The Awakened Pt. 02

The cough quickly turned into a shriek as Si opened his eyes to see the husk of the Brain Claw lying on the fireplace. Kane was up in a heartbeat.

"Si! It's OK Si, it's dead. It's dead. You're OK."

"B-b-b-b-b-ut, I-I-I-I f-f-f-felt it..."

"Hey. That's enough talking. Relax. Here, drink this."

Kane helped Si to drink his cold tea, seeing the protest in the man's eyes but forcing him to get the fluids inside him. Between his calming presence and the constant reassurance that the thing was gone and dead, Si slowly calmed down. He still shook with reaction from time to time but between the tea, a tartan blanket that Kane had found nearby and a now roaring fire, Si slowly came back to himself.

"You saved me Kane. You saved my life."

Kane didn't quite know where to look or what to say.

"Anything that I can do to help you, you only have to ask. You have no idea what having that thing attached to me was like...leeching away at one's very being," he shuddered again.

"I can't even imagine it."

"How on earth did you kill it? What is it doing here, physically here?!?"

"I'm not sure. When it first came at me I managed to swat at it and knocked it away..."

"You did what?" Si was brought to his feet in sheer incredulity. "But how? I can't affect anything in the grey realm."

Kane shrugged, "it was a reflex. I just punched at it..."

"With that hand?"

"Yes."

Looking down he saw that his right hand had a nasty burn. It didn't look like a normal burn. The raised welts of flesh were an angry dark purple colour and hot to the touch. Kane hissed when he touched it lightly.

"I'll get some cream," said Si.

With something to do, Si became far more purposeful and came back with quite an impressive medical kit, complete with bandages, some burn gel and everything else that someone could have needed.

"Do you have many accidents, Si?" Kane joked looking at the kit in front of him.

"Oh, well this house isn't mine. I'm house sitting. That's my job. The National Trust owns the place and rents it out throughout the summer but as demand is low during the winter they have me stay here to keep on top of the place. The lighthouse is automated but they also like having someone around just in case there's an issue."

"Oh. I had no idea that that was a job."

"Well, luckily for me it is. There, that should do for now. But please continue. You were going to tell me what miracle you pulled."

"Well I wouldn't call it a miracle..."

"Ha! I would."

"Once I'd batted it away, it hovered going side to side, looking for an opening and making a weird two toned shrieking noise. It was very fast with all of those tendrils hanging down from it. Then when it went for me I could see the mouth of the thing. I think I just put my hands up in a reflex and tried to get back to my body. I must have done that hand gesture thing that you showed me and the...Brain Claw did you call it?"

Si just nodded.

"The Brain Claw got sucked through the rip that I'd created between the spirit world and the physical world. I'm not sure whether it was being in this world or the impact with the fireplace that killed it."

Si sat there completely open mouthed.

"What?"

"You...you...do something completely unheard of and then talk about it as matter of factly as if it was nothing."

"Well, I'm glad that it worked but I didn't know that you weren't supposed to be able to do that."

Si was on his feet pacing up and down.

"This is just incredible. YOU! You are incredible. What happened to you that allowed you to do this? Is it just a facet of being so powerful or is it something else?"

"So powerful?"

"Yes! Do you think if I could do any of this stuff that I'd be as scared as I have been all my life?"

"I..."

"Incredible. The possibilities are astonishing. What else might you be able to do?" Suddenly Si turned to him.

"What else have you done? Anything at all to do with, did you call it the spirit world? I like that, yes, anything at all to do with the spirit world."

And so Kane proceeded to blow Si's mind.

Hitting the mug from the spirit world shouldn't have been possible. Moving his spirit form away from his body shouldn't have been possible. The rent between the two worlds shouldn't have been possible. But healing the wound left by the Brain Claw left Si speechless for a full ten minutes.

Kane shrugged. He didn't know what he didn't know whereas Si was at once torn between sheer delight and depressed at how meagre his own abilities were.

As the afternoon lengthened and they talked through recent events a number of times, Kane's growling stomach announced that he'd missed lunch and that it was nearly time for dinner. The biscuits he'd appropriated had only gone so far and Si suggested that Kane would need to rest and recover from his ordeal and the power that he'd expended.

