To the Sunset

Narrator: Gwynedd

I rode on a train, laid my neck against the steel wall, and looked out at the open door. It was kind of a bad day, but it was alright now. I’m just glad to be sitting down, laying back, not worried about anything. Not worried about finding a place to sleep, not worried about bug bites or thirst or exhaustion. But the ghosts were still there weren’t they. I just hopped this train, jumping a ledge onto a moving platform and getting one of my ghosts to open the enormous door of one of the many cargo cars. They could do that by using my power to make the door corporeal and then having one of them phase through the wall and unlock it from the other side.

It wasn’t a bad life, really. Jumping from place to place. Finding little shelters. Killing animals for food, stealing from convenience stores when the owners weren't looking. Rooting through dumpsters. I snickered to myself, mentally correcting the memory. Getting my ghosts to root through dumpsters for food.

Wherever I went I had these ghosts to keep me company. 

I’m Gwynedd by the way. Gwynedd Lloyd. And a couple years ago something bad happened, and I ran away. Ever since, these ghosts have been following me. They kind of drift around my periphery. Always around me, I don’t know if they are visible around others. Other people can see them sometimes, even when they aren’t corporeal. But being corporeal helps them see. That’s what my power does, I’m a parahuman. I can make it so certain areas are corporeal to the ghosts, so they can touch them, treat them as if the ghost was still alive. If the ghosts are in those areas they can be flesh and blood again. It means they can help me out with things like the door, or letting down a ladder, or fighting someone. 

There was this really fun thing I did one time where… I had two of these ropes and I had one of the ghosts go up onto a roof and hold it, and then I made the rope corporeal. Then they held it, and I flung the second rope up and had another ghost hold it on another roof, then made that one corporeal. I swung from roof to roof like I was Spider-Man. Y’know, one of those old superhero comics before parahumans came around?

That was really fun. But, uhh I Don’t really like spending time in cities with huge skyscrapers like that. Most of where I’m from is flatter. I’m a country girl. Besides, why do all that effort when you can just jump a train right?

But’ y’know it wasn’t too bad. I had all I needed. I got food, I got places to eat, I got places to run. No one to tell me what to do either. That was a good part. There was a pack of beer I stole yesterday, I’m slowly going through it. It’s good. I’m definitely not old enough to drink that stuff. I’m……huh….I looked around for anything that might have a date on it but there wasn’t anything. I didn’t even own a watch. The train car was full of crates, dust, and not much else. It couldn’t have been more than a year since I ran away, which meant I was probably still 16. Yeah. I had another sip. 

You know what’s the best thing about this life. Sometimes the views you get are real nice. The train was passing over a bridge, and the open door meant I saw the big old valley that the train ran through, full of trees with mountains on either side. I’m pretty sure I was in Colorado by now, the views were getting prettier and prettier the further up in the mountains we got. Less people, less noise, less light. How I liked it.

This train didn’t seem like it would stop too soon. Whenever it did I would hop out, see if I could catch another one, run out into the wilderness or something. Didn’t matter, I’d figure it out when I got there. I always did. I had my ghosts. They weren’t the best company, but they were different than normal people. If my power made me magnetically attract a swarm of real people to surround me I think I’d die. 

The best ones were silent. Shocked by fear or death or just kind of lost, like me. I spent a lot of time in the South, where I grew up. There always seemed to be civil war ghosts around. Wearing tattered grey or blue uniforms. Sunken eyes, bodied covered in blood and bullet holes. They usually didn’t talk. Some ghosts were talkative and I never liked those guys, especially when they wouldn’t shut up about getting me to solve their problems. Rambling or bugging me or trying to convince me to revive them. (which I couldn’t do, by the way.)

What’s better than this! Cool, Drink, being in this train car instead of the hot sun. I didn’t consider that I had showered in a long time, smelled bad, hadn’t seen a doctor in a while. Didn’t have enough food to eat. But I just didn’t care. I didn’t trust people. Didn’t like people. But the mountains, and the trees, and the backroads? I knew they’d be there for me. It was a good view to go to sleep to…after a long day.

One Week Later...

I got myself wrapped up in some bullshit again. I got noticed by a worker when the train stopped, I ran and fucked up my leg jumping down. I got a nasty cut and it twisted the wrong way. I made my way into a new town, my ghosts carrying and taking the weight off my leg to help with the pain. I tried to find a doctor to see if I could bribe him but I couldn’t find anyone. Bad thing about small rural areas. I was trying to figure out if there were any dead doctors around the area that I could find the ghosts of.

