I'm Ebony Jordon Black. Or to be more truthful, I was. I'm not real any more, I was too dangerous. A threat to 'The Others'. That's what Mattie called them and he saw them first. He discovered them. And I wish with the whole of my heart he hadn't. If you are reading this I have succeed in my mission to warn someone. If not I will die unremembered. Because you see, you've not only discovered a truth unknown. You've also found my soul.

It didn't happen like in those films. You know when there's thunder, heavy rain and whatever other scary stuff you think about when bad things are meant to happen. Yes, there was some hurricane in a country on the other side of the world but to me that wasn't very relevant. Yet.

Monday 8:00am

What mattered to me on that day was the fact I had forgotten to do my homework and like so many other times, was going to get a detention. Luckily my best friend Taylor had done it and like most times I was going to have to copy his.

That morning I said bye to Mattie and left earlier than usual. Taylor lived just up the road from us and he was just leaving for the bus as I got there.

'' Hi Taylor,'' I said as he walked towards me, '' you know that homework we had for science? Do you think I could…''

He finished the thought for me by stuffing his sheet into my hand.

''Sure whatever. Just do it yourself next time.'' He muttered.

Because the bus was so unpredictable we had time to spare at the bus stop. We randomly chattered as I filled in my sheet.

''Did you hear about that Hurricane?'' Taylor said chucking a rock into the road.

''Yeah, it hit down some  lab and internet servers or something like that any way.'' I replied.

God I wish I'd known how important that was.

Sunday Midnight

The storm hit full on tearing up cars and trees, throwing them around like trash.

Dr Merphy Andrews prayed he could stop his project before the building was destroyed. The little creature, the artificial life he'd made was too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. He should have killed it before but couldn't bring himself to. But he really should have.

The data only came the day before. He never thought he'd create something so terrible. He'd wrote in his diary what he found out:

'As the creator of the life form I should tell my research to the other scientist. The creature I have made is able to reproduce or clone itself through contact with an electrical charge. It can also use electrical devices to transfer itself into the human body. Then by using the nerves it spreads through the body until it is in complete control. If this specimen escapes humanity could be at risk. Through experimenting I have also found that in some people it is unable to take control but genetically modifies the person. In these cases the specimen leaves the body to find one it can possess, then tries to eliminate the incompatible body with its new one. I know this because it got my assistant and tried to get me. Kate is dead now she attempted to kill me so I killed her.''

The building toppled over crumpling and folding in on its self. The last thing Dr Andrews saw was the internet cable fall into the specimen tank.

Monday Evening

After gaining two detentions in one day I decided to skip out on the sports club and head straight home. To be honest I just wanted to play on the computer or beat my high score on Halo.

It wasn't until the evening that things went weird. We were watching the six o'clock news. The main story, ten points to you if you guessed, was the disaster of the hurricane. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on until Mattie look up and took interest. Now let me tell you something about my brother. Although he was nearly eight he didn't relate to people and was always wrapped up in his own world. He wouldn't talk to people, just tip his head to one side and look at you, often accompanying the motion with a small point or look towards something. It was how he communicated. For a few seconds he studied the wreckage on screen while I studied him.

“It's blue’’

My parents looked away from the TV to stare at Mattie looking shocked at this sudden change of character. For him two words was more than we ever expected to hear.

“Pardon?'’ I asked, thinking I was hearing things.'

'The electric lightning on the picture. In the broken house on the te-lly-vis-ion.' he talked slowly, drawing out the word television. I could easily tell he was considering if it sounded right. 'It's blue' he repeated.

 

2: Being Mattie

**********************************Mattie********************************

My Mummy and Daddy and Ebony were looking at me like I had done something, not wrong but not right either. I didn’t understand. All I did was tell them what I saw. I wanted them to help me make sense of what it was. It felt wrong. I suppose that it was because I talked that they were looking at me like that. I didn’t like talking and not many people knew I could.

When I was smaller I talked all of the time and for some reason people didn’t want me to talk to them. I talked to people who ‘weren’t there,’ but they were, I saw them. I saw them but no-one else could. Lots of people who ‘were there’ said I scared them and would stay away from me so I stopped talking. Not because people wouldn’t come near me but because nobody wanted to be my or Ebony’s friend or Mummy’s friend or Daddy’s friend. So I stopped talking.

No-one would look at me and think I wasn’t normal anymore. I could think what I wanted and not give anything away by voice. A few people were bothered that I didn’t speak but I had decided that if I couldn’t talk to the people who ‘weren’t there’; I didn’t want to talk at all. At least not to the people who were there.

