The Spiritualist
 

Life was never too complicated. It was usually straightforward, except for the fact that my parents were brutally murdered in a riot and that most of the world is in anarchy. But that was all in the past, and will stay that way. Life wasn’t too hard for boys in the city. Even though it was run by a mob, all of San Espiritu was a bit more contained in some places. Sure, every time you went outside, there was a chance that you would get shot, mugged, and raped, but that’s just how life was nowadays. It wasn’t ever “fair” or “just” because those words don’t exist nowadays, or at least mean the same thing. Justice and equality is equivalent to reputation judged by different vigilantes, mobs, and gangs. Personal opinions go into unofficial trials, meaning completely innocent people can be wrongly accused and tried. Innocence is never the verdict unless the jury has been paid off. The world was rotten here, but was easy to life, but rotten, nonetheless.

But in anything rotten, there is always a small kernel of goodness. Some vigilantes have taken care of people. These people are usually more light-hearted and station at churches and other buildings. However, even though God told us not to steal, that was the only way to get around as a kid. The boys’ homes never had enough for everyone. The food would come from different shipments made by mobs and sold off to different people. We would steal from different street vendors and things. Most days we would get an apple or two. Some days we could even get some meat. Our only choice was to sin.

But as I grew older, I wasn’t as swift as younger kids. I think my prime was about age 9. Eventually, on my sixteenth birthday I finally had relinquished my thieving ways and had decided to join the Order of New Espiritu, which was a fairly sized group of regular citizens, too afraid of joining gangs and mobs. We weren’t the only group of Vigilantes. There were others equally as large, but we decided not to interfere with each other. All we could do is fight back the gangs in our sections of town. The gangs weren’t a problem. There were the more powerful groups like the Scorpions or the Massive, but the most threatening were the Hellhounds. They Hounds were the Espiritu Mafia’s main competitors, but the mob was clearly the more advanced group. They controlled the city after the world war. The New World Government hasn’t even done many attempts to reclaim the city.

Now everything was fine and dandy except for one fact. I could see things. I don’t know what they are. Ghosts? Aliens? Or were they just things messing with my mind caused by a mental illness? I could believe anything at this point. I had been on one mission for the order, where we had to take out one hideout. It was my first field job. Of course, I was in the back for medical help, but I saw some odd things. People I saw the crew take out the first floor, but I saw one tall guy who was just standing there, looking depressed. No one paid any mind to him. I didn’t ask want to ask anyone because I thought I must’ve been seeing things. As we went up the stairs, I saw that he was floating a few inches off the ground and walked through the wall and disappeared. I didn’t dare tell anyone. In this day and age, they would’ve killed or at least imprisoned me for thinking that I was taking hallucinogens. They couldn’t risk having a druggie on their team, so I decided to keep quiet. I kept going on with my life, seeing these things. I never mentioned them, but I swear I heard them sometimes speak. The worst part is, these people would always look depressed, angry, or even crazed. Everything was fine until 1 month later. It was the month I met her. She was the love of my glorious life and the bane of my goddamn pitiful existence.

It was Wednesday, September 27, Year 24 NW. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war was coming near. We had finished taking care of a hideout of the Scorpions. Everyone was jolly. Our part of the city was becoming safer and safer, for us at least. I had finished dinner and walked outside for some fresh air. I don’t know why, but every time I see one of those apparitions, I always get this weird feeling that runs from the back of my head to my eyes and nose. Today, my head was feeling awfully ominous, like when you’re about to sneeze. I didn’t see anything, but I decided to take a short walk. I took a pistol along with me and strolled down the street. Most of what I saw was graffiti and litter. Eventually, the sensation started to recede. When I finally decided to return home, I saw a man stumble through the wall. It was another one of those ghosts.

He looked at me with pleading eyes. This was odd. Most ghosts would usually ignore me and walk away. He whispered something in a tongue I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t another language. It was garbled English. It was raspy and slow. He suddenly stood up and I saw him closely. He was dressed like a gangster and had a giant scar on his left eye. It was one of the people we had killed in the recent Scorpion base raid. He looked at me pleadingly. I asked him what was wrong. But he only turned on me and tried punching me. He fist went through my face. He then pulled it out, and stood there, dazed. I then started to bolt, but he ran after me. After a while, he didn’t start to run as much as float. The floating turned into flying as he caught me. He suddenly touched my leg for a second, tripping me. I tried shooting, but the bullet went straight through him. He put his now semi-solid hand on my chest and he started to melt it through me. I felt my veins turning cold and my vision being obscured. From then, I blacked out.

I then woke up in a room. I was handcuffed to a bed and heard a radio in the distance. “That’s Friday morning weather. Back to you, Gina,” Friday? I had slept for two days? I tried shaking out of the bed, but all my limbs were cuffed. I yelled for help as I heard voices outside.

“Ooh, he’s awake. I’ll check on him,” said a woman’s voice. I saw the door open and saw someone step in.

“Where the am I?” I asked.

“Welcome to hell, hun. I hope you enjoy your stay,”

Re: The Spiritualist
 

Re: The Spiritualist
 

Thank you, kind sir.

Working on chapter 2. This story is gonna be much darker than my last stories. Also, if you want giant battles, this ain't the story for you :lol:, but there will be action.

