Chapter 2: You Again?

Gale was stuck at the base monitoring the camera feeds. He wished that Mandie wouldn’t just run off all the time leaving him to watch the monitors alone. Sure, she was the leader of the group and an upper first class exorcist, but there are reasons we work in groups. He turned his attention to camera three, the monitor Mandie had been looking at right before she bolted from the room. There was nothing special about this particular video feed, other than it was pointing at the door where he had met Alice earlier.

Gale closed his eyes and focused, trying to concentrate his spiritual energy so he could see into what people commonly called the World Beyond. He could feel the energy lacing over his eyes like a thin layer of film, shifting his vision into the world of spirits. He cautiously opened his eyes; this skill had always given him trouble, but he wasn’t going to let it fall apart this time.

While the film was still intact he looked at the screens again. A few white glowing orbs had appeared throughout the school, but those were just peaceful spirits, nothing to be concerned about, and certainly nothing unnatural. There were a few visible dark energy trails layered through the halls, but those weren’t too concentrated or dangerous looking either. Then he got to camera three; the screen was pure white.

“What the?” he muttered to himself, leaning closer to the screen to get a better look. He’d never seen anything like this before. Pure white energy enveloping a whole area? It was unheard of. Not impossible of course, because nothing is impossible when you work in the field of ghosts and spirits, but it was still super unlikely. Was this what Mandie had seen or were his eyes playing tricks on him again? There was strong possibility of the latter, but then why would Mandie have left so quickly?

A streak of pain shot through Gale’s head and the film started to fall apart. The video screens began to malfunction, and static replaced what had previously been video. Gale quickly dispelled all the energy he had called, hoping that the static was just caused by a lack of control over his own energy. The videos went back to normal, but he could no longer see the energy that had been there seconds before. He shook off the remainder of the film and leaned back in the chair. His head still hurt a little, though it was settling into more of a dull ache. Gale still had a long way to go before he’d be able to use that skill regularly.

Most spiritualists could hold that vision for ten to twenty minutes, there were even rumors of people who could see spirit energy constantly. Gale, however, could hardly hold it for two minutes, and even then there were always bad aftereffects.

“Still having trouble with that, huh?” Chase’s carefree voice sounded from the doorway. Gale’s muscles instantly tightened as he almost jumped out of his chair, he hadn’t heard anyone come in. He didn’t even have time to process what had happened when he heard laughter coming from the open door.

He turned in his chair and saw the blonde spiritualist braced against the doorframe laughing. “Seriously, Chase! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me.”

The spiritualist stopped chuckling, shrugged, and strode into the room with Jackson close behind. “Sorry, it’s just I’m constantly surprised by your inability to see past the physical world,” Chase laughed.

“Look who’s getting all technical with their vocabulary,” Jackson teased.

Chase turned to look at his cousin, “Who, me?” he placed his hand on his chest and mouthed the word ‘never’. “Though you do have to admit,” he slip over and wrapped his arm around Gale’s shoulder, “his failure in that area is absolutely hysterical considering what he is.”

Jackson’s heterochromatic eyes, narrowed. One sharp look and Chase backed away, arms raised defensively.

Gale turned back to the monitors, “Right, well…” Coming from anyone else that whole conversation would’ve been weird, but for Chase and Jackson it was normal, and Gale was surprisingly getting used to it. “How was your guys’ round?” When things got weird with them it was easier just to change the subject.

“Pretty good,” Chase responded, acting serious for the first time for the first time since entering the room. “There wasn’t much to see, just some shadow trails here and there.”

“Though,” Jackson continued, “from what the principal told us I would’ve guessed that we were dealing with a poltergeist.”

The word sent shivers down Gale’s spine. Poltergeists. For supposedly bing some of the most dangerous dark spirits around there wasn’t much too them. Other than the fact that they were virtually endless fonts of power, which made them scary enough, and that they lacked almost all of their prior human emotions and self control.

“But from the lack of evidence on mine and Chase’s third look around, we were either wrong or this spirit is a lot more cunning than we previously thought.”

Gale mulled this over, “Do you think we’d still be able to handle a poltergeist with Mandie out of commission?” Normally, with their team at full power, they’d easily be able to take care of two or three of those monsters. But, without Mandie, Gale wasn’t so sure. He was still just an apprentice, so he only ranked in the upper third class of all exorcists, and Chase and Jackson weren’t even ranked on that scale.

“Listen up kid,” Chase fixed Gale with a serious look and flopped down into a chair, “Jackson and I may not actually be exorcists, but there’s a reason Mandie works with us and it’s not because of your Society’s precious power system.”