But this thing on the television was different. It was dangerous and I could feel it trying to reach me and take hold. I wouldn’t let it. I didn’t know if my family knew it was dangerous or of what it could do so I told them about it instead. But by the expressions on their faces I could tell they didn’t see it. I was just like the people who ‘weren’t there’, only I could see it.

**********************************************************************

   Mattie didn’t say anything else just turned his head back to the TV and ignored us again. My Mum slowly got up and went to sit next to him on the floor. She was going to try and get him to talk again. I got up pushing Mattie’s toys out the way and paced my way across the room towards the kitchen. Dad didn’t pay me any attention; he was watching Mum trying hard and failing ‘getting Mattie to talk’.  My stomach growled. I hadn’t even realised how hungry I was. I didn’t even bother thinking about asking Dad to cook something. I got myself a sandwich and took it up to my room, thinking that for the next few days I was going to have to look after myself.

 

3: Electric Lightning

Monday 11:30 pm

Staring up at the ceiling I tried to go back to sleep. Although the dream that roused me was scary and disturbing it was that or listening to the voices coming from Mattie’s room. I knew I should go and see what was going on; first he talks to us about some blue thing now this. It didn’t make any sense. I turned over, thinking about anything that didn’t include my brother. But the muffled conversation penetrated my thoughts again. Something about it bothered me, something apart from the fact that Mattie was actually talking. Slowly, I rolled out of bed and soundlessly padded across the hall. I paused outside Mattie’s bedroom and listened. Realisation hit me. There was only one voice. Mattie was talking to himself, a habit that we all thought had stopped years ago. I stepped back to return to my room but because I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings I tripped up over an uneven piece of carpet. The result, as it would usually be if you tripped, was me falling to the floor with a dull thud. I lay there half getting over the shock and half just because I couldn’t be bothered to get up.

Something to the left of me creaked and a little light escaped into the hallway. I looked up at Mattie who was partly hiding behind his door.

“Is Ebony hurt?’’ he asked as I got up. He looked slightly worried but curious at the same time.

“No, I’m fine’’ I replied getting slightly miffed at the way he was behaving ‘’why were you talking to yourself? You don’t talk for years then talk to yourself?’’

He looked at me like I was the one that people were worried about.

“Because you didn’t want to know what I wanted to know,’’

Goodness, now I was hurt. My brain hurt trying to make sense of what he was saying.

“I need to say stuff Mr Andrews said I should, he said it was dangerous.’’

“What?’’ I asked ’’ What is dangerous?’’

“The blue electric lightning’’

This was getting silly. It was late and I wanted to sleep, I didn’t need this nonsense. I turned to leave.

“Don’t go I’m scared of the dark’’

I turned back.

“But it isn’t dark, your light’s on’’

Mattie grabbed on to my hand.

“He says it’s nearly here. Please don’t go’’

 I nearly left him there, standing in the hallway by himself but he looked terrified. If there was more time before it happened I would have tried to get him back into bed. But as it was there wasn’t.

The lights blacked out and everything turned sinisterly dark. I felt Mattie’s fingernails dig into my skin. I didn’t mind him being there now.

“Ebony, I’m scared of the dark’’

I put my hand on his arm so he knew I was listening to him.

We stood there too afraid to move even an inch.

After a few minutes that, to us, could have been hours. A faint blue glow rippled across the walls and up on to the ceiling. The light intensified until I could see as well as I could during the day. It was beautiful. I watched it dance along, twisting and turning around itself. I was mesmerized by the shear magnificence of such a display.

“It’s in the wires, it’s in the wires,’’ Mattie mumbled. I ignored him, he wasn’t even looking. He had his head buried in my side and his whole body was trembling. I couldn’t resist it; I took my hand away from his arm. Mattie shifted his position so he could vaguely see what I was doing. Gradually, I stretched my arm out towards the moving light.

“DON’T DO THAT!’’ Mattie yelled snatching my arm out of the air and holding it firmly to my side.

“Please,’’ he repeated quietly ‘‘don’t do that. It’ll get you.”

I looked down at him, when I looked back up the lights were dimming and I found myself straining to see Mattie’s face.

Again we were stood in darkness. Scared to speak, listening to each other’s breathing was comforting.

Suddenly, something pinged. The lights that were on up until the blackout flickered before settling into a normal steady glow. Once my eyes had adjusted to the light I tried to pick Mattie up to comfort him. But Mattie had his own idea. He dragged me along the hall and started to head down the stairs. I stopped. He looked up at me for a second, pulling my hand and digging his nails in harder than earlier. It was starting to hurt so I gently prised his fingers from my skin with one hand and with the other held his arm to make him stay where he was.

