GHOST PORTAL (#1 GHOST PORTAL series)

SIXTEEN

Angela snarled at her. "Go on, do it—go into the house," she said, her voice distorted, fractured. Her face was darker than usual, and the harder Jessamine looked, the more she realized it wasn't Angela's face, not completely. Her same obscure yet sexy eyes with all their hatred and lust, her same luscious lips that Jessamine had more than once wanted to taste. But her skin was sheet white, and her cheeks were sullen, ghastly.

"Go on, do it," said a voice in her ear, a whoosh of a whisper that mimicked Angela's cadence but wasn't her voice. This was sleek, silky smooth as a fresh breeze, and floated about her head as if seeking to take control of her brain.

"Do it, do it," came another voice, this one from behind her.

She spun around and was faced with darkness; a heavy, constricting darkness that swallowed her up and immobilized her. Angela was gone, the other whispering voices were gone.

A large set of stairs manifested before her, as if coming into focus, a light slowly turning on to shine over them; a spotlight. A blue being took form over the steps, and its face appeared, its mouth moving though at first Jessamine couldn't hear what it was saying.

It was a woman, Jessamine soon understood, as her voice filtered through, soft but urgent, firm but not unkind. "You shouldn't be here," she said, the words lulling out from behind her thinned lips, her nostrils rounding as she seemed to suck in a breath. Could this thing breathe? It wasn't even human, or at least, it didn't look it. A levitating apparition, a ghost? Or something else? "There's another. Someone is missing. We need to get you out. I can't kill you. It's not time yet, it's not time—"

"K-kill me?" Jessamine croaked, not sounding like herself. She was distant, as if she weren't in her body, and her voice was coming from elsewhere. "Why?"

The blue being's tone shifted, and soon she fizzled out of existence. Then the stairs disappeared too, as if melting into the background. Jessamine was watching a slide-show, seeing snippets of videos playing out in front of her, but not able to interact with them, pause them, understand them. They reeled before her fast, too fast to fully comprehend them.

The door with its ominous red glow appeared, popping up before her so suddenly she gasped, and jumped backward.

"Now, now... open the door, come now..."

This was a new voice; sultry like a siren, seeping into Jessamine's core and tugging her forward, hooking its lusty fingers under her chin to tug her closer.

"Open it, come, now!" It growled—a half-purr, half-groan that sent chills cascading down Jessamine's spine, but she had no means to stop them. She wasn't in her body, and couldn't control her motions.

The growls susurrated in her ear, dancing inside her mind, begging her to approach the door, to turn the knob, to enter the world behind it.

Jessamine was dizzy, and started to sway side to side, unsure if she had anything to help keep her up. The ground was rough beneath her; a brownish wood stained with scarlet smears, its surface scratched and worn out. She fought with all her might to keep upright, but her knees were bending against her will, her feet lifting to carry her to the door.

Pain flared up and down her ribs, and she tasted the coppery tinge of blood that she hated to recognize. She managed to shift her vision to the floor again, to see that she was the one staining the floor—blood was dripping down her arms, dangling from her fingertips, splashing at her feet. It was like all the bones in her upper half had cracked, and their sharp edges were spearing through her skin, breaking out of her body. Her lungs compressed with her every breath, agonizing, filling with smoke. Something was eating her insides—she sensed the chomp chomp of something feasting away on her intestines, her kidneys, her stomach. But at the same time, said stomach was on fire, burning hot and threatening to explode.