He walked side by side with Cass, who held their shared umbrella. She was taller than him, which was no surprise. He hated being short. He hated being doted on, especially by a girl. He hated the fresh bruise peeking out from under her sleeve and the criss-crossed razor scars hidden under his. He hated school and the rain and the ominous pillars of light that reached up into the evening sky from the nearby fields. He especially hated how thinking about Cass made his stomach tighten.

  But this hatred had made his aura exceptionally strong, hardened it into an impenetrable shell that nothing from the outside world could pierce. Cass had taught him all about auras and omens and souls. Things he had always brushed aside as childish, until a few months ago anyway.

  “You sure you don’t want to stop in for tea or something?” He asked when they got to his house, same as he’d asked every other day.

  Her answer, too, would be the same. “Sorry I’ve got to go home and practice my calligraphy,” she said, opening her book bag and showing him the leatherbound notebook within, as though the excuse would be unbelievable otherwise.

  “Why are you in such a rush to go home,” is what he wanted to say, but the words turned into a lump in his throat. His eyes wandered down towards the bruise on her arm, and he knew there’d be another one beside it when he saw her again. More than anything he hated himself for being a coward.

  The next day at school would be the same as the one before, and the one before that. He’d arrive to find insults scrawled across his locker and hear snickering laughter when he half-heartedly wiped them off. Between classes a crowd would always form around him, and there away from teachers’ prying eyes he’d be pummeled, quickly and quietly and never in a place that would show. Day to day, the only changes he could see were in their auras, every week it seemed as though more luminous lively auras turned into wisps of darkened grey. Sometimes it even showed in their eyes, if he calmed his energies enough to offset his harmonics and see through their illusions. They were no longer human, what lived inside them was dark, insidious, and filled their eyes with a deep inky black.

  At lunch he sat beside Cass in a far corner of the cafeteria. She had her notebook set out in front of her and was tracing strange letters with a fountain pen.

  “I think we lost a few more today,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I saw those pillars of light again yesterday. They always show up before someone turns. There’s more dark auras than I can count today. It’s getting bad.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she said, not looking up from her book, “It’s just weird, y’know? Developing such aptitude for energy so late in life, and so quickly. Not to mention without any practice. Right after I told you about auras and stuff, too. I mean, I’ve been honing my skills since I was little and I can barely see more than a shimmer on a good day.”

  “So you’re saying I’m making it up?”

  “Maybe all I’m saying is you should slow down a little and maybe do some second guessing.”

  “But the pillars of light! Even you said you saw them! They’re real.”

  “Mhmm.”

  She was politely feigning interest and even he knew it. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from going on.

  “But you were the one who told me about them! About karmic rebalancing, about how the goodness in our souls is like a candle in the dark and if that light is snuffed out there’s nothing to keep us from the abyss.”

  “I told you it was something I picked up in an old movie I saw. It’s fun to think about, y’know? You shouldn’t take it as some spiritual insight. Anyone ever tell you that you take things too seriously? And don’t you think it’s a little weird that all these monsters or demons or whatever always seem to be your bullies?

  He sat in silence for a moment, his mind racing to come up with a way to change the subject.

  “What kind of calligraphy is that anyway?”

  “They’re runes.”

  “Like the vikings used?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Were your family vikings?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I just think they’re cool? Listen, lunch is almost over. I’m going to go, okay?” She said, packing up her things and leaving. She’d never been so cold and distant before, it was like a chasm had just opened up between the two of them.

  He was so stupid. Of course she’d pick up on his weak attempts to change the subject after he’d said something weird and crazy. He was so bad at this kind of thing, about letting his weirdness come through the seams when he felt he knew someone. He always overdid it and it was exactly why he didn’t have any friends.

  “Whatever,” he said to himself as he left the table. He stoked the ember of hatred in his heart until it consumed all the other feelings. “I don’t need your friendship, or your pity and I don’t even like you,” he said under his breath.

  He should have known she’d never understand. It was no surprise to him when people started turning monstrous. To him, it was more like their true nature was finally showing. He had never been strong or smart or even clever. His features were at once too sharp and too receding. His was neither short, nor tall, with narrow shoulders that radiated insecurity. As such he was always on the lowest social rung. To list the times he’d suffered at the hands of others would fill a tome no monk could transcribe if they’d been given two lifetimes. So it was easier to tally the times he’d been shown kindness: not once. Not until he’d met Cass at the beginning of high school, anyway.