“Where are you going?” I asked. I couldn’t let him just wonder round the house in the middle of the night without knowing what he was up to.

Mattie looked down again as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I’m scared. I want my Mummy,” he cried, letting me give him a hug.

I wanted to go to my Mum and Dad to, but some small detail was bothering me, something was not right.

I thought back to all the times we’d had power cuts before. Every time, no matter where we were, either my Mum or Dad would come to us and with a candle or a torch. As soon as the lights had gone they would usually be talking to us, telling us that they were coming.

But they hadn’t come and I hadn’t heard them once during this latest incident. I listened carefully. Nothing. All I registered was Mattie’s crying.

“Please Ebony? Can we go downstairs? I want to find Mummy and Daddy. I want them to be okay.”

I didn’t ask why they wouldn’t be okay. I didn’t dare to. My brother was slightly freaky, even more so after his not so imaginary electric lightning danced on the walls of our house. I was starting to wonder if there was something more to my little brother. Something he tried to tell us ever since he was young. We should have tried to understand him then because now I was going to have to try and understand him on my own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4: Involved

Given the fact it was nearly midnight and we were going to find our parents, nothing felt right. Even after I’d switched the hall light on the stairs still seem very uninviting. Maybe it was because I felt that if I went downstairs I would find something I didn’t want to, maybe it wasn’t. Mattie felt it to.

“Come on Ebony, we need to find Mummy and Daddy the dark might of scared them to,” Mattie snivelled. 

“Do you want me to carry you?”

He nodded his head and let me pick him up. The stairs were creaky and uneven so as I walked I made sure not to trip up again. Mattie wasn’t helping he kept on squirming and wouldn’t stay still but I didn’t say anything.

I put Mattie down at the bottom of the stairs. The lights were on in the living room and I could hear static coming from the TV. Surely if my parents were in there they would have sorted that out by now or at least switched it off. I looked down to ask Mattie what he thought but he wasn’t there. I panicked. Gosh I was meant to be looking after him, were on earth could of he gone now?

“Ebony!”

I turned around. Mattie was standing at the door of the living room.

“Look.”

I moved myself so I was standing behind him. My parents were there but they weren’t themselves. Their eyes were meant to be brown like mine and Mattie’s but they weren’t. The normal brown colour had gone, replaced by a bright blue. The colour moved pulsating around the eyes. It was unnatural. ‘It will get you’ that is what Mattie had said when I reached out to touch the blue lights. Is this what he meant by that? Does it mean that if you touch it your eyes change? From what I could see, yes, that would be the case.

I moved forward pushing past my brother and into the room.

“Mum?”

She didn’t move, just continued to stare at us.

“Dad?”

Nothing.

I was at a loss, my parents had turned into unresponsive zombie people with moving eyes and I had a strange kid for a brother who knew what was going on. I felt like the only normal person left.

But was I? I hadn’t touched the light nor had Mattie, we hadn’t changed. It was night so most people would be asleep and not of seen the light. I didn’t know if my parents had touched the light but they weren’t listening to me so I could do nothing.

I spun round and walked back to Mattie.

“Are they OK?” he asked

“Yeah sure” I replied taking his hand and leading him away.

“You’re lying”

“I think you know more than you’re saying, don’t you?”

He fell silent. 

I took him over to the cupboard in the downstairs hallway.

“Hang on a second,” I said as I opened the cupboard door. I grabbed my shoes and a torch from the floor.

“Get your shoes on Mattie, we’re going for a walk,” I pulled my shoes on and waited for Mattie to do the same.

“Why are we going for a walk in the middle of the night?” He asked “Can Mr Andrews come too please Ebony? He says that he knows what is happing and he says he can help us. He also says we have to be careful not to be killed or die,”

I was shocked he could say something like that so plainly. I didn’t know who this person was but to think Mattie made that up by himself was disturbing, so maybe there was someone else.

“Come on Ebony lets go for a walk! I wanna go to the park and play on the swings and the slide and the roundabout and then we can have a picnic and we can talk to Mr Andrews,” Mattie said excitedly

I frowned; did this kid have no sense of occasion? It was the middle of the night for goodness sake!

“It’ll be dark,” I explained “and we have to go and find someone to help us.”

“You have a torch and Mr Andrews will help us, won’t you?” Mattie asked the air beside him. He waited for a couple of seconds then smiled “See. He says we can talk to him and he’ll try to help.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t see this Mr Andrews and I wasn’t going to trust him either.

Though I wasn’t going to completely rule out his existence.  

 “So can we go to the park?” Mattie pleaded.

I wasn't going to give in even if he was pretty sweet.

“No,” I said “we can’t. But I wouldn't mind talking to your invisible friend.”