Some ghosts are just kind of around, I don’t need to do anything for them to appear to me. But if I really concentrate, focus, and if I have connections to a person, I can summon their ghost. Like performing a séance. It’s easier the more mementos I have of them, if there’s anyone who remembers them. Anchors for the spirit to connect to. Stuff like that. A part of Mexican Dia de Los Muertos celebrations is putting up ofrendas. Altars with pictures of dead family members, they offer them food. Deliberately bringing back and restoring that memory, it’s the same basic idea. I’d kill it at Dia de Los Muertos. Or I’d hate it. There would be ghosts absolutely everywhere. Not the point right now. 

I was trawling through the town’s graveyard trying to find any sign of someone who might have been a doctor. I wasn’t really getting anywhere. A raven’s croak echoed through the yard, as if to deepen the spooky ambience. I appreciated it. I always liked ravens. 

Then bam! Shovel to the head! 

Maybe ravens really were heralds of doom.

I fell back into one of the gravestones and looked up at what must have been the groundskeeper. A shovel in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She was about to start talking, “You’re trespassing on private property young lady!” when I pushed my power into the ground under her, then up onto her body. It surged and the ghosts’ forms became brighter, more visible. There were already scores of ghosts around, it was a graveyard after all. 

“Stop her!” I commanded the ghosts while I ran for it. I only got a couple paces before my leg shot up in pain and buckled under me. I swore under my breath as the groundskeeper screamed in terror at the army of the dead surrounding her. I had her feet under my power so a couple of the ghosts had pulled at them, knocking her on her back.

She did the smart thing and turned tail, screaming and sprinting. I pulled my power back from the ground and onto my body. “Someone carry me.” I whispered, winded. Fortunately, some of the ghosts did. Based on previous experience I was pretty sure I didn’t have the ability to compel the ghosts. But they usually did what I said. Maybe it was because I could let them feel alive again. Four male ghosts got together to carry me, making sure to upset my leg as little as possible. It still hurt. They got me to a bench and laid me down. The groundskeeper had stopped screaming in the background.

I was hurting, I couldn’t stay here, but what was I supposed to do? I wanted to run but I couldn’t, the fastest I could go was a swift walk being carried by the ghosts. 

“Please tell me one of you is a doctor.” I moaned. A couple of the ghosts looked to one another, but no one said anything or nodded. I tried to get up, and winced. A couple of the ghosts started towards me, but none stopped me. 

“Alright, carry me again. We need to go.” They did, and I was headed down the hill back to the graveyard’s main gate when another sight stopped me in my tracks, the distinctive red and blue flashing lights of a cop car. 

“Turn around, turn around!” I shouted down at the ghosts carrying me, they fumbled but eventually spun me around and began awkwardly moving me in the opposite direction. 

One ghost, a slender man in a pinstripe suit, spoke to me “There’s no other entrance or exit. What are you going to do, hop the fence?” He gave me a ghoulish smile. “What?” I responded, venomous “Are you excited to see me join your ranks?” But it was a hollow dodge, I didn’t have any kind of escape plan. And I was already starting to hear leaves crumpling under footsteps. The cops were approaching. 

The graveyard’s iron fence was only a few feet away, if I could just get there in time…

The footsteps got closer.

I reached out my hands…

The footsteps got closer.

I pushed my power onto the gate….

Then I whooshed back, pushed by an invisible force. I left the grip of my ghosts and barreled across the floor once again. 

“Stop.” A voice spoke calmly from above. I looked up, seeing two tired cops and floating six feet above them, a woman with long blonde hair and a white costume textured with waving green lines and a green star-shaped mask. A cape. A Hero. “I am Breeze, and you are under arrest for trespassing and assault with a parahuman ability.”

I huffed out breaths for a couple of seconds. Could I still run? Could I beat her? She clearly has a power but I don’t know what it does. She knocked me off my feet somehow. Well, my ghosts should still be able to manage her. I looked back up at her, illuminated in the distance by the lights and sirens of the police car. Nah. Fuck cops.

A couple hours later I was covered in bruises and handcuffed to a desk in this town’s sheriff’s office. The town was called Nestlegrass, apparently. This wasn’t the first time I’d been in prison, the good news is that the ghosts made it so I could open doors easily, and you’d be surprised how many people die in prisons and holding cells.

I wasn’t actually in Jail yet, this was just the Sheriff’s office. But either way there were some ghosts I was picking up, I was looking for anyone who might know how to unpick the lock. I was quietly beckoning them to me and then asking if they knew how to get me out. 

