Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series (7 page)

Frantic, completely unsettled by the flash
that seemed to have come out of nowhere, Ian instinctively
scrambled to pick up the writing instruments as they spilled onto
the floor and rolled into various areas, some of which were nearly
inaccessible to him.

As he stretched out his arm and grabbed a
couple of short stubby pencils, a deafening boom shook the house to
its foundation, rattling the bookshelves, causing various books to
slide out of their places and plunge down from as high as eight
feet, thumping noisily as they struck the wooden floor.

Terror-stricken, as he deftly evaded a
falling tome that nearly landed on his head, Ian flung the pencils
away from him as if they were cursed and darted towards the door,
no longer caring about cleaning up the mess or about proving the
previous homeowner wrong. Ghosts or not, this attic was definitely
not a place he wanted to spend any more time in, especially not
during a fierce thunderstorm that had developed so swiftly and
unexpectedly.

Racing towards the door, his heart like
molten wax, Ian abruptly halted as an even brighter flash of
lightning blazed across the sky, lighting up the whole room, making
it appear as if somebody had just flicked on a light switch.

Because of the unnatural light, Ian could see
various tools of all shapes and sizes hanging from pegs on a
distant wall in front of him. One tool in particular caught his
eye--a curved sickle with an old, deteriorated wooden handle. It
was just the sort of weapon the grim reaper would use to carry out
his evil will.

Dread clawing into his heart over both the
rusty sickle and the bright light that still wasn’t fading away,
Ian shut his eyes tightly and waited for things to return to
normal. This, however, didn’t happen as the light only intensified,
growing more radiant and dazzling by the second.

By now, Ian was thoroughly terrified.
Nightmarish thoughts flooding his mind like rats swarming a sewer,
he opened his eyes, and, through the blinding haze, hurried towards
what he thought was the door to the staircase. But being
disoriented, he stumbled over a book instead and tripped, slamming
his knees into the rough wooden floor.

Grimacing in pain, his kneecaps absorbing
their second injury today, the first being when he’d scraped them
up after plowing into Coach Sandler, Ian slowly arose and
frantically searched again for the staircase. Only this time, he
proceeded carefully so he wouldn’t stumble again, as it was still
too bright to see anything. However, as he groped for the wooden
door, his fingers only touched cold stone plastered with cobwebs
and dust.

Brushing the sticky webs onto his jeans,
disheartened by his vain attempts to get out of this awful place,
he sat down on the floor, trembling, as he desperately struggled to
make sense of the bright light.

After a few moments had passed though, he
finally came to a conclusion, and when he did, he just sunk his
head in embarrassment, his fear quickly dissipating: the blinding
light was more than likely an ingenious Halloween prank concocted
by Hazel to try to scare him, as she’d been the one to give him the
idea to check out the attic in the first place. Sadly, to his utter
shame, he’d completely fallen for her ridiculous antics, not even
sensing the obvious trap. How could he be so stupid?

Feeling terribly ashamed, expecting any
moment to hear Hazel’s cheerful laugh, Ian molded his mouth into
somewhat of a smile as he regained his composure. He wouldn’t let
Hazel have the satisfaction of seeing him afraid of a little light.
She already had enough to be satisfied with today.

As he waited nervously for Hazel to come
through the attic door, turn off whatever was causing the brilliant
light, and lightheartedly tease him for falling for her prank, a
blast of thunder suddenly jolted the room, sending deep echoes
throughout the large dusty library, and causing the attic door to
slowly creak shut.

As he heard the door shut, his optimism
shattered into tiny fragments, panic sweeping into his heart as he
leapt to his feet. This wasn’t just a practical joke; this was
something out of a horror movie.

Alarmed, hunched over, a dark feeling of
foreboding in his mind, Ian hurried towards the place where he’d
thought he’d heard the door close, only to end up ramming his
forehead into one of the gigantic bookshelves.

Dismayed and nearly hysterical with fear, he
rubbed his sore temple and backed away from the bookshelf as if it
were an evil phantom. Thrusting his hand into his pocket with hands
shaking and fingers trembling, he yanked out his cell phone and
flipped it open.