I guessed, then that, I really was involved.

 

 

5: Different

**********************************************************************

I was sad when Ebony said we couldn’t go to the park but I was happy when he said he wanted to speak with Mr Andrews. I never thought he would want to know my friends because he used to say they weren’t real, but now he does want to know.

We’re really different and I think he hated me for it. We’re like opposites, like from those books Mummy used to read me. You know like night and day, black and white, thin and fat. If I made up one of my own about me and Ebony I would put that Ebony has black hair that shorter than mine and he is taller than me, but I think that he’s taller because he’s fifteen and I’m eight. We also have different hair, I have blond hair not black and mine’s not short, the sides come down over my ears and when my fringe isn’t pushed to the side it covers my eyes.  Like I said, different. I don’t think people could understand that. Both my parents have brown hair and eyes so how could their children look so unique. One thing we do share is our eye colour. We both have brown eyes. But that still didn’t make him hate me any less.

I asked Ebony if we could go to the park one more time before we left because Mummy always took me to the park when we went out. He told me to shut up.

He opened the front door to go out and started to leave before he realised I wasn’t following. It just looked too dark. I was scared of the dark.

“Come on Mattie let’s go,” Ebony said.

I thought about it for a moment. I looked back at Mummy and Daddy, they hadn’t moved.

“They’ll wake up soon,” Said Mr Andrews I looked towards him.

“They’re not asleep,” I replied

“What I mean is that they will start to move again,”

“So we don’t need to leave?”        

  “What are you on about Mattie? If they were asleep we wouldn’t be going to look for help,” Ebony shouted “we’ve wasted enough time already let’s just go,”

I’d forgotten that he was there and couldn’t see Mr Andrews. He took hold of my arm so he could drag me along. He was holding my arm to tight and it hurt.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I cried “Why do you hate me?”

**********************************************************************

 

 

6: You talk to dead people?

I looked at Mattie and let go of his arm. I felt horrible, how could I treat him like that? Did I give that impression, that I hated him? Ok, so I wasn’t the nicest person. Not to Mattie. I guess I had always been jealous. He always had lots of attention and I felt left out.  

“I’m sorry Mattie. I didn’t mean to shout,” I really was sorry. “I’m just worried ok? We need to work together to find out things yeah?”

“You hurt my arm,” he pouted “It hurts.”

“Honestly I’m really sorry, but I just don’t think we should stay here. We should go and find someone to help. I can’t look after you forever,”

Mattie looked at me questionably, then turned his head. It looked like he was listening intently to something.

“You’ve only been looking after me for a little time and you’re bad at,” he declared “but Mr Andrews say that you’re clever and I should listen to you and he says that if we stay here when Mummy and Daddy wake up then they will be changed into one of the others and we would be in trouble because we might die.”

Whoa, I never knew someone could say so much in one breath.

“Ummmm…tell him thanks..,” I said unsurely.

“He can hear you,” Mattie said “Say something to him.”

“Oh…Um. Stop telling Mattie not to die. It’s scary when he says it.”

“He says that he thought it was good advice.”

“Ok.We’ll try to remember not to die.”

Mattie smiled “OK”

 

We finally managed to leave the house. I still wasn’t happy with Mattie talking to Mr Andrews as we walked along but if I told him to stop he’d complain about the dark and cling to me, which I didn’t particularly want. I knew where I was heading, to my god-mum’s house. I suppose I could of just gone next door but I didn’t like our neighbours and I didn’t reckon they would appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night. I listened to Mattie talk as we walked. He had way to much energy for this time of day. I got the feeling that he wasn’t talking to only one person any more.

“Who you talking to?” I queried

“Kieran,” Mattie replied matter of factually.

“Oh. Is he your friend to?”

“Yeah. He’s the same age as me. He died.” Mattie said like it didn’t matter.

“Again with the dying. It’s not normal.”

“What? He died.”

“So you talk to dead people?”

“Only some. Only the ones who are lost.”

Well that was reassuring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7: Library

We walked quickly. Mattie finally shut up but, unfortunately for me, it was because he was tired and wanted to stop.

“We just need to go down the high street then round the corner. Then we can figure out what to do from there. Ok” I said

“No I wanna sleep. I don’t wanna walk anymore” Mattie complained.

“Come on Mattie,”

“Why are we here?”

I looked around. We were at the top of the high street. There weren’t many shops up here, just the schools and a few other buildings.

“Because this is the way we have to go to get to Mary’s house” I answered.

He started to walk behind me and I could hear his feet scuffing along the floor.

“We’re not going to school are we?”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know”

We walked in silence for a while.