Tobias, an older teenage ghost who stuck by for a while was in the corner trying to strategize a way out of this. I had sent him through the walls to go look through the police’s records but since he wasn’t corporeal he couldn’t touch anything. Since he came back it was mostly just mumbled nonsense. Ghosts get like that. I thought of just opening the door but I’d need to get myself out of the chains that were holding me to the desk and floor. Unless I could get a ghost strong enough to break those chains but that seemed unlikely. The next time one of the cops came in I would nab the keys and then get out. I could barely make two people’s bodies fully corporeal at the same time, but if there was only one policeman, that would be enough. 

Kick the shit out of them, get the key, and then get out. One of the capes showed up but I mean if they are super can they beat 50 ghosts? I was working on actively pulling more in from the town, including many from the still-nearby graveyard. 

Why did I go west? If we were still far enough south I might’ve found some still angry civil war ghosts, maybe one of them would have a gun.

I was think there was a massacre here a while ago. Maybe a couple of hundred years ago. These ghosts were getting up faster. I don't know if it was related to my power, but It was always easier to find soldiers or people who were angry or stressed. Unfinished business. It seemed like a while ago there was some kind of colonial battle. I was finding a decent number of native american soldiers wearing hide armor, spears, bows and tomahawks in hand. To match, there were a set of white soldiers, beards, bayonets, and buttoned uniforms. All were bloody and eerie, as if in a trance.

My ghosts didn’t usually appear in cameras the same way they did in person. Sometimes there were some weird echo-y effects or black dots, but hopefully it wouldn’t alert anyone watching me in the interrogation chamber. My ghosts didn’t look fully human, instead their bodies were glowing green, almost hollow, transparent. You could see through their skin into their skeletons and beneath those their organs. They seemed to appear right after the moment of death. Soldiers still impaled on bayonets, drivers with concave chests from the wheel intersecting their body after a crash, plague victims scrawny and wasting away. I’d even seen it happen. A car accident led to someone falling off of a bridge. Their body slammed into the concrete below, and I saw their ghost rise from the corpse; neck unnaturally bent from the fall. I’d left him there.

One of the white soldiers had an axe impaled on his head. There were some more modern ones too. A cop or a firefighter, his body covered in gashes. If I were to guess he was killed in a parahuman fight. Or maybe a bear? Speaking of bears, no animals. Do animals have spirits? Souls? I’m pretty sure the bible said something about the difference between the souls of animals and the souls of humans. I’m pretty sure I was going to hell at this point. If only I was a little raven instead of a kid. 

The door opened, interrupting my thoughts. One of the heroes came through. It was Breeze. Her cape was flapping, even though there was obviously no wind in the room. Her power. Show off. She sat down at the opposite desk from me.

“So, we're pretty sure we know who you are, but could you state your name for the record, please”

“Gwynedd Lloyd..”

“I believe the record shows your legal name is-”

“It doesn’t matter what the record shows. That’s my name.” Not two sentences into the conversation and I was already bristling with anger. My power surged through my handcuffs into the table in front of me, drawing glowing green runes across it’s surface. The runes spilled out until they almost reached the woman on the other side of the table and her fancy, government-sponsored hero suit. I held myself back. The runes faded.

“How about I start this time? You’re Gwenydd Lloyd, 16.” 

So I was still 16. Good. She continued,“Former resident of New Orleans Parish, Louisiana. We know what happened with the disaster. We can find a place to put you at home.”

No, I thought. No, they knew who I was. Of course.

“I know this time has been rough for you, but that doesn’t mean you should lash out at groundskeepers. And it doesn’t mean you should hide from me.” Breeze said. Who did this woman think she was? As if I didn’t know how shitty my life was? Next she’s going to tell me to join the Wards.

“You could face charges for this. You broke into a government building and assaulted a worker there. And we have previous cases. Vandalism, burglary, trespassing, even some other cases of assault with a parahuman ability. Not to mention breaking and entering. You have a pretty big rap sheet. It might not be that serious. You might only have a couple of years in juvie, but I think you should heavily consider joining the Wards program.We might be able to lessen some of your sentencing and you could serve some of your time doing community service as a hero. Plus we could call in a better-funded doctor for your leg there. Not to mention a therapist if you need psychiatric help and a place to stay, Wards HQ of course.”

I was getting angry, barely holding my power back from spreading across the room again. She had to have a key on her, right? She had probably hidden it in one of the chambers of her stupid utility belt. Anyway yeah lady, I’m totally going to be a cop, great pitch. What happens when they find out what happened to my t- 

Don’t think about it, I cut myself off. This stupid lady was making me think about it! How dare she!

