere with the course of events in real life.... We had godmode. godmode helped us to see the future of ourselves and our beloved ones alive... Lately, the godmode stopped working. It became blind and no one could see anything. There is another godmode in the Other Side of Day. Toby got captured while trying to get it."
"Ok... but what do you need a conduit for?", Joe asked
"Whatever they are doing to Toby, they are capable of doing same to us", Stanley replied. "You, as a conduit, have the power to convert and subject converted materials to the control of your mind... The job is to get Toby and the godmode"
"Ok... I need to know what I'm about to face... What's in the Other Side of Day?"
"You have to see for yourself.... Prepare for the worst"
- Writer