“Hey look, we could go in here and go to sleep.”

Somehow Mattie had managed to run in front of me without me realising and was now standing at the door to the library.

“It’ll be locked,” I didn’t even bother to stop.

“It’s not. I can open it”

He pulled it open and ducked inside. I was about to protest but thought the better of it. I followed him inside.

 

It was strange being in the library at night. I was used to a light filled building but now it was just creepy.

“Mattie where are you?” I whispered. Even in the night when no-one was there it didn’t seem right to speak any louder.

“Trying to find a light,”

His voice came from the check-out desk. I walked over to the desk.

“Don’t run off again ok. Let me find the light switch with the torch,”

I searched with the torch until I found a panel of switches. I flick one on.

“Put more on,”

“No I don’t need to,”

Mattie walked to the back of the library to the section that had light. I looked around a bit more before deciding I should probably keep an eye on him.

I found Mattie sitting on a beanbag with a book.

“Maybe we shouldn’t stay here. The idea was to get help then go back. Seems that your determined to go to sleep we should go home.” I said.

“We can’t and I don’t want to go” He wiggled around a bit. “Can you read me this book?”

I looked at the book he was holding. I couldn’t leave him by himself and I wasn’t going to try and move him in case he started crying again. 

“What? Can’t you read or something?” I asked, sitting down on a cushion nearby.

“I can read but Mummy always reads to me,”

“How about tomorrow, we came here to sleep, not to read,”

“But it’s a library,”

I laughed, he look so confused.

“Just go to sleep,”

He lay down and closed his eyes. I didn’t, I concentrated on the ceiling thinking about what was going on and what I was going to do. Something put weight on my outstretched arm and looked over to see Mattie using my arm as a pillow.

“The floor is a bad pillow,” he said before his breathing slowed and he fell asleep.

I closed my eyes and tried to get to sleep myself, but with a kid lying on your arm it’s pretty hard.

 

 

 

8: Everything's Changed

I woke to a book being dropped on my head. Mattie giggled.

“Can you read to me now?” He asked.

I sat up and looked at him. He squealed and ran, giggling again, to hide behind a bookcase. I pushed myself up onto my feet, kicking the book across the floor. My arm was numb from when Mattie was lying on it and my head was sore, but we couldn’t stay here, even if I wanted to. I went over to where Mattie was hiding; he peeked out from behind the bookcase.

“You have a bruise on you head,” He told me innocently.

“No thanks to you,” I retort, poking him “don’t throw stuff at me, it’s not nice.”

“Ok”

“Come on, let’s go”

“Are we going to Mary’s?”

“Well I was thinking we’d go home,” I explained “the plan was to get help last night, we should go back home in case Mum and Dad are ok and are looking for us,”

“We can’t and I don’t want to,” Mattie said “Kieran said there are people at Mary’s house who need help, so we go there,”

Ok, so he’d already decided what we were going to do. I looked down at the floor, only to notice that Mattie had no shoes on and he seemed of lost a sock.

“Where are your shoes and your other sock,” I asked as I picked up the book and put it away.

“They got lost,” he shrugged “but only because I didn’t want to wear them,”

I frowned “You want to wear one sock by itself?”

He smiled cheekily “Yeah,” he replied.

I could have argued, but what would of that done except waste time? Nothing, so I left it at that.

“Ok then we should go,”

I switched off the light and, even though it was day, took the torch with me.

 

Just by walking outside I could tell that things weren’t back to normal. There was no-one around. There were no cars on the road and no people walking on the pavements. I checked my watch, it was half past eight. Defiantly not good. The schools should be open and the street shouldn’t be empty, not this time on a Wednesday morning.

We crossed the road.

“Let’s just go quickly.” I suggested.

I didn’t get a reply, but he followed me which was good enough. We were making good progress until we reached the bend in the street that led to all the shops.

I nearly gasped but stopped myself in fear they would hear me.

There were hundreds of people, spread across the street, there was no way we could possibly get past without being seen. We hid in the nearest doorway.

“What are they doing?” Mattie whispered, pushing me out the way so he could see.

They were defiantly doing something. Now and again I heard a window being smashed and the glass scattering across the tarmac. Lots of stuff was being chucked around, some of it was just paper but the majority of it was merchandise from the shops. They’d pick something up, look at it, then chuck it. It was almost like they were looking for something. I relayed my thoughts onto Mattie.

“Do you know what it might be they’re looking for?” I asked

He shook his head and shrugged.

“Maybe,” he said

Well that was a clear answer wasn’t it.

“They’ve all been changed,” Mattie said “they’re part of the others.”

“We’ll have to go back up the street, around the back of the library then down the back streets,” I explained

“That’s a lot of back things,” Mattie answered.