I didn’t even notice how my fist banged against the table, and I used my power on it and her. It flowed through my chains to the table, to the floor, to her. Another thing about my power, my corporeal areas have to extend from my body and connect to each other. I couldn't just look at a faraway point and start affecting it. It’ll go through solid stuff, like the train car door. I could touch one side, and make it corporeal as well as the lock connected to it. My range wasn’t great, but it was good enough for now. 

My power made eerie green lines cascade across the surface of the table and then climb onto her. They were either circular or straight angles, coming together like pentagrams or those weird intersecting triangle geometry videos. Before her neck became corporeal one of the native soldiers drew a knife against it. The others dogpiled her, using hands to grab her arms and legs. I screamed in frustration, egging the ghosts on. The ghost who held the blade nodded towards me, and the scarred firefighter asked, “Keep her down?” in a solemn voice. One of the American soldiers asked, “Kill her?” I shook my head. 

“No, no just get me the keys, search her!” For a second Breeze was stunned, and then wind whipped around her body, which would have been useful if the ghosts were corporeal and capable of being pushed back. She flipped back through a couple of them behind her, but at least four of five of my ghosts still had hands on her. I shook my hands impetuously. 

“Keys! Now!” 

The scuffling got louder as Breeze began to knock objects around the room. The chair was knocked into the wall, and as my arms were chained to the chair as well as the table, I was pulled along with both of them against the opposite wall. I was basically pinned. Breeze kept pushing away and away but they weren’t affected. But me being knocked pulled the corporeal zone with me and they phased right through each other. I pushed my focus onto the table, yelling.

“Get it off me!” The ghosts answered, unpinning me. I was still attached though so I slumped forward, pulled by my chains. I surged my power away from myself and back towards Breeze. I couldn’t get her whole body from this range, I could only get her legs and up to some of her chest. But that didn’t matter. Her utility belt was around her waist. 

“Get them!” I yelled again, pointing at the belt. As I got more desperate a couple of the soldiers faded away. They were replaced. Cousin Rob. Mark from the General store. Lisa, the mayor. Mike the butcher. Raphael, the movie theater owner. Wanda, the truck driver. People I know. People I remembered. People who were maybe friendly, once. They got in front of me, and then rushed at Breeze. She flung out her arms, which did a great job at flinging the table back at me. I managed to get my arms around my head before the table sandwiched me between the table and the wall, so I didn't break my nose. 

The ghosts tackled her, their hands becoming corporeal. Wanda, the truck driver, undid the latch on Breeze’s utility belt and flung it at me. I sent my power to make Wanda’s hand corporeal so she could make the throw, and then I started to push my power away from Breeze and onto the table, holding it so that it couldn’t slam into me again. I caught the utility belt and dodged behind the table, I made the belt corporeal and we all started rifling through it for the keys.

“Miss Lloyd! Stop this at once! I’m willing to give you a second chance now, but you’re running out of them.”

I didn’t even usually register the ghosts talking. They tended to whisper sometimes, or talk amongst themselves if they knew each other. But a couple of the ghosts that I knew, the ghosts from my hometown, were talking to me. Please just get me the keys, where were they? Keys, please! Keys please! I mentally repeated as pocket after pocket of her belt failed to reveal them. Handcuffs, pepper spray, debit card, bottle opener, swiss army knife, medical supplies-

Breeze continued, “You’re going to run out of second chances eventually. Now you're resisting arrest and doing battle with a hero. I’m giving you this chance now, but if you keep going you might not just be sent to juvie for a few years. You might be sent somewhere serious. Have you considered what might happen? Have you considered that with a power like yours authorities might deem it necessary to send you to Censor?”

I froze for just a second. Censor was a powerful parahuman. His ability let him, well it was kind of unclear, but he could delete things. He touched something? Gone. He was partially an inspiration for my outfit, with the ropes, and chains if I could find them. He used chains. And handcuffs. I used them to connect with my ghosts. He used them to connect to his victims. He’d lash out with his chains and flow his power through them and then they just. Pop! Disappeared. Some of the worst supervillains were sent to Censor. He’d touched them, and then they were gone. It was not a comforting thought. But then fuck it. How was I supposed to trust her when she literally just threatened to send me there? So I kept digging. 

