Bully Trials: Enemies

Ash

My astral temple has been my new home for a while. I actually built it when I became a teenage pagan and could astral project, a process of our spirits leaving our body to wander the ghost realm. Our souls are still linked to our bodies. I don’t see the link anymore, aware that I’m dead. My temple looks like a Roman atrium with a blue metallic texture for the exterior, and the skylight in the middle opened the center with the possibility of opening the skylight with a flick of my mind. My astral temple is located farther away than my family’s home. I see the realms like a map. I’m closer to Hell, which looks like a metropolis shielded by a bubble. It’s kind of ridiculous to see them on the same plane, but whatever is convenient for me to visualize. The closest town is the fae town, Evedon. This doesn’t help with me being a fan of Winx Club; however, they are constantly in their fairy forms. Nature and tricksters. Some are nice, coming by to my temple to talk to me, give me some of their items, or they downright want to play pranks on me.

It’s only a matter of time before I reincarnate into a new body, forgetting my temple and memories all over again. It’s been six months since my suicide. Do I say I regret it? Most likely. I watched my family collapse into wails after seeing my corpse on the ground. Finally, seeing the despair the bullying has taken on me. I will never forget my mother’s mournful cries upon seeing my dead body and my brother angrily screaming why. My father silently cried while perched against my purple bedroom wall, ready to collapse. They were not totally in the clear either, especially my parents when I faced mental struggles. When I told my mom at the bowling alley during a game about thinking I had depression in eighth grade, she told me, “It’s just a phase.” They also warned me not to share my depression verbally or physically with my friends despite them already noticing signs.

“They’ll send you away,” my dad said to me a few hours after my friend from the program texted them. I was in ninth grade. Are they rather more concerned about me being sent to a mental hospital or being taken from them more than my actual well-being? They do care for me, but they would’ve caught some mental issues earlier rather than too late. Tales of suicide and threats to kill myself started when I was in middle school. My online friends, too. My life is a rodeo of suicide. It gets quite old.

I look around my library. Space and money don’t apply here; I manifested a library as big as I wanted. I don’t know how many books I have, nor do I know the context of each of them– I asked my mind to surprise me, knowing that might end well. I also receive books from the fae when they visit. I miss having a computer, but I don’t need them anymore. The library smells of books and cinnamon. I keep the lights off during the day and the candles lit. It feels like I’m about to cast a spell.

It’s been a few weeks after the weird Christmas dinner with the Bully Trials Council, Jacelyn, and Marina. Whatever Drea, Ramen, Jaymie, and Marina have planned inside their heads– I don’t like it. I witnessed several violent murders of people, only for them to summon a dinner for the both of us. It’s a devious holiday truce. Once Christmas is up, we’re back to killing each other. Ramen and Drea’s plans may differ from Jaymie’s and Marina’s. Their goals might be beyond human capabilities, and I’m possibly one of their targets.

A snap of metallic clangs below me. I look down and see a trap of spikes clamping shut on each side of my right ankle. My confusion and shock precede the pain. I’m dead, so I don’t bleed, but boy, does it hurt. I tighten my jaw together. I didn’t put this there. My astral traps to defend my temple are more magickally crafted or sigil-working than this. I lower myself and try to pry open the spikes to set myself free.

I yelp as there is a kick to my mid-back. I launch like two feet, ripping my ankle off. I moan in pain, trying to suppress a scream as I lift my leg and watch it regenerate. I’m a couple of feet away from a bookshelf. A blue mold shapes into my ankle and foot before turning into the real version of my foot, good as new. The pain fades as I look up, seeing no one there.

“Who’s here?” I demand as I stand up. Blue to black hell fire roars as I clench my fist. I can’t use them when I’m alive, yet it’s very effective against spiritual invasions. It also scares the hell out of entities. I have better grit here than I do in life. “Come on out!”

Great! Not this guy again, I think to myself when Ramen appears from a skeleton and slowly manifests his organs, tissues, veins, blood, and flesh. Compared to the Bully Trials, his left cheek part looks like it had a hard time generating the composition of a human body, leaving a corpse dyed green as if lying on the grass for so long. He wears the same outfit– still dressed in that centuries-old blue attire. My eyes move around, scanning for more possible invaders. If Ramen is here, Drea and Marina are possibly nearby.

“Fighting will merely delay and aggravate your punishment, Ash,” he states. “We haven’t forgotten over the months. You gave Jacelyn outside help.”

“I knew I had to do,” I reply back. “Why didn’t you punish me long ago? What if you did? You exploited my corpse when it was new and fresh. You can’t manipulate spirit, and I’m already dead.”

“Not for long.”

“Huh? What do you mean by–” My questions are cut off when a cold hand wraps my throat. It’s very pale with extended fingers and claws. I trace its arm to the person beside me. It’s Jaymie, in that same form during her round of the Bully Trials. She looks slightly unrecognizable to her normal self. Her short blonde hair is barely passing her shoulders. It gives her a childish appearance. She looks like a windigo without all the elk characteristics aside from the antlers. Her eyes shake like a wildfire out of control, spreading the same amber across her glowing veins. The same white dress she wears is now stained with blood as if she finished hunting.

