CHAPTER 5

Slowly walking towards the black point, feeling the waves of these ephemeral energies, such darkness... Her black non-heel boots didn't even sound, didn't even come close to the horrible noise being produced by some madness totally out of her understanding. And right there, in the middle of the street between the empty houses, where the windows seemed as the witnessing eyes of the terrifying act, was located the shadow and its purifying rage of solitude. A pain unable for the rest to comprehend. 
Frowning, maybe suspecting a little bit, Grace walked on low guard, approaching to the woman in the middle, the center of the darkest situation... the bizarre event she was watching right at this moment. Keeping her distance, she decided to look at what seemed to be something beyond eerie.

She had found the girl she was looking for.

At the center of this vague scenery remained the pieces of an unsolved puzzle above the mystery of nothingness. The unexplainable was the aura failed to be seen by whatever human eyes were to presence this, even among the shadowy clouds getting distorted everywhere around the city as if the shattering was filled with black fog instead of its natural destruction leading nowhere. Some noises could still be heard like demons dancing around the fallacies of a deceased leader, now reborn as a putrefied heart, and rotting blood beginning to spread across the minds of everyone. Such is the witness of the blond woman on both hands and knees against the pavement of that street. The invisible darkness was present, being able to be felt but impossible to be seen, while the girl, behaving strangely as the poisoned crows in horror tales, was convulsing. Her shoulders were trying to get out of place leaning up and down but staying still after the arms pushed harder to the very ground. Her eyes were covered by the sweating shadow of her hair and the nerves believed to be trying to pop out between her veins. She suddenly puked a wine color liquid, even standing in semi convulsive position as if she was about to collapse at any moment. She vomited again this that humans called blood, and trembled before the reflection of her sullen face on the shimmering red. Her katana was a few steps away, remaining as a virus she desired to reach, even when the fog came down little by little, right from the horrible nightmare better known as the sky. Raising her right arm to the distorted surrounding, a vicious vortex around the sword, she opened her hand and finally took the handle of it, pulling it back but not before the horrible sensation on her nerves, infuriating the stress she felt through her bloody veins. Even if the mouth of this beauty pale female begged to dry the bleeding revolting with saliva, and the lines of what was coming from inside out, she still had the force to turn around while distortedly crawling backwards to raise her head and reveal her luminous eyes filled with anger and disarray. This was the stare of her lunacy towards Grace, before some ghostly beings arose from the pavement and surrounded her.

“Interesting.” That was the only word Grace could find to describe the bizarre scene she had just witnessed.

In summary, the girl puked blood, her eyes were demonic, and she realized that Grace was there, then she went back to normal and ghosts appeared behind her.

“What’s your name?” Grace inquired, unsheathing her blade.

“Giselle…” Replied the mysterious girl, sighing, exhausted.

Her voice. Her angelic and sweet voice. God, what a beautiful and innocent tone! That of a whispering princess in agony, melancholy, divine messenger from the heavens! But alas, she could be a demoness, a netherworld warrior controlling the ghosts, or even the culprit behind it all. Nonetheless, the female figures seemed to be aggressive towards her.

Grace took exactly two steps backwards while carefully and scarcely witnessing the scene. All of the ghosts didn’t seem to care what was going on between the girls. Therefore, Grace put herself in combat pose, lifting her katana being held by both hands away from her chest as if she was trying to defend from the phantoms. She, surprised and scared from the inside, remained calm from the outside, analyzing the contact she had made with this strange warrior leading her clues to literally nowhere. And before Grace stood up against the ghastly creatures, the black vortex began swirling around them all, spreading outwards and forming a giant tornado which led her to withdraw and, turning around, began running away as fast as she could, knowing that the malicious beings were going to chase her sooner or later.

“Accursed witch!” Grace yelled, fueled with anger. “I wanted to fight you, and only you!” But she noticed that Giselle was running away from the creatures as well.

Both girls jumped on small buildings, houses, stores, roofs, trying to sneak away from the haunted beings and the giant tornado.

