PENUMBRA - An Afterlife Story

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There was another thing which Danielle had never seen before. Again, it was uncomfortably similar to the traits of an Umbra, and that thought gave her unhappy pause. But the timbre of his voice told her that he didn't feel much differently about his fanged maw, and his words confirmed her suspicions.

"...You're in Potter's Field," she told him, her heartstrings tugging at her for this sad, faceless boy. "My name is Danielle. This is my friend's bar. Why don't you come inside?"

The streets weren't safe, even for those who knew what lurked there.



There was a hand on her mouth, a human hand, and a human man-voice hissing into her ear. This wasn't right, this wasn't how the game went, because she knew that when the thing touched her she went poof, fizzled out, dissolved into nothing just like all the others. So it was a person, a real real person? A real dead person. Dead as a doornail, dead like her. It made her stop screaming, which was funny because she didn't know she knew how to stop screaming. And then there was a hand on her hand, her ugly ugly nasty hand, and it made her sob a little in the long dark corridor because he would feel and he would know and then he'd leave and she'd be all alone again. But if he didn't, if he didn't leave, it was horrible anyway because she wasn't pretty and he would see it and then she'd cry, cry, cry...



Krystaline... Help me!

It was a voice which Krystaline would recognize anywhere. Daniel's voice. Daniel was calling her...
 
Krystaline felt her body jump at the sound of Daniel's voice. She felt tears well in her but she blinked them away. She wanted so badly to jump down and run to him, help him... but she couldn't trust just a voice. "Daniel...? Daniel is it really you?" she called back, her skeletal hand gripping the rope.
 
Sapphire was half running, she weren't curtain where they should go, she weren't even certain if the guy she had met were with her anymore. not because she cared that much, if they didn't hurry they would be doomed, if you can't hold the pace then they need to learn to take care of themselves. Even if they can hold the pace they need to take care of themselves, the most people would abandone you if your umbra came.
She had been all alone the first time the umbra came, and she had almost been caught by it. Just as she fell and weren't able to run anymore the sun went up. She had been lucky and had unconsciously been running to her haunt, she was in her safe zone. That night had been her longest night in both life and death. It hadn't appeard after that, but she had only been there in about four days so it could come whenever. As she walked around and asked people about her father she had also gotten information about the umbras.
She thought that if the guy were able to keep her tempo untill they were on a safer spot then she would tell him what she now, if he hadn't heard about it.

She weren't sure where she should go but caught herself standing outside the bar. She had never been in there before, she had just past it. This time she would go in, she hadn't time to chose another place.
She opend the door to the bar while turning around to ask the guy who she didn't know if he were with her or not "Oy were you able to keep up?"
 
Her answer didn't enlighten him, but being acknowledged was somewhat comforting, even if he only saw pity in her eye. He hadn't needed people in life, or at least that's what he'd told himself, and maybe he was being too trusting, but now that he knew there were others like him around, he wanted to stick around the city a little while longer.

"Joshua," he told her, and introduced himself the same way to the barman and skeletal figure after he followed her into the bar. He positioned himself next to the stool Danielle had been sitting on, shoving his good hand into his pocket. He doubted anyone wanted to shake it, anyway.
 
They hadn't run for very long when the girl stopped at the door to a ramshackle bar. She turned around.

"Oy, were you able to keep up?" she asked.

Alex simply nodded in reply. He walked up next to her, they now both stood upon the doorstep. He looked around. The dark was pressing in. If there was any safety to be had now was the time. He placed his hand on the doorknob and with a firm grip, turned it and pushed the door open. Alex took one step through the door and halted. "What in the hell...?" Already occupying the bar were three "people". Behind the bar stood a man with a stitched face. Seated at the bar in front of him were a woman with long dark hair, and what Alex assumed was perhaps a young man. The boy, if that's what it was, was grotesquely disfigured. Alex stood there just within the threshold. Unsure of his next move, he decided to let one of these strangers make the next one.
 