Jackson leaned in, “What I think Chase is trying to say is that Mandie doesn’t work with us because of ranks. She works with us because of our powers, we’re skilled at this and she knows it. Which is why we won’t have any trouble dealing with a poltergeist without her.”

Gale spun around in his chair to face them, “Speaking for Mandie, have either of you seen her around?”

“Actually yeah, earlier. Well, briefly. She kinda flew by us on our way back. What was that all about?” Chase walked over to help watch the scenes.

“I’m not entirely sure. She burst out of here a few minutes ago, leaving me to watch the cameras alone,” Gale pushed his feet off the ground so the chair spun in place.

Chase laughed, “That’s rough buddy, but it’s not like you wouldn’t expect it. She does it all the time, you should be used to it by now.”

“I am used to it,” Gale mumbled, “It just bugs me that she catches more stuff than I do. I mean seriously, I’m the Purison here, shouldn’t I be more spiritually inclined than her.”

“Sure, technically,” Chase flopped back down into his chair, “but just because you’re quote more spiritually inclined, doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to see everything everyone else does.”

“Thanks Chase, that makes me feel a lot better.”

“Okay, look at it like this; you may've been raised by ghosts, but that doesn’t mean you can just out class a senior exorcist. She’ll catch more than you until you’re able to match her rank,” Jackson said.

“Yeah, what he said. And the whole reason you’re with us is so Mandie can teach you to use your advantages as a Purison to become a better exorcist. So, even though you suck at seeing energy, Mandie is helping you get better by teaching you how to hone your skills,” Chase noted.

“Is this a good time, or do you want me to wait outside until you’re done talking about me?” The three men turned to see their unphased leader standing in the doorway with the golden haired  girl Gale had met earlier.

Gale recognized her sparkling blue eyes instantly, “Alice, wasn’t it?”

Alice’s eyes widened and she took a hesitant step back, “Uh, yeah” her hands clenched at her sides, “It was Gale, right?”

“Yep,” Gale could feel the cold grip of fright and confusion coming from Alice. He shivered and tried to shake off the dark energy, this is what he was here for. He took a deep breath and extended his powers across the room. He may suck at seeing energy, but when it came to sensing and affecting it he was probably one of the best around.

“Right, well, I’ll let you guys deal with this, I’ve gotta look at a thing,” Mandie kicked Gale out of his seat and took over the cameras.

“Sure, so, what are you doing back here, Alice?” Gale asked asked, making sure to lighten the energy in the room and smile.

“I thought I had left my assigned reading in my locker, so I came to get it.” Alice said, seeming to be a bit more at ease.

“You thought?” Chase asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t in my locker. And I could have sworn it wasn’t at my house, but I guess I must’ve missed it or something.” The hints of fear in her voice had vanished.

Something wasn’t right. Sure, he could calm people down just by focusing his energy around them, but Alice had calmed down too fast. It wasn’t natural.

“Okay.” Gale paused, “But that doesn’t explain how you got inside.”

Alice looked at him like he was an idiot, “I walked in through the front door like a normal human being. Why? Is there some other way I should have come in?”

“Well no,” Chase hesitated.

“It’s just that we locked all the doors at five,” Jackson finished.

“I got here right before five.” Alice countered. Mandie turned slightly towards the conversation, showing an interest that Gale hadn't seen before.

This definitely wasn’t adding up, “Alice?” Gale questioned, “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. Ten, twenty minutes tops. I’m not really sure, why?”

“I thought you said you got here before five,” Jackson confirmed.

“I did. Why?” Alice was getting frustrated. Her blue eyes had grown icy and defensive, her cheeks were flushed slightly red, and her knuckles were white against the desk she was leaning on.

Mandie was no longer paying attention to the cameras. She was focused intently on Alice, Gale could see something glittering behind his teacher’s eyes. What was she thinking?

“Alice,” Gale said kindly, trying to calm her down again, “It’s almost eleven.”

The colour drained from Alice’s face, she looked like she was on the verge of collapsing. “What? But I only got here a little while ago.”

“That depends.” Mandie said, finally adding into the conversation, “What all did you do while you were here?”

“I don’t know,” she sat thinking for a moment, “I went to my locker to look for the book, then the next thing I knew I was by the door."

“Well you had to have done something between then and now,” Chase got up and started to circled around Alice.

Jackson watched him for a minute then continued talking, but Alice’s eyes didn’t stop following the blonde. “Yeah. Even if you had just been wandering around for six hours you would’ve shown up on the cameras. Which you didn’t, and hold on for one second but Chase,”

The spiritualist stopped circling Alice and turned to face Jackson, “Yeah?” He asked like he hadn’t been doing anything.