  But he was sure now that the total sum of kindness would stay the same forever, now that Cass thought he was a weirdo. He clenched his fists in a jealous rage. He was jealous of the friendship she would now surely offer to someone else. And he was sure they’d talk about him, and he’d given her oh so much ammunition. Could he have been any more stupid? For the rest of the day he didn’t so much as glance in her direction, and after school he locked himself in the boy’s room. It was easier than making up an excuse about why he didn’t want to walk home with her.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  It was well into the evening when he finally emerged. The halls were dimly lit, the night lights cast long shadows across the floor. He bee lined for the doors when he realized he’d left his backpack by his desk, and his house keys were inside. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, expecting total darkness, but found the lights to the study hall were still on. He debated climbing back down and using the second staircase, but decided instead to walk past the room as quickly and quietly as he could, hoping whatever nerd was still studying was too engrossed in their textbooks to notice him.

  But movement caught his eye as he crept past the room, and reflexively he turned his head. The short mousy girl from their class, Lana, was hunched over a textbook, behind her sat three boys who he didn’t recognize. The lights flickered for a moment and the shadows shifted. Now around Lana stood three towering fiends. They looked human, mostly, but their arms had too many joints and their hands were gnarled claws. Sinew and veins rippled under mottled, sickly flesh.

  “Their true form…” he mumbled, and then took a step back as one of them turned to look towards him. It’s head had too many eyes and its fangs glistened. Like she’d been knocked out of a trance Lana finally saw them too, but before she could even scream one of them dug its claws into her skull and snapped her neck. She fell to the floor and they tore into her skin, soft and pale, gorging themselves.

  He didn’t sleep at all that night and left for school early the next day. He checked the study room, his hands trembling as he opened the door. But instead of blood he found white tile. It was like nothing at all had happened. Maybe it was all just a dream. Maybe he was cracking up. Didn’t all kinds of mental issues come up for kids right around his age? What he needed was a sense of normalcy, so he headed downstairs to class. But he stopped at the classroom door, something wasn’t right. He found the desks in rearranged. He heard his teacher walk up behind him. “A good eye or just a creature of habit?” he asked, his voice chipper as usual.

  “Sorry,what? It’s just the desks…”

  “Right. Lana’s transferred schools, remember? Her father got a job a few towns over.”

  “I’m really sorry, I think I made a mistake coming in. I really don’t feel good,” he said, darting for the doors.

  He ran all the way home and holed up in his room in front of his PC. It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for. Every paranormal message board or video channel had some nugget of truth, leading him along one after the other, like he was pulling handkerchiefs from a magician’s hat. Slowly the whole thing started to take shape, his heart raced, he realized that maybe he wasn’t so alone in this. Plus, every time he looked away from the screen he saw Lana and those things again. He needed to stay distracted. Two whole days had gone by before the exhaustion was overwhelming. He lay down on his bed and reached for his phone. He needed to tell someone, anyone, but Cass was the only contact in his phone.

  “Hey Cass,” he typed.

  “I think I’ve figured it all out. I know it’s going to sound crazy. I don’t think it’s actually karmic rebalancing after all. The collective subconscious doesn’t have tipping points like a scale, someone won’t automatically lose the goodness inside them just because some threshold of total evil has been crossed. There’s something deeper at work here. Humans aren’t just monsters in their souls, the goodness in them isn’t so easily snuffed out, the abyss isn’t that close at all. At least, that’s what I read online and I kind of believe it. Otherwise people would be turning into monsters all the time, right? Apparently it takes someone, or some thing to snuff that light out. Or maybe, I read, it’s not even snuffed out. Sometimes it’s taken. There’s things that eat the light. Except you can’t just take it, apparently. It has to be replaced with something, so they put darkness there instead. It’s kind of like being a zombie I think? But not quite. Maybe closer to what a necromancer does, because those people with the darkness in them are bound to the whoever did it. So there’s got to be someone behind this. It all makes sense too, because I read that if you pierce the veil, if you try to gather energies from the other side, sometimes it can show, they call it aetheral luminism and that kind of explains those pillars of light, right? I think if we find who’s doing this we can stop this. By the way, were you ever friends with Lana?”

  But before he could hit send his eyes closed on their own and for the first time in days he slept. He woke up well into the next day. Maybe it was the extra rest or maybe whatever mania he’d been in had subsided but some color had returned to his otherwise grey existence. Unfortunately it served only to make his failures that much more apparent. His room was filthy, sunlight fought its way in through the cracks between the cardboard he’d taped over the window and illuminated piles of dirty laundry, food wrappers and empty bottles. What little light reached the far wall lit up the pressboard shelves crammed full of video games, figurines and books he should have outgrown years ago.

  It all reminded him of how much of a loser he was. But wasn’t it their fault he was like this? After all everyone else had made him this way. Forced him to retreat back into himself, into memories and daydreams and distractions. Their fault or not, he couldn’t go on like this. He looked at his reflection in the mirror.

  “How about one more day?” he whispered.

  “One more day where I see monsters or auras or anything weird and I’m telling mom the truth. Maybe I need a little break from everything. Maybe talking to a shrink won’t be so bad after all.” And, having finished bargaining with himself, he put on the cleanest clothes he could find and headed to school, because if he missed any more days they’d call his parents for sure.

  It was almost last period when he walked in, and after making up a few weak excuses he took his seat. He kept his eyes fixed on the whiteboard and feigned interest in taking notes, doing his best to not even glance at Cass in the seat next to his. Again he locked himself in the boy’s room after school, this time making sure to bring his backpack. He waited even longer than last time and by the time he’d left it was already dark.

  He walked out the back doors and cut through the field, as it was the shortest way home. The usually darkened shed at the far end was lit up tonight, and for some reason he couldn’t look away. Like a moth to a flame he was drawn towards the light. He peeked inside the half open doors, expecting to see the groundskeeper, but instead he saw Cass, pressing herself into a corner, shielding herself with her bag, terror in her eyes. He swung the doors open and saw that one of those things had her cornered. It was bigger than the others, four necrotic arms hung from sunken shoulders, its legs had an unnatural bend. He reached for something, anything, to fight it with. It loomed over Cass and brought its massive claws down hard.

  But it was only a glancing blow, deflected by the shovel in his hands. He moved with a speed he’d never known before and swung at the monster’s head. The shovel connected with a sickening crunch and the ghoul collapsed.

  He knelt down beside Cass, who'd collapsed onto the floor. “Are you alright?” he asked, gently wiping the blood from her face. She looked him in the eyes and took his hand in hers.

  “I could never say the words before, but now…”

  “Now what?”

  “It was my last regret, you know? Before you got here. When I thought that thing was going to kill me. The fact I never managed to actually say the words I’d thought so many times…”

  “Cass, are you okay? What are you talking about?

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  Something in him softened and gave way, his once impenetrable aura shuddered and collapsed in on itself. “I love you too, Cass,” he said, smiling, the first time he remembered genuinely smiling in years.

  Her smiled widened too, and she sat upright. Her gentle grip now turned to steel and threatened to crush his hand. She threw her head back in laughter, exposing rows of razor sharp teeth. Her nails turned to talons and dug into his hand, breaking the skin. She laughed again and looked at him with eyes that were jet black pits of despair and cold spread through his chest.

  “Do you know how long I’ve worked? Do you know how powerful you could have been? I’ve never seen an aura so strong, not in all my years.” she hissed, her voice like a winter’s wind. She dug tore her talons into his chest and drew out an orb of pure white light. She held it up above her head with both hands and he watched as it disappeared into her palms. He was frozen in place, his mind slowly emptying its thoughts. She whispered some incantation and opened her notebook.

  “You were close, you know, with that message you never sent. Maybe if you’d known that auras actually shield your light, you’d have never let down your guard. But most auras are soft, unworked, tenuous things, hardly there at all. You should be proud with that you’ve done with yours, you know."

  “But I suppose a strong aura in untrained hands is little good, is it? Because to be brutally honest, I had some doubts as to whether you’d fall for a trap this simple. A damsel in distress,” she said jokingly. She drew runes on a blank page and for a moment he understood everything. The book was a grimoire and he could read the runes as though he’d always known them. Cass had been an light eater since times eternal, some ancient thing from a world long forgotten. And then she wrote his name, and his thoughts disappeared altogether.

  “Every aura has its weakness, and what does not bend must shatter.” Gently, she grasped his chin and turned his head towards hers, “besides, you’ve never been happy as a human, have you?”