"Oy, were you able to keep up?" Sapphire asked and turned around towards him. He nodded and walked up to the doorstep beside her. Sapphire almost wanted to apologise to him because she almost had abandone him, but she decided not to. The guy opened the door to the bar and went in with Sapphire closely behind him. She noticed how stiff he got when he saw the people in there, it was three of them. Sapphire had never seen so many at the same time before, all the times she had been out there had been one or maybe two at the same place. But she hadn't been there for so long so ofcourse she didn't know everyone and hadn't seen everything, far from it actually.
Even though Sapphire hadn't been dead for so long she had already gotten used to how the people looked, so the three people in the bar didn't disturb her at all, but she realised that it disturbed the guy she were with.
Sapphire closed the door behind her and gave a clap on the guys shoulder
"You want to sit down or are you going to stand here the whole day?" She said to make him relax a bit.
 
The chills where overbearing, running up and down his broad spine. Even the bloody, wet, sticky, and soaked hairs on the back of his neck where threatening to stand up. He had been sitting there for hours, waiting, shaking from the cold that licked at his now pale skin and trying to hear any little sound that lay outside the room he barricaded himself in. At one point, he could no longer keep his eyes open and his muscles where stiffening from the position, the imagines of his timely demise behind the darkness of his lids jolted him back to awareness. Would this be his life from now on?

He gave up trying to sleep now, opting to stay up and listen to the quietness of the place he now felt routed to. He had been up for four days straight before when he was within enemy territory. The gun blast and screams from miles away where enough to haunt any man, veteran or not. So he could do this. At least until he could take the quiet and settle down the nightmares that would threaten to immerge. Though he doubted those would give him enough rest to go through his reoccurring routine and come back to this.


Swallowing a large wad of spit that came down hard and burned his throat, he felt it come down his neck and out the large gash. The liquid now trailing down with the ever flowing blood that would no longer stain his cloths. He was a mess and every shiny reflection attested to that. He did not know how long it had been. His mind was now trailing off into nothingness as the hours and minutes ticked by. He didn't want to think, all he wanted to do was wait for the morning to come. Perhaps in the light he would find safeness that the darkness no longer provided him. But no, nothing was ever easy for him. Well not anymore, anyways.

The screams he heard suddenly where no longer of his son, or his daughter. It was something…..more evil. Like someone was getting tortured to death. The very thought of going out to investigate crossed his mind often but then it stopped. No warning, no fading out, just stopped. Everything was once again quiet yet for some reason he could not shake off the feeling that something was watching, waiting, hunting. All for him.

In all his years in the military he could not fathom why he had the sixth sense he had. He always knew before anything occurred that something was going to happen. But his career demanded his absolute loyalty to the cause with no hesitation. He went bravely into the heat of battle knowing that there was a possibility he could die that very moment and leave his family alone. Shaking his head, he stood and stretched his muscles, he had to brave it. He had to find out who screamed. It sounded like a woman. He was never one to leave a woman like that when it clearly sounded that she needed help. Damn his chivalry. Didn't he learn anything from what happened to his ex-wife.

Bracing himself, he tensed his muscles and pushed the heavy equipment that he braced against the door, the screeching sound of the metal on the floor was enough to make his ears bleed a bit. Once done, he opened the door slightly, his head coming out to look into the dark halls. There was no light, it was just dark and he could not see well.

When nothing chopped his head off, he sighed heavily and ventured out; making sure his steps where light and he did not make a sound. He had no weapons, but he had his fist. It was better than nothing and with his broad frame, his extensive martial art and hand to hand combat training he would come out alright. Of course. It was not like there where monsters out there, tracking him. Wanting to kill him. It was ridiculous.…..Wasn't it?
 
Sapphire went from the guy she were with towards the others in the bar.
"Hey, I'm on the search for a guy about 39 years old, almost bald and with the same marks and skin colour as me, seen someone like that around here?" She said to the people in the bar.
Sapphires eyes went towards the guy behind the bar with stitched face, what could have happend to him? But he were kind of hot for a dead guy. She hadn't seen many people she had felt attracted to since she died.
But guys weren't her first priority at this point, she needed to find her father, and maybe teach this newb some things about this place. Or at least tell him what she knew, which wasn't much yet, she hadn't meet that many that had told her things since she got there.
 