“What in the heavenly name of the gods above are you doing?”

Chase bit his thumb for a minute before he casually answered ‘nothing’ and sat back in his chair with his brows furrowed.

“Okay, moving past that random action of Chase being Chase, we would’ve come across you during one of our sweeps if you had just been around. Seeing as you didn’t show up anywhere, it means you weren’t in the hallways.”

“Wait a minute.” Alice said, her eyes tinted with confusion, “Something about the hallways, they were wrong. Almost like they were-” The air in the room stirred slightly, Gales attention quickly shifted away from Alice and towards the rest of the room. He surveyed the room quickly with a short burst of power, but found nothing. He glanced briefly at Mandie, she nodded, confirming that she’d felt the change as well, but hadn’t found anything either.

Gale realized that Alice had stopped talking and returned his focus to her. The moment his eyes met hers he caught the tail end of a flash of energy within her irises. How hadn’t he sensed that? How had Mandie missed it too? Sure, she couldn’t control her powers completely right now, but her ability to sense energy shouldn’t have been affected.

“That’s it,” She said under her breath, “They weren’t hallways anymore, they were corridors.”

“Corridors?” Chase asked.

“Would you describe them as cave like?” Mandie asked.

“Not exactly. It looked like I was still in the school. It’s just that the hallways didn’t end, and it felt like I was running in circles.”

“Gale, what would you call something like that?” Mandie quizzed, she didn’t seem as concerned about the energy shifting as he was.

He put the power shift out of his mind and thought the facts over in his head, running them through everything he knew. Alice could only have been talking about one thing, but that would’ve been impossible if they were dealing with an ordinary poltergeist. “It sounds like she’s talking about a Spirit Trap.”

“And a strong one at that, seeing as neither of us picked up on it,” Chase added in from the monitor system where he had taken over for Mandie.

“That was my guess,” Mandie agreed, “I only saw earlier than all of you because someone,” she eyed Alice, “managed to force their way out.”

“There’s just the problem of the impossibility of that scenario,” Gale mentioned, Mandie gave him a look that said she wanted an explanation. “If the ghost had formed a trap that powerful then you guys would have picked it up on the cameras.”

“Not necessarily,” Mandie countered, “From what I’ve figured out with Alice’s sudden appearance in the concourse, I believe we have a blind spot around camera three. Seeing as you didn’t see me interacting with Alice out there, I would say it’s at least big enough to hide two people. Which is more than enough space to hide the entrance to a Trap.”

“Even with the blind spot, Jackson should’ve seen or felt an entrance while looking around the school. The fact that he didn’t should be proof enough that this is impossible,” Gale insisted.

“Unless the spirit was trying to form an Absolute,” Chase interrupted, “then sensing it out would’ve been more of a lost cause than a possible action.”

“He’s right,” Jackson continued, “then even someone with Mandie’s talents couldn’t sense it out. Plus, those don’t have an entrance, they’re created around a person instead of luring someone in, so their would be no opening to see in the first place.” Jackson replied.

“Yeah but that would mean two things-” Gale started.

“One of those better be that we’re not dealing with any ordinary poltergeist, we’re dealing with a super powerful one. Like seriously, at least twice as strong and a regular one,” Chase interrupted.

“And the other better be  that Alice managed to break out of an absolute trap by herself.” Mandie finished.

Alice shrunk back a little against the desk as everyone looked at her. “Um I know this was a long time ago in the conversation, but you lost me at Spirit Trap.” She smiled sheepishly, her blank stare flashing over all of them.

Mandie sighed, “Alright boys, here’s what we’re gonna do.” She paused, Gale could tell she was mentally assigning tasks to everyone, this was going to be a long night. “Gale. You’re back on camera duty. You walked through the school earlier so I want you to use what you remember to find anymore blind spots in our video because there’s probably more than just that one. Jackson and Chase, you two are going out again, but stay together this time. I don’t want you to two to miss anything dangerous, so check everything again, go room by room if you have to. Gale, call them on radio anytime they disappear from the videos. We need to map out everywhere we can’t see.”

Chase and Jackson grabbed their gloves and radios and headed out into the hallway, “Right away, Mandie. If you see anything suspicious call us right away, Gale.”

“Will do,” Gale responded

“And guys,” Mandie interrupted, “Be careful. If my hunch is correct we’re going to start seeing a lot of activity real soon.”

“Aren’t we always careful?” Chase teased cheerfully as he closed the door behind them.

Gale had walked over to the monitors by the time he realized that Mandie hadn’t said what she’d be doing, or what they would do about Alice. “Mandie?”