Fumbling around for the #5 button, the speed
dial for Eddy’s number, he heard another burst of thunder, which
shook the house and knocked the cell phone right out of his hands,
sending it crashing moments later onto the floor.

Stooping down, panic-stricken, as if he were
trying to disarm a bomb that would blow up in mere seconds, Ian
swept his hands across the ground, groping around to try to find
his phone. After only a short while, he brushed against it with his
cold, clammy fingers and picked it up, his fingers immediately
searching again for the #5 button.

Fortunately, within only seconds, he located
it, instantly pressing it and then the send button. Somehow, he
told himself, if he could just get a hold of Eddy, everything would
be alright.

Putting the phone to his ear, anxiously
waiting to hear Eddy’s voice, he heard a few rings, and then he
lost reception. Agitated, he called Eddy again, but still got
nothing.

Severely flustered by now, he tried yet a
third time; but as he did so, he felt the hard pinewood floor
beneath his shoes become softer, feeling more like dirt than
wood.

Entirely shaken up by this bizarre
transmutation, not having a clue what was going on, Ian held his
cell phone close to his ear and squinted, the light still blinding
him, when he suddenly heard a clicking noise. His phone went
black.

What’s going on?
He held his cell
phone in his trembling hands, as a thick woody smell like that from
a dense forest filled his nostrils, a heavy thumping sound like a
giant jump-roping struck his ears, and a myriad of yellow and white
afterimages clouded his vision. Though the light kept growing
brighter and brighter, he didn’t dare close his eyes for fear that
he would slip away and be lost, lost forever in a state of
unconsciousness.

His breaths coming rapidly and unevenly, he
watched in a daze as the blinding light suddenly vanished at
exactly the same time as the pounding noise.

Relieved, though a bit hesitant, he felt
around for the smooth door of the library--but instead of the door,
he felt the sharp point of a spike.

His hand drew blood. He bit his tongue
sharply. “Yikes!” he yelled, accidentally dropping his cell phone
onto the bluish-gray dirt. Searching for the culprit of his pain,
he saw a reddish brown tree towering right in front of him with
eight-inch-long needles protruding from its bark.

Stunned with fear and astonishment, he stared
blankly at the unearthly tree, trying in vain to rationalize his
experience. He could only come up with one thing. He had to be
hallucinating. Nothing else made any sense, as this was definitely
not a prank by Hazel.

Heart buzzing like a chainsaw, he shook
himself around, closed and reopened his eyes, even pinched himself,
but nothing changed. The tree was still there, the ground was still
dirt, and the heavy woody smell still remained.

Picking up his cell phone with his good hand,
he flipped it open revealing a black screen. Great, so his phone
really had died. How convenient. Still breathing sharply, he put
the dead phone into a side pocket in his blue jeans and surveyed
his surroundings with uneasy suspense, becoming more unsettled by
the moment.

Reddish brown spike trees, graveyard-like and
sinister, rose around him in all directions; prickly thorn bushes
stood like short sentinels behind him as if watching his every
movement; a flowering plant with bright red berries sat two feet in
front of him, practically screaming poisonous; a mole-like critter,
a yard from him, swatted its paws back and forth through the air
like a cat sharpening its claws on a post before plunging
underground with a squeal.

How he could even see these things was due to
several rays of light, which pierced through the trees’ canopy,
illuminating the forest in a hazy dimness. Still, not much could be
seen past thirty feet, and what he did see, he didn’t like at
all.

Weak, depressed, a fearful pounding in his
chest, Ian backed away from where he’d last seen the overweight
mole and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, shaking his
head around in disbelief. This was insanity. How could this
possibly be real? How could he possibly teleport to such a dream
world, a place which should only exist inside people’s minds?

As he fought the urge to storm through the
forest, wrecking everything in his path, his thoughts were
distracted by the faint rustling of leaves behind him. Turning
around warily, he heard stealthy footsteps speeding towards him at
an ethereal pace.