There it was again. That blasted shotgun blast. He had heard it before and every single time it left him with a sense of dread. Like no matter who it was or where it was coming from, it would stab into his mind with an image of those children, huddled in the corner of their livng room staring down the barrel of his own shutgun. Yet still, no matter how many times he though of tht instance it effected him the same. Intense rage. Stanidng swiftly, his face flushed, the shotgun in his lap dropped to the floor and he charged out of his garage. "DAMN YOU! GET MY ASS OUT OF HERE 'FORE I START BEATIN PEOPLE!!!"

Stanidng there his chest puffed out and his breath rapid and deep, he looked back and forth out to the dreary scenery before him. He saw nothing. As usual. Maybe it was just his imagination playing tricks with him. Sighing he decided to take a trip to the local bar and have himself a drink, wether it would clear his mind or not the actions themselves would help.

So he walked down the driveway, his burnt charred skin crinkling and making small crunching noises with every movement. It was only a couple blocks to the bar itself, yet it took him a good amount of time to get there as he was so used to driving around when he was alive, and his truck was in absolutely no shape to be driven around in here. Yet still eventually he made it. Walking in he ignored everyone and sat down in an empty seat at the bar with a great sigh.
 
There was a thud. A sudden awakening ability for those to wake from a dream. The chance to wake up from a nightmare that haunts one's sleep. This certainly was a nightmare. Dante stared at the millions of grains of sand that surrounded him, listening to the lulling quell of water farther out from him. He wondered where he was, and why he was at the remnants of a pier that had long since decayed and became just a bridge to the deep waters. Thoughts seemed to be on hold, memories stilled as though frantically catching up from the past events. What happened? What did he do? What happens now?

There was no urge to move. No want to look and rethink it all. Everything just happened so fast; too fast.

Slowly, Dante tucked his arms beneath him to pick himself up. He staggered along the unsteady shift of the sand, catching his balance easily enough. A clanking sound of metal came from his right ankle, and the chafing feel against his pant leg proved that what he heard wasn't just imaginary. Creeping down, he stared at the object attached to his leg. It was a shackle and chain that connected to a heavy metal box. Curiously, the man crawled towards the object that was shallowly embedded in the sand, hoping to examine it. As he went closer toward it, a chill of air swathed over his back, tingling his spine. Dante stopped dead in his tracks as realization hit him.

He bolted, only to have a face full of sand. Feverishly, he tried to crawl away, clawing and scratching at the surface beneath him that only moved and shifted capriciously. In vain attempt, he pulled, and pried, and even attempted to use debris that scattered along the sand from the pier without any luck. Frustrated and fearful, he cried out. A raucous cry of anguish because he knew now, he knew what he had done. Fearfully, he patted himself, checking to see if his body was entirely there, but found smears of blood on his fingertips. In an examination of his arms, he saw cuts and shards of glass embedded. With an attempt to pull them out, they only seemed to hook deeper into his flesh.

"Oh, Christ… this can't be true. I am still alive. That douche bag in the office must have slipped me a jimmy or something. This can't be right."
 
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Back towards town, it was the only way to go, right?

I thought I would wake up by the roadside, covered in scratches and gravel. I thought there was a small chance of waking up in a hospital bed, by family around me, smiles greeting my eyes. What I did not expect was...

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It was the decaying works of man, their trace tainted by time and ruin. I was confused, though I was dreaming, hallucinating. There was no way this was the town I had known just... how long had I been out? The rubble pressed uncomfortably against my back and I sat up. Discomfort, I had to be awake, I. Thats when I noticed the glove, gauntlet, whatever you want to call it, funny I noticed it before I noticed the hole in my chest.

"This can't be, this can't be what I wanted, this can't be... death?"

Confused and alone is never a good combination, I began talking to myself. Staggering to my feet and walking, I have no Idea where I was heading or who I would meet but I just hat to get out of there, Away from the horrid truth of my own mortality. Its one thing to wish to die and another entirely to know that you have. Reality? Stability? Reason? they stop meaning a damn thing when you shuffle off your mortal coil. But being dead does not mean you're out of danger, as we'll learn.

I continued on passing through a door, the lintel and frame cracked and the door itself nowhere to be seen. It was then that I took stock of my surroundings, no sounds that I could head, to wind, to birds, I half expected to hear the beating of my own heart, but then I reminded myself I'd never hear that again.

