PSYCHOSOMATIC- pertaining to or involving both the mind and body…huh?
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They did the ritual two days later, standing in the street in front of Rex’s house. Connor held a convenience-store notebook, full of copied lore symbols and numbers, and a box of sidewalk chalk. Rex took the sidewalk chalk, barely acknowledging the other seer.
It was 11:59.
Rex took a piece of chalk, bubblegum pink, and began copying the lore symbols, wincing in concentration as he interspersed them with The Aversion.
A year ago, he couldn’t even think it, let alone write it. Practice made perfect.
Made you stronger.
Next to him, Melissa chuckled dryly.
“Whatever doesn’t kill you…” she reminded his thoughts, and took the chalk from him, penciling in the rows of 13s herself. Rex moved to stop her, but realized it was probably best this way. This would wear him out either way. He didn’t need to waste his concentration.
Blue flooded the street, leeching color from the chalked-in circle.
Jessica Day appeared on the crest of the hill, a good twenty yards away, where they’d brought her last night. Jonathan had been leaning against the streetlight there, and now he leapt up, and they low-gravity-bounced down to the circle.
“What do we do?” Jess asked, sounding like a five year old at a doctor’s appointment.
“Get in the circle,” Rex directed. Jonathan went to go with her, and Rex shook his head. “We don’t know what’ll happen. Just Jess for now.”
Connor also stepped out of the circle, watching the scene. Tech and Dess were off to one side, talking in tridecalogisms. Listening to them gave Connor a headache.
“C’mere.” Rex directed, and Connor stepped forward with the notebook, the two of them going around the circle, sketching symbols.
“How is this supposed to work again?” Connor asked, because every answer he got made less sense.
“It’s preparation. We don’t know if it’ll do any good, but Dess said we should do it, and it can’t hurt.”
“So there’s really no purpose to all this,” Connor confirmed, flipping a page in the notebook.
“Pretty much none. When it all gets down to it, it’s up to me.”
This part Connor had heard about already. Rex had to tap into his darkling side, and they knew it was going to be dangerous. For the past year, he’d been trying to suppress it. Now, he had to use it.
Rex Greene took a deep breath, threading the 39 links of the silver chain linking his wallet to his belt buckle through his fingers. It hurt, but not the way it used to. More like a loose tooth you kept pushing. A dull ache you couldn’t leave alone.
Connor was looking at him. Flyboy was too. Jess, with hopeful eyes. Melissa, looking scared for him. Dess and Tech, mildly amused. Everyone was staring at him.
Rex took another deep breath.
And another.
And then he reached inside his mind, to the dark little corner where the darkling lived now. Down to where he’d forced it.
You’re not strong enough, a voice hissed to him, you’re weak. You’ll fall to the beast. You can’t do it. You can’t save Jess. You can’t even save yourself.
Rex took yet another deep breath. His mind was a swirl of hunter and prey, hunts and Aversions and technology and blue.
And in there, was a skill. A memory of the time when they’d created the blue time. An arm in his mind he could reach with, and pluck things straight out of time.
Rex stood there for a long time, both fists clenched tight, knuckles white. Connor and the others watched, waiting, as the dark moon swung across the sky, and Rex didn’t move, just letting out the occasional, hissing, rattling breath.
Jessica Day screamed. It hurt. Everything. Like she was being torn in a million different directions at once. She reached her hand out of the circle, reaching out for Jonathan, who grabbed her hand, and turned on Connor.
“Do something!” he shouted.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Connor shouted back. He had no idea what was going on. Rex was still a human statue, eyes screwed shut, and Jess was doubling over in pain, screaming.
Melissa stepped forward, taking Jessica’s hand. Agony poured through her head, and she ground her teeth, biting down as hard as she could.
She turned to Jonathan, blood dripping from her lip.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Melissa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
A rushing sound filled the street. A roaring.
Midnight was ending.
Blackness fell on the scene, colors returning. The blue disappeared, replaced by streetlights and pale stars.
Melissa spun around, the hand that had been gripping Jessica’s closing on air, palms biting into her fingernails.
Jonathan Martinez was crying.
And laughing.
In the middle of the street, Jessica Day was crouched on her hands and knees, couching and choking.
“That was…” She broke down in a fit of coughing. “Psychosomatic.”
THE END
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BRAVO! BRAVA!!!
*says with british accent*
marvelous! simply marvelous darling!
hehe. i personally loved it! my fave part: “Jessica Day was crouched on her hands and knees, couching and choking”. hehe. COUCHING!!! thats my word!!! hehe. loved it. quick and to the point. yet totally suspensful. way to geterdone.
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and by the way…i was just searching threw google, and i found this site:
click on it. seriously. you can read the ENTIRE TOUCHING DARKNESS!!! online!!! its so FOOL!!! except page 321 and 322. i dont no why…
-Co-Prez OUT! 😀
CHASING MIDNIGHT WEREWOLVES HQ 