The Awakening Truth

The Awakening Truth
Sam's POV (Dead)

The ground is shaking beneath the town hall, and I can feel something huge stirring underground.
"What is that thing?" I ask Eleanor's ghost as we float above the scared shadow walkers.
"The real puppet master," Eleanor whispers. "The thing that's been controlling my family for over a century."
The old entity under Tidewaters is waking up, and even the shadow walkers look scared. But I'm more afraid about the living people trapped in the town square above us.
Including the eight-year-old boy the shadow walkers plan to offer tonight.
"We have to warn someone," I say.
"Who?" Marcus's ghost appears next to me. "Everyone alive is either possessed by shadow walkers or about to be."
"Not everyone. There might still be some real humans left."
Eleanor shakes her head. "The shadow walkers have been taking over people for days. By now, most of the town is compromised."
That's when I remember something that makes my ghost heart race.
"The fake Sam Rivera is still walking around in my body. What if I could somehow take it back?"
"That's impossible," says Sarah Kellerman's ghost. "Shadow walkers don't give up their stolen bodies."
"But I'm not a normal ghost, remember? Marcus said I might have special powers."
I focus all my energy on the shadow walker wearing my face, somewhere above us in the town. I try to feel the link between my soul and my stolen body.
At first, nothing happens. But then I sense something like a thin silver thread stretching from my ghost form up through the roof.
The thread that links me to my own body.
"I can feel it," I say. "I can feel my body."
"Sam, don't try it," Marcus warns. "If you fail, the shadow walker might be able to destroy your soul completely."
"And if I don't try, Tommy Carver dies tonight. Along with everyone else in this town."
I grab onto the silver thread and pull myself along it like climbing a rope. The sensation is incredible and frightening. I'm traveling through walls and floors, following the link to my stolen body.
Suddenly, I'm standing behind the fake Sam Rivera in the town square.
She's talking to a group of terrified civilians, claiming to be a hero trying to save them. But I can see the black smoke moving inside my body, controlling every movement.
"Everyone stay calm," the shadow walker says with my voice. "I'm going to get you all to safety."
But it's lies. The shadow walker is leading them toward the town hall basement, where the ancient entity is about to break free and devour their souls.
I try to grab my body back, but my ghostly hands pass right through it. The ghost walker can't see me or feel me.
I need more power. More energy to become solid enough to fight.
That's when I remember the other ghost children spread throughout the town. If we could all join our strength...
I call out in the voice only dead people can hear: "All ghost children, come to the town square! We need to work together!"
Within minutes, dozens of ghostly forms appear around me. Marcus, Sarah, Jake, Eleanor, and so many others whose names I don't know yet.
"What's the plan?" Marcus asks.
"We're going to take our bodies back."
"Our bodies are dead, Sam. We can't just climb back into them."
"Not our original bodies. The shadow walkers' stolen bodies. They used to belong to living people before the shadow walkers killed them and took over."
Eleanor's ghost looks confused. "But those people are already dead. Their souls moved on."
"Did they? Or are they trapped somewhere, just like we are?"
I point at the fake Sam Rivera. "That shadow walker killed me three days ago and stole my body. But my soul is still here. What if all the shadow walkers' victims are still here, waiting for a chance to reclaim what was stolen?"
The ghost children look around the town square with new knowledge. Every shadow walker they can see used to be a real person before being possessed.
"If we can free those trapped souls," I add, "they might be able to help us fight back."
"How do we free them?" asks Sarah.
"By reminding them who they really are."
I float toward the shadow walker wearing Chief Kellerman's body. She's helping herd people toward the town hall, but there's something in her black eyes that doesn't look completely evil.
A tiny spark of light, like a person screaming inside a dark jail.
"Patricia Kellerman," I whisper straight into the shadow walker's ear. "Your daughter Sarah is here. She wants to talk to you."
The shadow walker wearing Kellerman's body falls and stops walking. For just a second, her eyes flicker from black to normal brown.
"Sarah?" she whispers. "My little girl?"
Sarah's ghost shows right in front of the possessed Kellerman. "I'm here, Mom. I'm right here."