I raised the hand with the glove, as if this one enigma were responsible for my dilemma I began to hate it, grabbing it with my left hand I tried to pull it from my hand but it wouldn't move. I grabbed a splinter of wood from the floor and tried to force it beneath the glove. It was as if it wanted me to know it's disapproval. Pain shot up my arm and wracked my brain making me fall to my knees. It was then that I realized even though I chose death, I never wanted to die.
 
It was only seconds after Danielle had led Joshua inside of Tyson's when the new pair of ghosts showed up. The man stood in the doorway, staring; Danielle averted her gaze, turning back to the faceless boy. It was almost comfortable, somehow, when she got over the strangeness. She couldn't feel Josh's eyes on her the way she could with others. Like the man at the door, the one with the nasty black veins that made her think of the tendrils in the dark.

"How long have you been here, Joshua?" she asked him quietly, as the new girl flirted with Tyson and asked about a man whose description Danielle didn't recognize.



"Sorry, darling. Haven't seen him." Tyson blinked, nonplussed, his eyes going from the teenage girl to the man at the door who'd shown up with her. Add in Jules and Danielle's new friend, and this place was getting pretty crowded all of a sudden. "Any way I can help if I do? I'll keep a lookout."

As he talked, he waved to the veiny guy, motioning for him to come on in. He looked like he was waiting for an invitation. And when the door opened again to let in a man burnt crispier than he'd once liked his toast, he turned his Chelsea grin on the newcomer and offered a hello.

Tyson's was open to everyone.



Why weren't they moving moving moving they were like ducks and they would die, snapped up like a duck on the river by a big crocodile like she'd seen on the TV once in another lifetime and she couldn't feel her

Why was it so

quiet




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​

As Kim stepped into the trashed bookstore, wandering through the darkened shelves, she heard the distinct sound of fluttering stacks of paper toppling against moth-eaten carpet.

She was not alone.



Krystaline! Help me! Where are you?! Daniel's voice was shrill with agony. He was outside of the church, and he was in pain.

Please! He begged her. Where are you?

Krystaline…



As Matthew crossed the threshold into the hospital corridor, there was a soft scratching sound, and the tile under his feet slowly became uneven and wooden and brightly colored, and if he squinted in the dark, he could make out boxes and letters and numbers. It was something any parent would find familiar.

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​


And then the crying began. Soft little snuffles, barely audible, building to a thunderous crescendo of childlike sobbing, then echoing down the hall and growing ever closer, closer to where he stood.

Something was coming. The walls bled candy stripes.

In the opposite direction, he could still hear the woman scream, though muted, like she had been submerged in a bathtub and held under.



Two new figures rose from the lengthening shadows of the cityscape, clawing their way into coherent form. One scuttled toward the waterfront, struggling against itself as it ran on doglike paws, pushing and pulling and going nowhere fast. The other slipped out the door of a ruined bank, straightening its bowtie as its unsightly head throbbed and pumped in hideous rhythm.

Potter's Field was filling more plots.



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Alex looked about this suddenly crowded, dingy little establishment. Here he was, dead for sure and surrounded by ghoulish figures. He returned the gaze of the stitch-faced freak and smiled warmly. "Bet you were a pretty-boy once upon a time." he thought to himself, sizing up the stranger's rogueishly fashionable attire.

"Thanks, man." he addressed the man behind the bar as he took a seat. "The warm welcome is appreciated, but can I ask you, what is going on? I just bumped into this young lady on the street and we hoofed it here. Come to think of it, in all the hurry I don't think we got a chance to even get acquainted."

He turned sideways on the bar seat and looked back to the young girl he had followed here. He shot her an inquisitive look. "Who is this guy she's so set...heheh DEAD set on finding? Older...her father? An uncle? Maybe she had an older man in her life." Alex snorted mentally at that thought. She had probably been pretty once, but kids were not his thing. In any case she was no Sarah. No, there was something lacking in her eyes. Still though, it never hurt to see if there was any more use to be had from her.
 
It took me longer than you might think to realize the building I was in was a hospital, or had been at some point. The crunch of rubble beneath my feet was oddly comforting, familiar, as was the dist on the walls beneath my fingers. The small things that were unchanged. My growing calm however was not to last.

My feet disturbed the blocks after who knows how long they had been lying there, an indication this was once the childrens' ward. My mind tried to read what message they spelled, or had before I had inadvertently kicked them. Nothing revealed itself and I looked forwards.