He panicked. Attempting to bolt away from the
approaching noise, he instead ran straight into the arms of a
gray-cloaked man, who grabbed onto his arms with strong-gloved
hands and clutched them tightly, while muttering fiercely to him in
a bizarre language, the rough syllables clashing together like
sharpened axes.

Horrid thoughts of death dancing through his
mind like corpses reanimated by an ancient curse, Ian cried out in
terror, using all his strength to try to writhe himself from the
man’s grasp. Finally, after an intense struggle, he flung himself
free, running a few steps before glancing back at them in fearful
curiosity, catching a burning image of three tall gray-cloaked,
hooded figures, with a yellow lightning symbol embroidered on their
tunics underneath. Hatred emanated from their voices as they
shouted at him in their harsh language.

Terrified, Ian froze. His legs locked up. His
brown eyes grew numb with dread. The hooded figures seized the
opportunity and lunged at him with murderous intent, their war
cries nearly deafening him.

Before they’d reached him though, Ian broke
himself out of their hypnotizing trance and quickly sidestepped,
their strong hands coming within mere inches of grasping his shirt,
and then fled for his life.

Heart drumming like a basketball against hard
pavement, he bounded over twisted logs, carefully dodged the sharp
trees and thorn bushes, and leapt over gnarled blue-green roots,
which lay sprawled throughout the forest. All the while, deafening,
wicked chanting sounded in his ears, reaching closer and closer to
him, smothering him with its venomous tentacles.

Running even faster, he bypassed a
moss-covered boulder and then ran over a long stone bridge, as one
of the sorcerers’ chanting grew to a loud climax and then abruptly
stopped, leaving Ian with a sick feeling of dread. If they were
truly sorcerers, then something bad was about to happen.

And sure enough, no sooner had the chanting
stopped, than all the vines around him shot out towards him,
seeking to wrap themselves around his legs and ensnare him in their
grasp. However, as soon as one of the pale green vines touched him,
it instantly shriveled up and fell to the ground harmless, almost
as if he had an invisible shield around his body.

Watching this in mystified wonder, while
continuing to run with all his might, Ian bypassed the vines
unscathed, when, suddenly, a thick swarm of crystal wasps with long
piercing stingers, each with dozens of eyes on its head,
materialized ten feet in front of him. Glaring at him with venomous
hatred, their wings whirring louder than a jet engine, the mutated
insects charged at him ferociously like savage lions, all of their
scarlet-colored eyes intently focused on him.

Terror struck his heart. He sharply turned
left to avoid them, but within seconds heard the loud buzzing of
wings in his ears. They were too fast for him.

Prepared to be stung mercilessly, Ian
cringed, bracing himself for their painful assault, covering his
face with his hands and crouching low to the ground. Any second
they would be upon him.

As the wasps tried to dive-bomb and sting him
though, something very strange happened. Instead of stinging him,
the wasps immediately flew backwards instead, as if repulsed by a
strong magnetic force, and then vaporized in the air, turning into
dust, leaving Ian in complete bewilderment. Just what was going
on?

Sprinting onwards at a fast clip, as the last
of the wasps vanished, Ian heard the chanting resume, only this
time instead of only one voice, a mingled harmony of voices sang
right behind him, breaking into his eardrums, filling the air with
a haunting Gregorian tune.

Before he’d even gone fifty yards, their
chanting unexpectedly halted, and a thick green fume immediately
appeared out of nowhere, completely shrouding him and blinding his
path; a wave of burning heat engulfed him, catching several bramble
bushes nearby on fire; and a tornadic wind gust knocked down a
couple of extremely large trees near him, creating a sound which
Ian could only liken to that of a train being torn into shreds, or
bones breaking. When the colossal trees fell to the ground only
four feet in front of him, the earth trembled and shook violently
like in a powerful earthquake.

Ian gasped, not having the time to ponder
over how he’d somehow managed to stay alive through all of that, as
his ears rung wildly from the ear-splitting sound of the trees
being uprooted. One thing he knew though was that he had to get out
of here, and quickly. If this witchcraft kept up any longer, he’d
likely be dead in no time.