By the time Grace had reached the Central Plaza, she saw a giant circular fountain of a spiral with three floors, this made of gray cement, including the 2 meter wall around it. Water was still below there as intact as if people had vanished just yesterday. However, no water was coming from atop the fountain anymore. 
Grace found her way behind it, where the entrance to the commercial center was, two big crystal doors stuck in the middle with nothing but bloodstains for some reason. The parking lot was at both sides of this entrance, obviously divided in 2 sections with lots of abandoned cars left stationed perfectly. Lights were off in this part of the building so the whole parking lot was darkened. 
Still holding her sword and feeling obnoxiously idiot, the girl stopped before going into the building to find herself near the electric stairs, not working anymore. The creatures were already there. Stuck right before the stairs, thanks to the ghosts, Grace had to slash her way through, easily and rapidly cutting them, as if her movements were tenacious sparks and sounds of steel making flashlights per each cut she did to the ghosts spreading into more and more fog that the others absorbed without even moving at all. It was that moment when the rock metal music started sounding through her headphones again; “A Violent Reaction” from American Head Charge governed her ears, lifting her spirit and mysteriously raising her strength, leading the girl in guarding pose, to smile. 
“Heh...” Two ghosts came from both sides of her and one more decided to launch an attack to the front. Grace flexed both knees and jumped straight forward to the creature, taking her sword with both hands at her top left and slashing completely to the right, cutting the enemy in half. Immediately before falling to the floor, she turned around while the other two spectral souls approached, making a similar and circular movement with her slashing ability to cut them in half with diagonal attacks, finally touching the ground one more time, leaning for a bit. The fog dissipated to the roof for there wasn't any more ghosts to absorb it. 
“Weaklings...” Mocked the lady while turning around, facing the stairs again. She went up, running quickly, looking for Giselle.
“Where are you?” She whispered to herself, gazing from left to right and finally to the bottom line of the closed stores.

Giselle felt the heartbeat and its sound strangling her throat, this fierce abomination of her torment she could stand no more. As soon as the ghost army left to chase them down, as predators after their prey, the woman barely stood up still holding the sheathed katana whilst dizziness felt qualm enough to toss her down again. She had quit her escape because of this; again in the middle of a street. The multiple figures surrounding her, they turned around and smiled like never ending fans of her blood-staining stare. Then she fell down one more time, right to her knees at the pavement which served her well. Why, she put her sword as in horizontal in front of her, with her pale right hand. The ghosts stood grisly silent as a circle of lurid fantasy around the woman. But soon, the darkened sky began to spread its black fog around the evening, meanwhile the darkness, as a whole nightmare towards the girl, the invisible obscurity, vanished. The ghosts noticed this but could not erase their wicked smiles while the girl was slowly pulling the sword from the wooden case. Halfway through, a flashing light appeared for just a single second, pushing the phantasmagoric beings violently away from her. When they got up, making sullen noises and babbling about nonsense, the girl was just standing in the middle of that street, holding down her katana and separating her legs for a few centimeters. Her stare seemed back to normal and all traces of the blood were suspiciously gone. 
The creatures shrieked before rushing against the girl but she moved back and forth so fast, slashing and creating an energy cross at both sides that remained still for a fraction of a second, pausing the whole scene just to contemplate their faces. Then, the lights spread their energy within them and literally slaughtered all the present beings into a fog that disappeared into thin air. Her beauty now seemed as fragile as before, tender for her determination to protect her resolve, the lively mystery of her life. She gently caressed her hair with her left hand and turned around as in opposite direction of the plaza. She had no desire to fight Grace.

After a while, she looked down the street and felt alone, tearing apart from the inside while burning alive from the outside. And just as a shadowy spasm occurred afar from her, a glance from some wicked eyes began to follow. And so did her body, moving rapidly after a quick and high jump to the nearest house roof, valiantly seeing her target going near the end of the city, the end of fears, and the vast and frozen lake of tears.

“I have to stop this.” She said. “Once and for all.”