Everything clicked. Ramen couldn’t find me, but Jaymie could. She was interested in the same practices I’m in, but she was more into alchemy and healing. She knows how to astral project, yet she rarely does and is still on the beginner side. I taught her some ways to do spiritual defense and traps– aura of protection, salt, raising vibrations, defense spells, magick, et cetera. She only saw my temple a few times, so she knows where it was and disarms some of my defense for Ramen to enter. “Jaymie,” I utter, feeling the hurt stinging my heart. “Why?”

Jaymie snarls with the sound of a distorted angry bull. “Hi!” she says aggressively. She shoves me back with the hand she is grabbing my throat with. I fly straight into a bookshelf. The shelf is anchored to the floor, breaking my motion and disturbing the books I organize. They fall with me as I plummet to the floor with a slight thud. Books hit my shoulders and head. I raise my head at them with a glare. I have to take care of a madman, a traitor, and the mess afterward. It goes to show that the astral isn’t 100% safe. I was aware of that for a long time now. I growl as the heat rises, and so do the blue flames around me.

I’m still dazed and too slow as zombie hands break through the polished, light wooden floor and grab me, cutting me off. They punch their way from the ground with so much force that the broken pieces of wood rocket feet into the air. They grab my hair, face, shoulders– everywhere, shoving me to the floor. I struggle to break free of their grip. I shake off one hand, but four hands grab at me.

“Try using those flames again,” Ramen threatens before gesturing to Jaymie, “especially towards her.”

I stare daggers at Jaymie, enraged that my friend would do this. “What is going on with you?” I demand. From what I observe, Jaymie can be manipulative to turn people against one another when she is angry, not the other way around where she is manipulated with her anger. She is also never physically aggressive to me.

She growls slightly. “It was for saving that girl who made you kill yourself in the first place,” she grimaces. “I was doing you a favor.”

“This method of revenge is unjustifiable, Jaymie,” I point out, trying to keep the hands away from my mouth. Gods, they smell awful like a decomposed body left in the heat.

“We were punishing murderers that lie, rape, bully, and hurt others, and you got in the way,” Jaymie snarls again. I can hear the ugly side of her louder and deeper. Her words are more distorted this time.

“I didn’t!” I argue. “I only stayed with Jace and her friends, not the others! I didn’t like the way you were handling them.”

Jaymie rumbles in her throat, baring her sharp teeth at me. “People fuss about murderers not getting enough jail time, but you complain about it being too much.”

“Prison and slaughter are too different things,” I exclaim. “The group deserve to be punished for bullying, but not viciously kil–”

“People get away with murder, Ash,” Ramen interjects. “Jacelyn and her little followers got away scot-free while you’re dead in the ground.” He speaks with such vitriol.

I think to myself, Why do I get a feeling that he is doing more than what he is saying? Not in a good way as well.

“Where’s Drea?” I ask, a little unnerved I don’t even see her. She usually sticks by Ramen’s side, like a wife. She probably is.

“None of your business, Ash!” Jaymie snaps, almost making me recoil. The sharpness in her voice matches the same hurt when I get yelled at or smacked. I have the urge to cry that I need to suppress. I’m too old to do that. I can’t be a crybaby.

Ramen raises his hand at her, silently telling her to settle before he lowers his hand and turns his attention back towards me. “You’re not worthy of knowing such information,” he replies firmly. “I can tell you that you’ll meet with her soon. You’re next.”

…Oh no…

Ramen waves his hand. Dread turns my blood below freezing as more hands erupt from the ground. Some of them have long arms as they claw at my skin, pulling at my eyelids and grabbing me in parts I loathe being touched. The floor below me turns fluid-like as the hands pull me under the ground. “What the-” I blurt out in fear. I thrash around as I keep getting pulled under this sudden quicksand. More hands keep bursting up. “No!”

I whip my head at Jaymie. “Jay, don’t take their side! Snap out of it!” I plea as most of my body is completely under, leaving some parts of my torso, my left arm, neck, and head out. I don’t want to know where the hands take me– nonexistence, a new world, Ramen’s hell, or what it feels like to be buried alive. I don’t want to die in fear like last time; however, I don’t want to die angry. Jaymie coldly watches me being pulled in. “Jaymie!” I call out to her. I open my left hand as I can feel my neck going under, hoping she will just grab my hand and pull me out. It feels fluid and nothing at the same time. “Jaymie!” I call again, practically screaming this time. I sink further in, just below my mouth this time. “Noooooooooo!” I howl before being submerged.

The last thing that exists of me is my left hand, still being opened for Jaymie to latch onto and save me, but that doesn’t happen. I lost the feeling of my arm and hand, and soon, it will join the nothingness I become, betrayal being the death of me.