The shadow walker tries to retake control, but something amazing happens. The real Patricia Kellerman's soul starts fighting back from inside her own body.
"Get out of me!" she screams, and black smoke pours from her mouth as the shadow walker is forced out.
Chief Kellerman falls to her knees, but she's breathing. She's living. She's herself again.
"It works!" Marcus shouts. "We can free them!"
All around the town square, ghost children start approaching the shadow walkers wearing their killers' faces. They call out to the trapped souls inside, telling them of who they used to be before being possessed.
One by one, real people start getting free from their shadow walker captors.
But the fake Sam Rivera isn't giving up my body so quickly.
When I try to speak to myself, the shadow walker spins around and somehow sees me.
"Clever little ghost," it hisses with my voice. "But this body belongs to me now."
"That's my body, and I want it back."
"Come and take it."
The shadow walker reaches into my stolen chest and pulls out something that looks like a bright heart. But it's not a heart.
It's my soul. The part of me that the shadow walker ripped out when it killed me.
"Looking for this?" it teases.
My soul-light pulses weakly in the shadow walker's hand. If it ruins that, I'll be gone forever.
"Give it back!"
"Make me."
That's when I understand something important. The shadow walker is holding my soul outside my body. Which means my body is empty for just a few seconds.
I dive forward and slam my ghost form into my own chest.
Pain bursts through me as I force myself back into my stolen body. The shadow walker screams as I push it out, but it's still holding my soul.
For a moment, I'm living again but incomplete. I can feel my heart pumping and my lungs breathing, but part of me is missing.
The shadow walker tries to crush my soul in its smoky hand.
"If I can't have this body, then nobody can!"
But before it can destroy my soul entirely, someone grabs the shadow walker from behind.
It's Carmen Mendoza.
Not the fake Carmen that was bothering me earlier. The real Carmen, shining with soft white light instead of dark smoke.
"You killed me in Los Angeles," Carmen says to the shadow walker. "You made Detective Rivera think she failed me. But she didn't fail. She never stopped trying to save me."
Carmen's light gets brighter and brighter until the shadow walker starts dissolving.
"This is for every child you've hurt," Carmen whispers.
The shadow walker screams as it dissolves fully, and my soul snaps back into my chest like a rubber band.
I'm living. I'm really living. And I'm me again.
But when I look around the town square, I see something that makes my blood freeze.
The other ghost children were successful in freeing some of the possessed people. But there are dozens more shadow walkers still controlling stolen bodies.
And they're all walking toward us with murder in their black eyes.
"Well done, Detective Rivera," says the shadow walker wearing Dr. Carver's body. "You've freed a few prisoners. But you've also made us very angry."
"Now we don't have to pretend to be subtle," adds the shadow walker wearing Eleanor's body. "We can kill all of you and take your bodies by force."
The possessed townspeople start turning into their true shadow forms - writhing masses of black smoke with claws and too many teeth.
"Carmen," I say, "can you free the other trapped souls like you freed me?"
Carmen's ghost looks sad. "I only had enough power for one rescue, Detective. I used it all to save you."
"Then how do we fight them?"
Carmen points down at the ground, which is still shaking as something huge moves underneath.
"We don't fight the shadow walkers," she says. "We fight what's controlling them."
The pavement of the town square starts breaking. Something is about to burst through from the deep tunnels.
"What is it?" I ask.
"The thing that's been feeding on this town's children for over a century. The thing that created the shadow walkers in the first place."
The cracks in the ground get bigger. A terrible howling sound comes from the depths.
"And it's been waiting for someone like you, Detective Rivera."
"Someone like me?"
"Someone who carries the guilt of every child she couldn't save. Someone whose pain and regret could feed it enough power to break free and spread across the entire world."
The ground bursts upward in a shower of dirt and broken concrete.
Something enormous and old rises from the hole - a writhing mass of darkness covered in the faces of every child that's ever gone missing in America.
Including Carmen Mendoza's face.
"Hello, Detective Rivera," it says in the voices of a thousand lost children. "Thank you for bringing us so much delicious guilt."
I understand with horror that I haven't been fighting to save anyone.
I've been feeding the monster that kills children.
And now it's strong enough to leave Tidewaters and hunt every kid in the world.