We are creatures of instinct, especially in unfamiliar surroundings, there are a few sounds we are hard wired to hate. Screams and crying are the two most prevalent. I always liked to think of myself as someone who would rush to a person's aid id they were in trouble. As the walls leaked their paint I began wondering if this was the effects of a drug or a blood starved brain. Still not fully accepting I was dead, I'm a slow learner. I did however back away from the sobbing, sliding though a door pinned half open by fallen rubble and hiding myself behind it but horrid fascination is a cruel mistress and hi eyes were drawn to the crack between the door and it's frame, a thin sliver of visibility I'd be able to look through with little danger of being seen.
 
Krystaline couldn't stand to hear that voice. "Daniel! I'm coming!" she yelled climbing down as fast as she could and running towards the front of the church. She tried pulling the benches out of the way, but it was taking her forever. She yelled in frustration and ran back to the pile, climbing up it again and grabbing onto the rop. She yelped, feeling the pile fall over and she dangled in the air. She cried pulling herself up slowly but surely. She pulled herself up to the roof. "I'm coming Daniel, don't worry," she yelled trying her best to reach the roof as fast as she could.
 
In a daze, Dante sat in the sand trying to make sense of everything. The last thing he remembered was the argument, the awful persistence that he was right. That snobbishness of knowing everything that finally took over and brought him where is was. It had become too much, and so… to finally prove it to himself and to everyone else he knew, he jumped. Out past the window, through the 10th story of the building of which the company he worked for had owned for years. He remembered the air whistling past his ears, the enlightening feel of free fall. One thing he also remembered, was the heart grabbing fear that flooded his body and his mind. He was about to die. He was going to hit that pavement, a car, a pedestrian… it didn't matter how, but rather, what mattered was the obvious end. So here he was, in a place he did not recognize, with a restraining object to his leg. That bastardly object attached to his leg…

The thought had occurred to him many times to try and remove it. Throughout those many times, he remembered that he was unable. His pent up energy that he had prepped to move suddenly expelled in a frustrated sigh as he looked out to the lake. It looked the same. Always looked the same. He could stare at it for hours upon hours yet it would still look the same. It only frustrated him more.

Once more, the wafting breeze chilled his body causing a necessary urge to move. Instead of bolting, he tried dragging the object attached to his leg, pulling it with great effort. It did budge, though, if only a little bit. The fact that he could indeed move, gave Dante even a little bit of hope that he can find his way out of the place he was in and find a way back to life. So he pulled even more, struggling for what seemed like hours until his body collapsed. Breathing heavily, he rested on his hands and knees trying to regain his energy to get away from the beach he was stranded on. To his surprise, there were speckles of blood littering the glinting sand, giving a new appearance to the dull brown that stretched onwards.

Dante checked his body-- no, it wasn't him. He didn't cause the blood. There was a trail, as far as he could see, that led along the shoreline, and it was there he saw a figure. It was a man. The body laid with his arms stretched behind him, holding him up, while he legs bent upward as though he was knocked down in that position. Dante watched as the man's neck slowly began to slit open, blood spewing everywhere along his already stained shirt. The man toppled over to his side, staring directly towards his onlooker, a pool of blood stretching out along the ground and became swept up by the sea's gentle waves.

The sight was too much to bear, and Dante wretched, coughing so much he felt like he was choking until his own blood speckled out along the sand. His eyes widened with fear as he questioned to himself what the hell was going on.
 
"Damn it" Sapphire started to wonder if he would be here at all, but it had just been some days so she shouldn't give up. He must be here, there shouldn't be any doubts about it. "Thanks anyway" She said to the guy with stitches in his face.

"The warm welcome is appreciated, but can I ask you, what is going on? I just bumped into this young lady on the street and we hoofed it here. Come to think of it, in all the hurry I don't think we got a chance to even get acquainted." The guy seemed to have come out of his chock. Sapphire laughed a bit when he called her a young lady. She had never seen herself as a lady.
"Yeah, sorry about that, I'm Sapphire." She told him "I have been here less than a week so I would like to know some things to" She looked at the others in the bar.
"So, do you guys know something about this place? Like what those creatures are that comes out at night?" She asked and sat down at a chair. All she knew was that they were dead and those things that came out at night were dangerous.
 