“You have to be quiet and do what I say,”

“Ok,”

  

It wasn’t easy going; we frequently had to quickly find somewhere to hide because a straggler came past. We stuck to the walls as much as we could and moved as quietly and swiftly as possible. When we got to the street the house was on and couldn’t see anyone around, I pulled Mattie along in a run because I didn’t want to hang around anymore than I had to. We slowed down outside Mary’s house.

“Should we knock?” Mattie asked.

I didn’t reply, I just walked up to the door and did as he suggested.

No-one answered.

“I thought you said someone was here,” I said to Mattie.

“That’s what Kieran said,”

I tried again and waited, still no-one answered. But in the corner of my eye I caught the movement of a curtain. I looked over at the window.

Suddenly the door burst open and I was attacked by a flying person.

“You guys are ok too,” Sara sobbed. I let her hug me. Sara was my god-mothers daughter and I’d known her for most of my life. Despite her being a year younger than me we’d been best friends for as long as I remember and not once in all the years that I had known her had she seemed as upset as she was then.

“I thought there was no-one left,” she continued.

After a while, when she had calmed down, she let go of me and looked at Mattie.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed “his feet are bleeding. Where are his shoes?”

I looked down at Mattie’s feet. The sides of his feet were cut and bleeding and I guessed the underneath of his feet were worse.  I picked Mattie up so he wasn’t standing on the broken skin.

“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully.

Sara walked back into the house, gesturing for me to follow. I closed the door after I’d entered.

“I don’t know how you can let a little kid walk around with no shoes on,” Sara ranted from the kitchen, “it’s totally irresponsible.”

I went into the kitchen, sat Mattie on a counter then I jumped up to sit next to him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I protested, “he was the one who didn’t want to wear them,”

“So, you make him,”

“He hid them,”

Sitting on the counter, I watched Sara sort Mattie’s feet out. I would have offered to help if I’d known what to do. The remaining sock was chucked away, it was ripped and wasn’t good for anything. She started to wrap bandages around his feet.  After the bandages were carefully wrapped and Mattie had found a box of cookies, I let him, much to Sara’s annoyance, go and jump around on the sofa. I didn’t regret things very often, but when Mattie came back with an empty cookie box, trailing crumbs behind him, I did feel a bit stupid letting him have the box in the first place. Mattie threw the box at me getting crumbs in my hair and scattering them all over the floor.

“Mattie, I thought I told you not to throw stuff at me,” I said as he ran back to the sofa, squashing the crumbs further in to the carpet. I stood there looking at Mattie burying into the cushions.

“Uh... Sorry, I guess,” I nervously laughed “I should probably go and tidy up your living room.”

I turned to do what I had suggested but something from upstairs made a huge crashing noise that made me wince.

“Tanner! Give it back, it’s not yours”

Sara gasped “I forgot about Katie and Tanner, what am I going to tell them? They don’t know what happened,”

“The truth,” I said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9: I Just Wanted To Say

“I don’t like Mattie he’s weird,”

Although she was whispering I could still hear Katie talking to Sara. To be honest I think Mattie liked her as much as she liked him, not much.

It took a while to get Katie and Tanner to believe us about the other people, but after they looked out the window at the abandoned street and saw a few of the changed people they decided it was better to at least pretend they thought we weren’t telling lies.

“Where are Will and Daniel?” I ask, trying to stop Katie talking about Mattie, “have they gone too?”

My God-Mother had five children before the Electric Lightning. Daniel was the oldest; he was two years older than me. Then there was Sara, Will, Tanner and Katie. Will was three years younger than me and Tanner was three years younger than him, which left Katie, who was seven.

“Last night Dan skipped out and left us, he just said he’d be back later. I think he got hit by the blue lights but didn’t change, but to be honest I don’t really know.”

“I want Dan,” Katie whined “Is he coming back soon?”

Sara ignored just ignored her.

“I don’t know what happened to Will, he’s in his room but…” she paused “I locked him in,  he was scaring me and I didn’t know what to do.” She was nearly shouting now “His eyes changed, Ebony, they changed. He didn’t touch the lights I swear, nothing make any sense anymore.”

Sara started crying and I stood there and did nothing. It wasn’t because I was mean, I wanted to help her, it was just awkward and I couldn’t really do anything.

Things just went from bad to worse, first of all Sara sat down, still crying, and unfortunately discovered by Katie, wouldn’t talk to anyone. Then Katie, annoyed at being ignored by her sister and the current adult role model, also started to cry.

Great, two people crying and I had no idea what I was meant to do to make them feel better and Tanner didn’t either.

