Gift of Light: A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel by Olivia Rising

Author:Olivia Rising [Rising, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-31T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

“This is what it means to be a hero. It’s not about killing the bad guys, not about costumes or making an appearance on television. Our prime duty is to protect those who can’t protect themselves, and we need to start with those closest to us.”

-Radiant, in a not too distant future

After a thirty-minute lesson on gun maintenance and shooting without getting smacked on the nose by the butt of her gun, Wisp crashed on a mattress in one of the small stone chambers underneath the belfry. Dreams flitted through her mind in quick succession, each of them haunted by familiar figures. Hannah’s bloodied and swollen visage emerged more often than the others. The red-haired young woman twisted against the fog that crept all around her, crying out for help. Wisp’s outstretched hands never got a hold of her friend. She darted from place to place in a frenzy, searching for a way out of the fog as she chased after the fleeting, volatile shapes of lost friends and family.

Then the fog took on the scent of Smog and the human ghosts melted into it, gaseous forms and smoke-like limbs squirming in futility against the substance that sustained them. Wisp stood frozen, watching in helpless agony as the truth dawned on her with a soul-crushing clarity.

Hannah, Grandma, and her father – the calamity was never going to let them go. They had become one with the Smog, cursed to haunt this corpse of a city for all eternity.

She came awake with a start and hit her head on a protruding stone above her mattress. The pain yanked her the rest of the way out of sleep and scattered the last dream fragments.

The feeling of hopelessness and dread followed her into reality, clinging to her like the faint scent of Smog that hung in the air. Her thoughts raced back to the moment before Smoker’s appearance the previous night. Hadn’t the Smog shifted and billowed, assuming a multitude of humanoid shapes as though it was trying to communicate?

No, no, no.

She grasped her head and shook it, shoving the images – dreams and memories alike – deep down. She was sick and tired of being afraid, and she wasn’t about to let some stupid nightmare change the way she perceived the real world. Her father had taught her to rely on verifiable facts and personal experience. Hannah was alive and Wisp’s power had confirmed as much.

“No more ghosts,” she muttered, rubbing her face and sitting up on the mattress. “I’m awake now.”

A shaft of sunlight touched her nose. By the time she made her way to the nearest window, her pulse had calmed down and she felt rooted in reality once again. The late afternoon sun hung low on the western horizon and warmed her face. The Smog swirled around the base of the tower in lazy currents, covering every visible surface in a sea of fiery-orange haze, as if biding its time.

Angry with herself for sleeping most of the day,

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