The still darkness of the hospital was stunning, and not in a good way. He started making slow,but wide, steps towards the lighter end of the hall. but the further he went, the more fear would creep up his spine, the feeling of being skulked by some kind of monster nearly shot his mind. Richardbegan grinding his teeth together to hold on to his sanity, letting him know he was still alive,(sorta) still breathing, and still moving. Price might have been a little slow but if he started to rush it who knows what he'd run himself into, and with this woman he had with him, it'd be worse to get her killed as well.


He gripped her hand tighter and strted walking in more sped-up matter, not because it he was slow, but he could feel something. Something sick, something deranged, something... evil. Whatever it was, it was close and was hunting the both of them. The sick feeling of horror serged through his blood, making him almost want to scream, scream until blood spilled from his lungs. But he had to stay calm and move quickly, otherwise they'd be killed by some creature that knows him or herbetter than any predator. Richard reached back putting his arm around the woman's waist and whispered "Stay calm", so that she wouldn't freak out and hit him or something.


After about a few more steps they were finally in the light, Richard lifted his hands in the air while he shook and bowed his head, "Thank you Jesus", breathed from his skull's mouth. They may have been out of the dark, but weren't in the clear yet, they still had to get out of the hospital or psychiatric ward, either way this place was wierd to him. Before he started to turn and see the person he just helped out, he looked down and his hand and noticed blood on it. It laced across his gloves like cuts, while the other had both blood and smeared lip stick, if he had an eyebrow it'd raised right about now. "Hmm..?" he thought, Richard slowly eased his dead eyes forward and saw the features of his companian. Cuts covered her body, a few bruises here and there, and lip stick wiped across her lips. From seeing her like that, he instantly realized why she was hiding like that, she must have thought she was hideous. But from his view, that wasn't the case.
 
He hadn't even been there but a minute and he became fed up of the place. Too many people, all of them dead all of them seemed to be staring at his skin, his black... crispy skin. The skin color of the one's he hated even more in death than he ever did in life. His nubbed arms lifted above his head and smashed down on the bar itself crunching through the wood and leaving a dent there. Even bits of crinkled flesh stuck on the jagged bits of wood that stuck out. If there was flesh to be seen on his face anymore it would have been red, but as it went it was just as black as ever, his open visible eye widdening and glaring, sightlessly as he quite literally flung his way off of the bit of rubble he sat upon. "STOP STARING AT IT DAMMIT!! Do you think I LIKE BEING BLACK HUH! DO I LOOK LIKE A DIRTY NIGGER TO YOU HUH?" He wasnt really talking to one individual in the room, just conglomerstely to all of them. His chest heaved with ever breath he took, small crinkles through out the burnt flesh before he gave a loud roar of frustration and ran... through.. the wall of the bar. He ignored the door which stood nto but a couple feet to the left and instead went straight through the door. Was he trying to kill himself? Maybe, if such a thing was even possible in this damned realm.

He kept running, down the street turning corners in no real pattern, just running, trying to get away from... nothing reallly he just wanted to get away. After a while of this running he found himself, surprisingly, right back where he started. In front of his garage, run-down truck, shotgun, and hole in the wall just as he left it..
 
"A week. I think." If time was working the way it was supposed to. Not much else was.

He looked over his shoulder when the door opened again. A man and a girl this time. They were both far less daunting than the skeletal figure, at least in his mind, but they had their own quirks. Both of the girls he'd seen so far looked less disfigured than the men, and he wondered why. Was it because they were women, or had their deaths been somehow less severe? He decided on the latter. The city- this afterlife- didn't seem kind enough to be gentler on women just because of their sex.

The strangled girl asked a question, pulling him from his thoughts, but he was silent. He'd been hoping he was just hearing things when he listened at the restaurant's door, but according to this girl, he hadn't. God help me. I don't know if I can make it back before the sun goes down.

When the door opened a second time, he turned to look, but the man's appearance was enough to make him immediately turn away. He didn't have time to ask any questions before the man brutalized the bar and ran through the wall. Maybe this is hell, he thought dryly, watching the man run off. If anyone deserves to be there, it's racists.

"What about you?" he asked Danielle, returning his attention to her. "How long have you been here? What do you know?"
 
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