“Katie, shut up you’re such a baby,” Tanner said.

Katie snivelled, then stopped crying.

“Am not,” she retorted.

As harsh as he was, I’d have to thank Tanner later.

Sara was still sat on the chair but had her head in her hands and had stopped crying.

“Do you know what’s going on Ebony?” She asked not looking up.

I was about to answer that I didn’t, but before I could Mattie rolled off the sofa and hid behind me, clinging onto my arm.

“I sort of know what’s happening,” Mattie said.

Sara looked up and stared at Mattie.

“I thought you couldn’t say anything,” Katie said, walking up to Mattie and curiously poking him.

Frowning, Mattie moved away from her.

“You’re a meanie and I don’t like you because you said I was weird and you are smaller than me by one year,” Mattie stuck his tongue out at Katie then hid behind me again.

“When did he start doing that?” asked a shocked Sara.

“Doing what?” I wasn’t being stupid; it was just that the way she said it made it sound he was doing something bad.

“The talking, I didn’t know he could do that,” Sara said.

“I can talk cuz I just did,” Mattie replied “do you have more cookies?”

Sara just shook her head.

“So do you know what’s happening? Because you said you did,” Tanner prompted, fed up with the prolonged conversation which didn't include him but I could tell that he was wary of Mattie’s new personality.

         

 

   

 

10: The Truth Of Power

 **********************************************************************

I knew stuff. I knew lots of stuff, like Kieran died in 1987 when he was eight, I also knew that I wanted more cookies but Tanner wasn’t asking about those sorts of things.

“The blue lights weren’t lights,” I explained, which wasn’t easy. I sort of knew what was happening, but it was hard to explain it so everyone else knew too.

“It was little creature things that wanted to escape. They went through the electricity and went everywhere. Mr Andrews says that they use the energy in people to make their own bodies but they can’t do that right away so they live in the people until they can,”

Everyone was still looking at me, it felt strange and I didn’t like it very much, but I guess that was sort of my own fault.

“Well I haven’t been told that before, you should have told me this stuff Mattie” Ebony kindly scolded.

“I’m sorry. Mr Andrews also says we have to be very careful because if we touch one little bit of the blue lightning then they could change us into one of the other people too. He also says that we can get powers from it, but he says not to try it because it might not work the way we want,”

“So what should we do? Because I want my Mummy back,” Katie butted in.

“Tell them they have to stop the specimen because after it has its own body, not only will it spread across the globe using every person possible as a host, it will as so enslave all genuine humans and destroy the planet, killing everything that stands in their way,”

I looked at Mr Andrews, trying to show him with the look in my eyes that I couldn’t tell Ebony and everyone else what he just said.

“I need to speak with them directly,” He said.

I was confused, hadn’t he realized that no-one else could see him? That only I could?

I must have looked confused because, Mr Andrews explained something about me that I didn’t know myself.

“You can show me to them, you have the power to,”

I was aware of everyone in the room looking at me but I ignored them and just shook my head at the silly idea that I had a power.

“How do you know?” I asked, getting more confused and scared every second.

“Do you remember what I told you the first time you saw me?” he questionably replied.

This time I nodded and said, “You told me that you got touched by the blue light but didn’t change. No, hang on…..” I paused, trying to think. It didn’t take too long for me to remember what he had said, “You told me that you had been changed, but not into one of the others,”

“That is correct, my eyes used to be green before you know,”

I didn’t need to look at his eyes to know that they weren’t green, but blue. Not bright moving blue, but still blue.

“I was given a gift, or as you put it, a power. I didn’t understand myself, until I met you Mattie. I could feel great energy and I knew that you would be able to see me even if I’d never met you before. Like now, I know you have the power to let them see me. That’s my power Mattie; I know what other people possess.”

“I can try, if you want,”

He nodded at me.

**********************************************************************

  

11: It's A Mattie Thing

After Katie asked what we were meant to do Mattie didn’t respond. Instead he just looked at an empty space beside him and started to talk to that instead. Of course I could tell what was going on but the same could not be said for Sara, Tanner and Katie.

I was concerned about him though, he looked overly scared and confused, but since I could only hear half the conversation I couldn’t do anything to help him. Because I was concentrating on trying to sort of get the conversation I hadn’t realised that Sara had moved across the room to sit beside me.

“What’s he doing? I thought he’d stopped that.” She said, breaking my concentration.

“No, he hasn’t,” I replied.

“Are you not going to stop him? It can’t be good,”

“He’s the only person that knows what’s going on and at the moment we need as much help as we can get.”

Sara fell silent and no more was said on the subject.

