The day started out like any other day before it. Woke up a little after 8, carefully got out of bed so as to not dislodge adorably sleeping Berry, the ginger fuzzball. Shuffled over to the bathroom, did stuff in there. Then of course getting dressed and carefully waiting a few minutes to make sure I wouldn’t have to bump into anyone downstairs still having breakfast (mom and dad are usually gone by 9). That leads to me nibbling on something, drinking a glass of cranberry juice, and emptying the dishwasher (and then filling it back up again with everyone’s breakfast dishes, it never ends!).

So, yeah, when midday comes along, and I’m in the middle room (a room on the second floor of our house that is in between mine and Ben’s rooms (Diana’s is just before mine)) sitting at the desk there writing homework for a class starting in an hour or so, I’m not expecting it. It felt like a sudden wave of humidity, a pressure of syrupy air, blasted by me and then stayed. It was bizarre. Everything gained a new dimension in my eyes, a new detail. Fabric almost breathed it looked like it was so alive, the character of a chair almost made me think it would start talking, the paper I was writing on seemed to tell me the stories of the trees it was made from, and ink seemed to shimmer with potential energy.

Still really not getting what was happening I started to continue writing my homework. The new magic, thick in the air, seemed to meld into the words I was writing, making the ink of the words shine iridescently to my eyes. It was when I was examining this new quality to my writing, and the magic in the air, that Berry came skittering into the room, his hair all up and standing, making him actually look even more like a ginger fuzzball than he normally is.

Vaguely amused at a sight I don’t see from him often, and the way he stuffed himself under the couch behind me I got up asking him, “What was that all about Berry? Get shocked that you couldn’t actually fight your reflection again?”

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily (I hate scary stuff), I saw what freaked Berry out. A ghost. Walked (maybe floated? I wasn't really paying attention) filled the doorway and came into the room. Not that it is all that surprising to have a ghost in a house as old as the one I live in. But still, one doesn’t really expect to see one so well defined (if he weren't all faded out and vaguely... blue? I would think he was just a regular creepy dude (now I know that it takes considerable power for a ghost to appear so, but then there was a lot of power around for him to do that)), nor does one want to see one as grumpy looking at this one (though as time passed, my seeing ghosts has not lessened, much to my regret (though a lot more transparent and "blue").

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Being the scaredy cat like Berry showed himself to be, I froze, gripping the pen I was gripping to hold back the instinct screaming at me to run (what good would running do? It’s a ghost and I live here). The discontent ghost caught sight of me then, and the air crackled and flashed with his anger (still not sure why Mr. Ghost back then was so upset about, but I think being stuck here so long made him go more senile than an alzheimer's patient). The magic in the air seemed to swirl around him.

That was when something clicked in my head. Without really knowing what I was doing, I lifted the pen I was holding and started writing in the air. Magic started to swirl more around me than around the ghost, the pen actually losing ink as well. As I wrote, letters formed, golden and shimmering, occasionally showing blue from the ink of the pen, floating in front of me. While thinking of my home, the house and land, my family, and all the creatures (because if Mr. Ghost was here and real and freaking me out, what other scary thing is out there?!) I wrote.

“PROTECT FROM YOU”

Once I finished writing those three words (which was actually a lot harder to do than you might think) there was a brilliant flash, and all the magic that was before just sitting in the air (and apparently all throughout our property as well (I looked around after)) just disappeared. Thankfully, along with the ghost.

Exhausted and drained, heart still beating fast, I collapsed back into my seat. I could still see the faint flickers of magic in the objects and walls of the room, but it was nothing like when that wave came through and flooded everything (actually since the first few days of magic first arriving I haven’t seen something like that at all).

I decided that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go to class later.