“I’ll be explaining things to Alice.” She said before he could finish his question. She leaned closer to him so Alice wouldn’t hear what she was about to say. “Besides, with that bit of energy that flashed through her eyes earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has the potential to become an exorcist.”

Gale was shocked, “You mean there actually was some energy there, I thought I had just imagined it. Wait, did she cause the energy shift?” He whispered back.

She backed away from him and gave a small shrug, “Alright Alice, if you come with me I’ll start explaining everything. And I’ll start anywhere you want me to,” she said cheerfully as she led Alice out of home base and into the room next door.

Gale was left alone again. He turned his focus to the cameras, not wanting to get yelled at by Mandie for missing anything. His eyes combed over each screen carefully, he noticed that Chase and Jackson were missing.

He picked up the radio, “Hey guys, where are you? I can’t see you on any of the displays,” Gale waited for a moment, then called again.

“Yeah, we’re here, sorry we were looking at something. Um, we’re right at the bottom of the stairs in B Hall. You ready to map the location?” Chase called back.

Gale slid over and grabbed the school map that the Principal had given them earlier. He grabbed a highlighter and opened the map, hovering the marker above the B Hall staircase, “Alright, I’m ready when you are.”

A slight rumbling sounded in the distance, calling Gale’s attention away from the radio. He listened for a moment as the rumbling tapered off. That wasn’t good, with friction like that, something big was coming. He picked up the radio and cut Chase off, “You guys may want to get back here as soon as you can.”

“Uh, why?”

“Something is coming,” the rumbling started up again, “And I need you guys here now. We need to start setting up barriers.”

Author's Note

What do you think of the characters and descriptions?
Do I focus on Alice enough?
Do the conversations make sense or do they jump around too quickly?
Is there to much dialogue near the end?
How were the ending lines?
What do you think so far?

Reviews

[JCat]

As always, I deeply apologise if my blunt review offends you. The greatest dishonour I could insult you with would be to lie. However, I do always try to focus on the positive as well as what needs improved. Remember, take on what's useful from my review and throw in the trash what isn't.

Detailed Read Through (This is usually more critical than complimentary. If I don't have a lot of time, or the piece is longer than 1000 words, then this part can be not-so-detailed):

I feel like there should be an "all the time" at the end of "wouldn't just run off" to indicate that it's a frequent trait of hers. But well done for including personal quip's.

"two different colour eyes," sounds very clunky. Something like "heterochromatic eyes: one brown and the other blue" would be better. Embrace semi-colons. They are your best friend.

In the section describing the two men, I'm almost wanting to see more creative description. For example, "deep brown" is still good, but there's so much you could do there. "chocolate brown", "plumb-mahogany eyes", "burnt chestnut eyes"

"your's" instead of "yours" (....probably. You are referring to something he owns; the 'round', so I think it's "your's" but check with a grammar nazi)

Dialogue is feeling a little more natural in certain places.

"she looked down nervously" too generic description, it makes her character less robust.

The end of the chapter isn't enticing enough, for a chapter with this much action/dialogue, I'm expecting more of a hook at the end. What if Chase/Jackson suddenly disappear instead?

Overall Analysis:


My reviews are getting less detailed as I become more invested in the story. Despite the fact there were problems with your long stretch of dialogue, I found it too interesting to point it out. This is good, because I'm a hard person to please.

So in terms of storyline; it's getting really good, thickening plot, ect. You've still got all this...lore, which is familiar but unique, which will hook readers right in.

But the problems mentioned in the previous chapter are still present. The characters are still mono-sided. I need to know more about Jackson and Chase. Maybe one of them could have a weird scar, or talk in a certain style? Gale's internal monologue could come into play. What does he think of all these characters?

That means, this chapter should be fleshed out to about 3000 words. Right now I'd describe this story as a very good steak, on it's own. Where's the trimmings? I want peppercorn sauce, chips, fried mushrooms, pea's, roast carrots....

You've got a good story. But I want description, character development/demonstration, even more lore info, backstory, emotional description....

These things are possible. And I have no doubt you can do them. What kind of things are you reading right now? Changing your read-list might be able to help.

And please feel free to ask me any questions or for me to focus on something in particular. I'm over-focusing on character growth because it's my specialty probably. I feel like my reviews are a little too generic now, because I'm re-covering issues I've covered in reviews of previous chapters, so if you have any questions/hints/comments on how you want me to do this, feel free to tell me/ask.