**********************************************************************

I didn’t really know what I was doing but I had a good idea. When I first started to see dead people, they were there for a second then they went, just gone, not there anymore. At first it scared me. I was two at the time so it made sense, but after seeing these people a few times I realised that they weren’t trying to hurt me and that I actually wanted to see them. That’s how it started, me thinking I wanted something. After that I could see them clearly, so clearly that I couldn’t actually tell the difference between them and real people.

I tried that now; I thought that if I could get something just by thinking about it before, I could do it again, even if it didn’t work for cookies and ice-cream when I wanted them.

I still didn’t know if it could work. I closed my eyes and tried think about what it would be like to have Mr Andrews talking to everyone. What it would be like for everyone to see him. I opened my eyes and concentrated on my power. If it wasn’t for my hands feeling slightly hot, I wouldn’t have noticed that anything was happening. I stared at my hands. Blue light wrapped around them and started to move up my arms. I wasn’t scared, this light felt soft, not hard like the electric lightning.

I could see Ebony looking at me. He looked really worried and scared so I smiled at him and said

“Look what I can do,”

**********************************************************************

Mattie was never normal but what he was doing with hands was stranger than anything I had ever seen.

Katie screamed and ran to Sara, who looked equally shocked and weirded out as Katie.

Sara stared at Mattie, and then gave me a look of absolute horror. I tried to hide the emotion from my face before I looked at her. I shrugged.

“It’s a Mattie thing,” I said.

12: This Is Not The End

Tanner, who hadn’t really been interested in Mattie until now, glared at me. For a twelve year old, he really was quite scary and to be honest I liked him a lot less than I liked Katie. He was temperamental and on the most part ignored people, preferring to be on his own. I think it was mostly because he was coping Dan, who wasn’t the best brother for Tanner.

“You’re crazier than Mattie if you think that’s normal,” Tanner spat, nodding towards Mattie who had turned his attention back to whatever he was doing.

When I didn’t respond Tanner threw a pillow at my face which I also, didn’t respond to. Looking at Mattie I could see that the light, that was covering only his hands a few not that long ago, had spread up his and over his face. Some of the lights were actually coming off his hands in strands and gathering together on the floor. I didn’t know what he was doing, but whatever it was it seemed to be going how he wanted. He must have seen us looking at him because turned to me and gave me a half smile, just before an intense, white flash shot out of the floor, right where Mattie was ‘working’ moments ago.

 

I couldn’t see anything and from what I could hear nor could anyone else. Someone, probably Katie, was screaming. Tanner was cursing Mattie for blinding him, saying things that Mattie shouldn’t hear and things Tanner himself shouldn’t even know. This in turn caused Sara to get involved by telling Tanner to shut up and stop being mean. After seconds of sharp pains in the back of my eyes, the lights started to slowly subside. When I finally deemed it safe to do, I opened my eyes. I must have done it too quick because a wave of dizziness washed over me before I could see semi-decently. I still had those annoying white dots in front of my eyes that appeared every time I blinked, but I paid no attention to them. Everyone else was obviously having the same problem. Tanner was stumbling around rubbing his eyes, still using colourful language I couldn’t help but cringe at. Blinking to clear her vision, Sara was comforting Katie, who was still crying that she couldn’t see. I twisted around to look at the main body of the room, which I had purposely avoided, looking at in fear that it had suffered substantial damage in the process of the blinding light; this was Mattie we were on about after all.

Without warning, there was a deafening ricochet of bullets. The front door literately exploded, scattering little parts of the wood all over the hall.

A disembodied voice came from the door,

“That’s one hell of a gun,” it whispered, in what could only be explained as awe.

Then louder, as an angry shout, that we could clearly all hear,  “Would someone like to explain what the hell is going on here?”

 

I’ve never really worked out if I was grateful for the visitor appearing out of the blue. Now I look back I realise that it aided towards both our survival and my down fall. But overall it was unexpected and sometimes the unexpected happens at the worst times.    

 

            

 

13: Authors Note.

Basicly this chapter wouldn't delete and this is the only thing I can think of. So thanks to those who helped. This next paragraph is copyed from my FictionPress account which has the same story on:

Right OK, if anyone actually reads this, that's great. Mattie was meant to be based on my brother in the fact they are both strange (and have blond hair)but that's about as far as the similarities go. My brothers not some weird kid who talks to ghosts and if you ask me he talks way too much and is useless. Yes,Jam-Sandwich (James) I am thanking you for proof reading my story...NOT. But then I guess you can't ask a nine (eight at the time I started writing this story) year old boy to do much more than play SkyLanders all day.

Thanks again to those who reviewed (or PM'ed me)on this story.

Signed Me