Rather than walk back to the hotel, Si drove him there in his old Ford Fiesta, dropping him off at the pub.

"Let's talk tomorrow Kane. There's so much more to discuss. But please stay away from the spirit world, if you can, that is."

They shook hands, agreeing to meet the following day back at the Lighthouse and the little car drove off into the darkness. Kane opened the old wooden door of the Inn and walked inside. A couple of pints of the local brew and a steak and ale pie began to make him feel human again. He retreated from the inquisitive locals and headed up to bed.

He lay there, his mind spinning with questions. Si had been so focused on the events in the spirit world that they hadn't discussed any of the things that Kane felt were every bit as important. Why was he so powerful? How had Si known that the military police were coming for him? Could he go home or was it going to be watched? Would he have to start hiding from the government? What was he going to tell Gus?

He started to organise his thoughts and finally the exhaustion of an impossibly eventful day overtook him and he fell asleep.

= = = = = = =

He awoke much refreshed and after showering he took advantage of the pub's full English breakfast complete with black pudding and baked beans. Feeling thoroughly sated he once again pulled on his walking clothes and headed for the lighthouse.

He was part way up the lane when he recognised Si's small car bouncing its way towards him on the potholed road.

"I forgot to offer you a lift back here last night, sorry."

"Not a problem. It's been a nice walk so far but it does look like rain so a lift is very welcome."

Five minutes later they were back at the lighthouse cottage, warming themselves beside the Aga while the kettle was boiling.

"How are you feeling, Si?"

"Enormously improved thanks to you. More energy, more go, more va-va-voom! Do you know I actually slept properly for the first time in weeks. You're an absolute godsend."

"That's a relief. I didn't know if you'd still be feeling the effects."

"Not a bit, old chap. Now, let's get on to you. How are you feeling after all the shocks and horrors of the past day or so?"

"Physically? I haven't felt better in years if I'm honest. After the scans the doctor told me that I had the body of someone ten years younger than me. I thought that she was overreacting but I seem to have better muscle definition and the belly that I was trying to get rid of at the gym has gone. I feel like I'm in the wrong body in some ways - I certainly don't recognise this," he said, indicating his new, lean shape.

"This all gets stranger and stranger. So acquiring these powers has somehow reinvigorated your body. And from what was said in the hospital it must have accelerated your healing too."

"I think so. The doctor showed me the x-rays and I couldn't believe it myself. It's as if the damage in the accident hadn't occurred."

Si whistled under his breath as he tried to process all this.

"And how's the hand?"

"Oh, I hadn't checked." He unravelled the light bandage and removed the dressing to see his hand looking as it always had - no burns at all.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't dressed it myself yesterday," whispered Si. "This is amazing."

"I can no more explain it than you can."

"And how do you feel mentally?"

Kane sighed as he slumped into a chair.

"OK, I suppose. The enormity of what's happening to me has kept my mind busy and if anything it's distracted me from the loss of my family. But I need to make time to grieve. I need to pick up my life and carry on as best I can. I need to go home."

"No. Not yet anyway."

"Why not, Si? Why were military police coming for me? Why can't I go home?"

"Because of Donovan Aldred."

"The software guy?"

"Yes, the multi-millionaire software guy. When I told you that military police were waiting for you it was a white lie. Donovan Aldred has his own security detail and I recognised him when they arrived. I knew from the old guys in your ward that you'd been moved so I was able to get to you ahead of them."

"But what could he possibly want with me?"

"He is an Awakened. A powerful one. He is always looking for medical abnormalities like your rapid recovery in the hopes of finding others and he has a team of people focused on just that. Your doctor's request for help must have triggered their response."

"And..?"

"He wants to kill you."

"He what?!?"

"He has left a trail of bodies behind him over the years. I've been trying very hard to find out what he's up to but it's tough without leaving any traces and I'm obviously not a man with unlimited resources. I've seen him go past once before and he's very brazen and confident as he scans for other Awakened people. That one time that I was unfortunate enough to be close to him my mask obviously worked or he wasn't looking closely enough. The hospital I was in reported an unusual death on a recovering patient the following day."

"But the reason I'm certain of what he's doing is that I met a witness at a hospital in Reading who said that they'd been in the adjoining bathroom when Aldred and two men came into the patient's room. There was a brief conversation and then the monitoring equipment went nuts. When she was brave enough to come out of the bathroom Aldred had gone and the patient was dead. Allegedly from a heart attack."

Kane stood there in shock.

"What happened?"

"I convinced her to say nothing and to get a transfer to a different hospital. Aldred isn't that sloppy. He's got plenty of people protecting him from the law so circumstantial evidence like that isn't going to touch him but he doesn't like loose ends."

"But why would he go around killing other Awakened people? What does he gain from it?"

"I don't know. I've asked myself the question many times. And of course he's so recognisable it's a risk for him to be around these murders. He has these bodyguards that I'm sure could kill people for him and he could be miles away with an alibi. Even I, with limited resources have been able to find this out. So why the risk? It makes no sense."

"You said he's powerful."

"Yes. But then others do seem powerful to me."

"What about the other Awakened that you've met? Are they the same?"

Si looked puzzled as he thought about it.

"Not really, no. In fact the few I've met are much like me - mostly very limited."

"So how did he get to be so powerful?"

"I might ask the same thing of you."

Kane sighed, looking up at the ceiling in frustration before turning back to Si. Shrugging he said, "it's all so stupid. How are we supposed to figure this stuff out with so little information? I just wish that we'd set out in the car five minutes later. This would never have happened and I'd still have my family with me."

Si's eyes bulged for a moment as he looked at Kane.

"What if...and I really don't mean to be morbid or anything, but what if being with your family at that moment impacted your transformation into the spirit world?"

"What do you mean?" said Kane, his eyes narrowing as he waited for Si to make his point.

"What if the spirits of your family were somehow released at the same time as the trauma to your brain triggered the release of your spirit into the grey realm? What if your spirit somehow held onto them? Gave them sanctuary when their own bodies were irreparably lost? And they became subsumed into you, giving you this exponential increase in power? What if that's why Aldred has to be there to murder other Awakened people? To subsume their spirits?"

"Oh my god - you think they're still with me?" said Kane in a very quiet voice, a look of hope, mingled with horror and sorrow spreading across his face.

"Oh Kane, I have no idea what to think. This is just a theory after all. I can't believe that their beings, the spirits that made them unique individuals are able to manifest themselves. But it would explain why you can do the things that you can do and why Aldred shines as brightly as he does."

Kane deflated almost as quickly as the idea had excited him. He looked briefly at Si and then disappeared into the spirit world.

[EMMA! EMMA! JASON! LAUREN!]

Tears were streaming down his physical form as he whirled around in the spirit world hoping against hope that they were somehow with him and able to communicate with him.

[EMMA! DON'T LEAVE ME!!! You can't leave me...]

The glimmer of hope was too much to bear. He curled into a ball sobbing, his body wracked with emotion as his grief at the loss of his family suddenly overcame him again.

After a while he became conscious of Si appearing beside him. A hand touched his shoulder.

[I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just blurted out a totally ridiculous theory with absolutely no consideration for your loss. Kane, please believe me, I didn't mean to do this to you.]

[What? Give me hope?] came the agonised response.

[Yes. There's nothing worse than false hope. You've given me another chance at life. Please let me help you begin to piece yours together even if all I can do is be a friendly face and someone to listen when you need it.]

Kane allowed himself to slowly float back into a normal upright position over his body and looked at Si. It took a moment for his heart to give up on the faint hope that he'd been given. And then he was glad. What sort of a non-life would it be in the spirit world? Dangerous and grey and scary. He didn't want that for his children or for his wife.

[Do you honestly think that's what happened? That they are the ones that have helped heal me?]

[I do. As a theory it makes too much sense.]

[Then if this is their life as well then I can't waste it. I can't waste mine.]

With that he dropped out of the spirit world and back to his body, swiftly followed by Si.

"If I'm going to do something then I need access to money and to do that I have to get home. I have to face my loss, deal with the will, the insurance and all the shit that happens when you lose people."

"But what about Aldred?"

"I'll have to deal with him if and when he appears. And you have to share everything you've ever learned about the grey realm and Aldred. There have to be ways to make myself less vulnerable and we're going to find them. Come on."

"What? You mean now?"

"How else are we going to get things started?"