[Zoë]

Thank you so much for your review, as always they're a great help and they often point out things that I don't catch on my own. I don't think your reviews are getting too repetitive, I do tend to have problems with character traits and descriptions, so it's always nice when someone points out specific areas where I could add more or take stuff out.

Though I feel like a lot of my problems are caused by the fact that their personalities get more defined later on or that I don't feel like certain places are important enough to be described at that point in time. For example, back in the prologue it's been suggested to me by multiple people that I should describe the hotel more. But it's honestly not that important to me in the start and I was planning on describing it more as it shows up in the future. But once people pointed it out to me I can see why I should describe it at the start. And it's the same with characterization. I have another character show up in chapter 5 that helps bring out the various personalities in the group but that's because important aspects of their character can only be drawn out by her. But, since you've pointed it out, I can see how they're coming across and bland, so I need to describe them more in the start.

Also, if you want a lot of information on the Lore read chapter 3

I know there's something I wast you to look at particularly, but it's specifically in chapter 4, which is a bit of a ways away. So I guess for right now I would love it if you point out anything specific that you think needs changed. Whether that's character development or deeper descriptions, it all helps.

And yeah, I know this chapter is a little bland. With all the events that are about to happen I really wanted to have a relaxing chapter that just gets Alice into the group. In the next few chapters a lot of things are going to go down, so I didn't feel in the grand scheme of things this chapter needed a lot of action. But if you think I should put more in (at least a little cliff hanger at the end) then I'll definitely consider it.

[JCat]

The hotel? Ehh, honestly I'm not sure. Since that doesn't come into the story that much I don't think it's a huge issue. However, I also haven't seen any major justification for the prologue in the story yet. It's still misleading.

If you want, I can really knit-pick or point out where I'd add 'character defining moments' with the little inclusion of a trait or two.

That....is an issue, I guess if you could display non-important traits near the start then that would be useful? For example, do they like to read? Take baths? Play on their phone? Take a lot of selfie's?

In the early chapters of my books, I demonstrate that Gael (my Gael. Your Gale and my Gael should be in a hot tub together. I mentioned the hot tub concept to you, right? (if you don't that sentence was undoubtedly very weird) over-explains things and is too posh in certain situations. He's the kind of guy who'd go to KFC and ask for a glass of wine and eat with cutlery.

Relaxing chapters are totally okay, in fact, their great for this character demonstration stuff. I mean, some things I totally wanted to see was more detailed reactions to Mandie, more descriptions of Mandie. She sounds like a baddass.

If there is anything I can do to help you with character let me know. I can highlight were I expect to see it, what I'd include, do example copy editing, stuff like that. Let me know okay!

[Zoë]

I've really just had a few people saying that they'd like more setting in the prologue, thus the hotel is what they focus on for that. As for the major justification for it, that's in chapters 4-6. But after that the prologue becomes very important, for now I'm just setting up my group of constant characters.

I'd love it if you were nit-picky. And since you started reviewing I've been going back into my original drafts and adding in various descriptions or rewrites, so it's getting better, I just havent posted the changes yet.

...you haven't mentioned the hot tub concept... But your Gael sounds like a very interesting man, while my Gale is just a "nice guy".

I would add in more about Mandie (because she is a badass) but there's a very specific reason she doesn't do much in this first arc. Though I could definitely add in a lot of Mandie's personality through Gale's thoughts and actions.

It would be great if you could highlight places to put in more characterization and possibly include what you would like to see. And I may ask you to do some copy editing in the future, but right now this is all rough draft stuff, so I'm just happy for your critiques! :)

[Sarah Wilson]

I think your dialogue is fantastically done! It can be especially tricky to show that your characters are in a semi professional environment and still show who they are as people. Also, their wording is realistic. You don't have anyone saying anything out of character and no one sounds mechanical. :)
I also like how the tension builds when they are trying to figure out where her 5 hours went.
It ends in a way that definitely makes you want to keep reading...
I tried to find mistakes, so I could give you a helpful review, like you give to me so often, but I really couldn't find any.

[Zoë]

Thanks for the review! I think it helps that these characters like to tease each other a lot, so they never really act fully professional. I would love it if you would let me know if any of the characters sound "mechanical" in later chapters, it would help a lot :)
Thanks for looking for mistakes and definitely let me know if you find any! Again, thanks a lot for the review and I hope you keep reading.

[Sarah Wilson]

I definitely will! In the prologue I thought this was going to be a Bleach based book, but I'm pleasantly surprised that its completely original!

[Zoë]

While I do love Bleach, im not entierly sure where you see the connection. Unless youre looking at Kauzic's sword, then yeah, I can see how that could bee seen as a Zanpakto (spelling?)