Ring Of Light by Aurora Kryan (manga ebook reader .txt) 📕

Awesome cover from Google ideas from a dream I had so it's my original idea.


“Are you ready?”

“Who’s there?!”

“Are you ready?”

That female voice kept repeating the same thing over and over. I spun in circles looking for her and saw nothing. It was dark. I spun again and saw a light in the distance.

“Are you ready?”

I walked toward the light and as it grew brighter I made out street lights. I was about 100 feet away when the scene jumped and I was in a circle of street lights.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

A woman in a long flowing white dress jumped from the top of a light pole and floated down. Long black hair billowing from the wind she made. A flash of light blinded me for a second and she disappeared.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready for what I don’t understand.”

“For me of course.”

“Who are you?”

A cold hand slid over my shoulder and crossed my chest. I felt breathing on my ear and the words “Are you ready” whispered. I turned my head to look at her.

“Who are you?”

She wasn’t there when I looked and her question hung in the air. Then I felt another cold hand brush mine. I jerked and saw her hair flow by disappearing into the dark just outside the circle.

This time her breathy voice was followed by a giggle. And then I saw glimpses of her all around the circle dancing around, giggling, going in and out of the darkness, disappearing in black mist or appearing.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

The question came from all around. Who was I? I didn’t remember. Then the apparitions stopped moving and she glided down once again to me. Standing right in front of me I couldn’t see her face because it was hidden by her black hair.

“Who are you?”

“I don-“

She shoved her hand in my face cutting me off and I was thrown into darkness again. In the darkness I flipped and tumbled for a moment and then I floated upside down looking at a movie screen. Well it looked like a movie screen. It was a rectangle just there in the dark showing a movie.

“Not a movie. You…”

The voice floated around me and I realized it was right. It was showing home movies of me in fast forward. It was like every movie I had ever taken of my kid’s and family and every movie my parents made of me, laying my life out in front of me.

“Who are you?”

“I’m James Hostler.”

Once I said my name I was plummeting in the dark down into nothingness. Slowly the presence of a cold hand returned to my face. And when I blinked I was back in the circle of light surrounded by darkness. The woman’s face was still hidden. She giggled again and vanished. I looked around and this time I saw things in the darkness that scarred me.

Ghosts or souls, some human and others with red eyes or fangs, they reached out to grab me but the ring of light burned them back. The human looking ones looked scarred but didn’t float off. And the others said.

“Give us give us.”

That freaked me out and I made sure I was in the center of the circle of light. They must have angered the woman because she growled and flicked out her hand ordering them to leave. They didn’t hesitate and floated off chasing the human looking ghosts.

“Do you know now?”

“Know what?”

“Who I am.”

“N--No.”

She giggled and rushed at me vanishing and blowing past me in a huge gust of wind. I looked around again for her and saw her sitting on a light pole leaning back on one arm still hiding her face.

“Are you ready?”

“For you?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know who you are.”

S he raised her head to show me her face for the first time. Within seconds of lifting her head her hair turned blood red .The white dress absorbed the darkness around her and changed into a black pair of pants, a corset top, and a trench coat.

“Death.”

I was frozen in place looking into her crimson eyes. She was no skeleton. No man. She was a beautiful teen age girl with blood eyes and hair. A scythe appeared out from the light and she floated down again to stand in front of me. I began to shake in fear as she raised it to my throat.

“Are you ready to die James Hostler?”

Her voice sounded like a normal girl now and not the breathy one from before. She was a completely different being. I didn’t answer her because I was scared silent. She smiled like it was amusing to her.

“Answer me. Are you ready to die James Hostler?”

Something in her voice provoked me to answer her. I wanted to say yes my life was miserable that’s why I was drinking and driving, that’s how I got here, I crashed and died. With a steady voice I said.

“No.”

I surprised myself with that answer. Why did I say that? Then I remembered the movie death showed me of my family. Death smiled that creepy smile and brought down her scythe. Slashing the ground and letting me fall down.

“The time will come when I will claim you James Hostler. But that time isn’t now. And you needed to realize that.”

Her voice and figure faded away and I fell into the darkness down and down. Then another blinding light and the sound of beeping near my head.

“James? James? Are you awake? James?”

That voice was so familiar it wasn’t death but another female voice I knew. I opened my eyes and saw my wife’s face. I was back in the real world. Was it all that just a dream or was that girl real? And that’s when I saw her.

In the corner of the room she was standing in that jacket. Her red hair blowing around her from a nonexistent wind, no one else saw her in the shadows. When she made eye contact with me she smiled and vanished the faint sound of giggling lingering where she had been.

Publication Date: 05-24-2011

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