Re: The Spiritualist
 

“Hell? Wonderful,” I thought to myself. But then I realized it wasn’t too farfetched. A ghost man just stuck his hand into my chest, and I had wound up tied to a bed. Seems like I have to face torture now. I turned to her and saw that she was a dainty, but cute woman. She couldn’t have been much older than me- probably 17 or 18, at the most. She was wearing a short skirt and a T-Shirt with some weird design. She had shoulder-length brown hair and had a considerable amount of make-up on, but not enough to hide her true face. She looked at me in the eye in a sort of way I haven’t seen before. She was trying to judge me, but not if I’m good or bad, but it was like trying to see how useful I would be to her needs. She took out a pendant the size of a drink coaster and stuck it onto my chest. Nothing happened.

“Good news and bad news,” she said to me in a tone that wasn’t heard very often. It was a haughty tone of sick joy mixed with curiosity. I felt as if she’s said this line to multiple people and always loved seeing each reaction and how different it was.

I turned to her and looked her in the eyes. I raised an eyebrow and said, “I always like to end on a happy note, so tell me the bad news first,”

Her eyes faded to a slight disinterest and she pursed her lips, but it started to brighten again with another look, “I was hoping you’d ask for the good news. I’d hate to see your face sad right after you wake up,” Her face changed to one of slight sadness as she started taking off my leg cuffs. “I don’t want to ruin everything just yet, so I’ll tell you the good news. A spirit had possessed you, and now it’s out, thanks to us. Strangely, though, when we found you, it was already weakened and not coming out.”

“So what’s the bad news?” I asked, still trying to see what she was up to.

She smirked a bit and turned to me. “Since you could fight off the spirit, you’re going to stick around with us for a while. I’ll be right back, sweetie,”

She started towards the door as I started yelling her questions. “What do you mean by a while? Where am I? Who are you people?” She stepped out, but leaned back in and winked at me. My legs were free, but my arms were still attached. I finally sat up, as my body ached. I coughed a bit, and waited for her to return.

I waited for around 20 minutes until the door opened and a guy came in. He seemed to be in his mid-40s. The man was a bit plump, had a shaved face but had balding brown hair. His eyes showed a look I only saw in war veterans. Those eyes showed me that he had seen quite a bit of horror. He reminded me of the old guys back in the Order, except his face showed that he was ready to encounter that horror again, but spit in the face of it. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans, which were both dirty. I looked up at him, and he looked at my cuffed hands and sighed. He quickly took them off. And then looked me straight in the eye.
“Son, you’ve got a condition,” he plainly said. He had a country accent that I had only heard on TV before.

“Gee, thanks. I couldn’t tell,” I replied sarcastically.

“Don’t take that as an insult. What you’ve got is a trait that only about 350 people in the whole wide world have. And I don’t want you to act like a smartass to me again. You’re part of our group now. And you have to respect my rules as long as you’re under my roof,” he grumbled back.

He was more like the old guys than I thought. I sighed and apologized. I then replied by saying, “Can you please explain to me what just happened? Everything?”

He looked at me as if I was crazy. “The gift that you have had is an ability to see spirits of the once-living. You don’t know how to control it, or what you’re doing, but trust me: Now that you’re with us, you will. Most spirits are usually passive and we call them ‘Ghosts’. What just happened to you was that you had an encounter with a malevolent spirit. We call them ‘Ghouls,’ ‘Spooks,’ or ‘Specters’. People are seen as spirits when they die with lots of regrets, have done horrible things in their life, or are just plain old idiots. Sometimes they snap and possess people. But those have been rare cases… well, until now,”

“So, I was attacked by a Ghoul and possessed? How long has stuff like this been going on?” I asked.

“Forever, but it’s never been this bad in a while,”

“In a while?”

“You see, people have turned into spirits and select others can see them. But possessions and attacks only happen every so often and usually tend to strike as unexplained diseases. Every so often, be it 100 years, 200 years, a strange presence pops up on the planet that causes a giant rise in spirit activity. That’s where we come in. This organization’s been a long lasting thing for over 400 years. We haven’t been at every single outbreak of spiritual activity, but we’ve done enough in recent history to stop the world from losing even more of it’s population,”

I sighed and looked back up. “So you’re telling me that you guys are like Illuminati Priests or something? The world’s already been nuked. We lost 2 billion people. I don’t think ghosts or whatever will be doing much worse,”

“Look, we’re not here to cleanse the world or purge ghosts from their sins. We simply find malevolent spirits in our area and destroy them and treat anyone who’s been attacked. Our line of work is brutal and you WILL lose your conscience,”

“And you’re the one acting like I’m going to be joining you. Thanks, but no thanks,”

He then looked at my handcuffs. “You’re in no position for debating,”

“Great, so I’m a hostage. For a band of thugs who claim to have saved the world for almost half a century, you’re pretty demanding. Do you honestly think I’m willing to follow you guys?”

“No, I don’t. Life isn’t that easy. Sometimes we need a little… shove.” His hand slightly glowed blue as he shoved it in my face. Within seconds, I was out cold.

Re: The Spiritualist
 

Why are all your stories depressing? :lol:

Re: The Spiritualist
 

This one'll be the worst ;)

Re: The Spiritualist
 

You need joy in yo life. :lol: Anyways, nice story so far.

Re: The Spiritualist
 

It'll get a bit more joyful.


....by about chapter 5 or 6 :lol: