#4 Training and ghost animals.
I wake up feeling strangely well rested. You would think after staying up till almost one in the morning and also not to mention fighting a creature from another dimension I would be a lot more tired and as I look toward my clock next to bed to see that it is only 6:32 I realize I only slept around five or so hours. I guess whatever I am no doesn't need as much sleep now? Or maybe being near the portal helped? Or maybe it has something to do with fighting stuff?
Well whatever the answer may be all it makes me want to do is work on my new found abilities or powers or whatever I'm going to call them,even more. I guess it's time to get to it then! As I am about to try figuring stuff out finally I hear my fathers loud snoring and I realize I can't really mess around with ghost like abilities around two ghost hunters no matter how bad they are at it,plus even if they don't bust in here and try to capture me I might hurt them if my abilities go haywire.
As I go to leave my room and go downstairs I grab an old backpack and put a extra set of clothes in there,just in case I then spot the ghost catcher shaped like a soup can I forgot to put back yesterday and I grab that to,just in case. As I am walking down the stairs and avoiding all the squeaky steps just in case even if my parents don't wake up for anything,maybe if someone whispered ghost in there vicinity but that's about it.
As I make my way inside of the kitchen, I grab a couple granola bars and two water bottles. I then hurriedly go outside and go into the lab we're I grab a couple things, namely a ghost detector,plus a weapon,and after I get that stuff I hurriedly leave. As I finish up getting my supplies I write a quick note to my parents that I would be out for a couple hours and would be back in a bit then put in on the fridge with a magnet.
They probably wouldn't notice if I was gone for the last week and a half of summer vacation before my first year of high school and only then because the school would call about me and if they stopped doing there experiments for a second would tell them I wasn't there and that would remind them I exist, but I hurriedly back track that thought because I knew they would notice within the day if I didn't come home. Or at least that's what I hoped but deep down I knew that wasn't true.
I shake those bad thoughts out of my head as I walk over and out of the front door and try to think about all the cool things I could figure out about my powers. As I am thinking that my lower half turned intangible but not my pants as they fell down. Causing a couple people walking down the sidewalk to laugh. I hurriedly grabbed my pants and brought them back up as I thought I really needed to figure out these powers and fast before the rest of my credibility no matter how little of that I had considering who my parents were went out the window!
*Outside of Solemn Valley proper and two miles into the surrounding woods in a semi small clearing*
Good thing I knew a pretty good place to do…whatever I'm going to do. I found the place a year and a half ago. Scouted the place out for a couple weeks to make sure no one either knew about or visited the place and luckily for me it seemed like no one did! It was a little far from town though so I guess it was a given. Plus there's an added bonus of it being out of range of my parents ghost detectors. Of course they could come here and they would get something on it but they usually stay in the town and around it so I'm hopefully good. I guess I start whatever I'm about to do then.
I put my backpack far away from me so I don't destroy it and think about what I should try first. I think about that transformation or whatever happened in the beginning of all this and just for science I am going to try and do that again and not because I thought it looked cool. As I try and think about transforming I close my eyes and focus just like with staying tangible and like with firing that thing from my fist which now that I'm thinking about it looked a lot like what is fired from my parents weapons.
I let that thought leave me as I feel a hot and at the same time cold feeling wash over me and through my eyelids I could see a grey light pass over my head and as I open my eyes I look down and see the inverted jumpsuit that I guess I died in. Just going to let that thought be put in the old brain vault where everything I don't want to think about ever again goes.
As I marvel at myself I wondered why I didn't see the same light in the bathroom before but shrugged it off and thought that my dead body was so tired it just went back into my living one. As I think that I put my gloves hand over where my heart is and feel no heart beat. I panic and hurriedly try to go back to my base form. It worked as the grey light now known as the grey rings went over my body and I hurriedly put my hand back over my heart to feel a heart bit again though the slower one that I'm slowly getting used to.
I sit there confused. How can I be both alive and dead? How is that possible? Before that I had thought I had indeed died but only for a short time and because of that I had gained abilities but I realize now that thought or really hope was naïve. I had to get over that though because, what am I going to do about it? Ask my parents for help? They would rather study me then help me. Ask the government for help? They would probably be worse. I'm whatever I am now. No changing that.
As I go back to training I turn back into my dead form. It was a lot easy,it must because I've done it a couple times now. I try not to think about being died and instead think about how after the accident I was floating off the ground and the ectopus was also floating so. Why don't I try that out? As I try it out I realize that doing all the ghost stuff is a lot easier in the my dead form then alive one because I'm floating pretty easily.
Now that I'm thinking about it if I can float wouldn't it also make since for me to be able to fly as well? The ectopus flew out of the portal and we are both ghost, well one full ghost and one half one but still. As I go to fly upward I go fast and very high up,which would sound terrifying to just about everybody if they where suddenly flying upward very fast but I was only terrified for a couple of seconds before I started laughing and screaming in excitement like one would do if you were on a roller coaster.
As I'm up pretty high I realize I don't know how to get back down. As I am thinking that my form goes back to its living counterpart and I'm falling thousands of miles from the air. As I am trying to transform back into dead me and screaming my head off in terror this time it felt like something in my chest started to hurt a bit but I pushed through that and died again as I instinctively slowed myself till my face was inches from the ground I then came alive once again and face planted.
"OW! WHY!" I yell as I rub my face and getting back to my feet. "Well let's not do that again." I mutter knowing I was going to go back up again and soon. I really like flying, might be the favorite of my abilities yet. As I finish up muttering in pain I go back to testing out abilities. As I go to die again I feel like something in my chest doesn't like that as it twanged in pain. "Alright not dying just yet I guess." I say as I rub my chest were the pain surfaced. I take a quick break and eat a granola bar and drink a whole water bottle as I go to check the time on my phone to see I had been out here for an hour and a half."Wow! I guess the saying is true,time flies when your flying with it!" I chuckle and then say,"Ok onto firing ectoplasmic energy from my fist!" I say as i shut my fist and fired a blast off into a large boulder about 20 or so feet away from me leaving a slightly larger then a walnut hole in the side of it. I then tried just doing it from the palm of my hand and that worked as well maybe even better. I then tried just from one finger which worked but made me even more tired then before and the shot was barley able to hit the boulder but it did more damage then the other two shots combined,managing to chip off a fist sized rock off of the boulder. I could feel that if I were in my other form all of those shots would of been a lot more powerful. As I thought this I felt the same like before in my chest and decided todays training was done.
I did try to juggle a couple sticks so I could get a better grip on my phasing and that exercise seemed to only give semi good results. I'm just hoping the ability will even itself out and my pants or any of my clothes don't end up on the ground in front of people. Or half of me disappearing or falling through the ground in front of people,which would probably be a lot worse I guess.
Just as Ben was finishing cleaning up that same grey mist from before came out of his eyes again. "That is so annoying!" Ben said. At least it doesn't hurt only kinda cold,like sticking your head in the freezer he thought. "Wonder what this one is for." Thinks Ben as he goes to get his backpack and make his trek back home. He hummed a bit,happy about his progress so far.
As he is walking away and going home, he noticed some animals around him and he thought how neat that was because when they would of usually ran away when they would see him but he soon realized that they were translucent! He got ready to fight before realizing that the ghosts weren't trying to attack him but were just acting like what those animals would do if they were alive, only not caring he was there at all.
He thought they weren't attacking him at first because he was part ghost but he then thought about the ectopus and how that attacked him without hesitation so he thought maybe not all ghosts were out to attack everyone else maybe they just wanted to be left alone and maybe his parents were wrong about ghosts all being evil because if they were all evil. What was he?
As our protagonist had these existential thoughts and fears. He also walked home tired and slightly happy about all that he had learned about his powers.