Breeze advanced. Rooting around, Rooting around. Got them! One of my ghosts, Mark, punched the keys into the lock, unlocked it, and my hands were free. Breeze practically vaulted across the table to get on top of me, slamming me to the ground and whispering in my ear. I instinctively pushed my power onto her, the ghosts following and dogpiling her, but she refused to let me go. 

“Listen Gwynedd. This is your last chance. Please don’t make this mistake, don’t make me do this. I don’t like putting kids like you in jail, but if I have to? To teach you a lesso-” She didn’t get to finish the sentence as one of the ghosts socked her across the face and she sputtered. 

I shuffled to regain my grip on the keys and unlock my legs, jamming the key into the lock and turning a second before she blew a whirlwind at me which, now that I was out of the restraints, sent me flying through the open door and into the hallway of the police station. As a result my power slipped off of her and the ghosts failed to connect. 

“Stop!” she yelled and pushed herself towards me, I responded by thrusting my power into the door where two nearby ghosts slammed it shut, as if on queue. I ran to lock it and barely succeeded as I could feel her wind bracing against the door’s hinges. That would buy me a couple seconds, at best.

 I looked down the hallway. One way, a banging noise was coming from a wall of cells. Three teenage capes, all in costume. The taller, older woman wore a black bodysuit and a matching mask, with purple highlights. Her long frizzy black hair poofed out from behind the cloth mask. The other two were notably shorter, and in white cloth bodysuits with differing markings. The boy’s was black on one side, the left of his face and right of his chest. Black lines ran down the white half. Meanwhile, the girl wore a light purple jacket over her bodysuit, along with a large set of purple-tinted glasses. Her mask had purple markings trailing from her eyes. Both of their masks covered their hair. The taller woman’s mask was pushed below her mouth, and she was gagged. All three had their hands and feet cuffed to their beds. She was banging her head against the cell door and trying to yell over her gag. As I came into view the other two leapt to their cell doors and repeated her motion. On the other side, was a relatively quiet hallway which led to a door. Which then swung open, revealing a cop in uniform. Cell block it is!

I made a mad dash to the cells, all three of the capes’ body language lighting up. Just like the pain flaring in my leg. I just needed to handle the pain for a couple seconds. The woman in black began vigorously gesturing down with her chin. I frowned. Is she trying to tell me something? The cop yelled something. Probably “stop!” Or “No!” Or “Hey you!” I ignored him and skidded to a halt at the cells. She began pointing more vigorously and nodding. The cop was fast approaching and the door I locked Breeze behind began shaking against its hinges. The cell room didn’t seem to have any other exits. I made the door corporeal and pointed at it, my ghosts understanding and clustering behind it, locking it and pushing whatever undead body mass they head against it. They could exert force. 

I looked back at the woman, both of the white-clothed capes were pointing at her from their adjacent cells and screaming over each other. “Take off her gag!” “Help us” “Bro trust me please!” “We’ll help you just c’monnnnnn.”

I looked at them and cocked an eyebrow.  “Why should I remove it?”

“She has to talk to use her power.” the leftmost white-clothed cape blurted out in a high pitched voice, before the other could stop.

“We’re not supposed to say that!” He looked from her to me “Look just trust me, we all want to get out of this, and that means we need her.”

As if to punctuate his statement, there was a loud thunk against the door, like the cop had body-checked it. Wanda winced and turned back to me, affirming the dire state of the situation. I’m not getting sent to the Censor. 

I turned back to look at the black suited woman, scornful. “What does her power do?” I asked. 

“Wha-Look we can discuss later. Right now-” the girl responded. Another thunk at the door.

“No, I’m the one making the decision, tell me right now or I can’t trust you and I’ll find my own way out.”

“Not fair!” whined the girl. 

“Dude, seriously!” the boy 

“MHhHHMMMM” said the woman.

A crash from behind the door. Breeze had found a way out of the interrogation room. And a wind pushed at the door to the cells. No more time. Fine. I grabbed the gag- The wind pushed the cop through the door- and I pulled it out of her mouth. She let out a desperate breath against my hand, as it felt like time stood still. Then she let out a barking order.

“Stop!”

And they did. The cop completely stopped moving, as did Breeze, mid sprint in the middle of the hallway.

She took a long breath out. “People like you,” She pointed her head at Breeze, “You just gotta calm down. Y’know what I’m sayin.” Her voice faded as she ended the sentence. She spoke casually, loosely compared to the strict tone of her bark.

Frozen in their tracks? But no, Breeze clearly wasn’t stopped in time.

“Hey, wanna get out of here?” She nodded to her chains and the wall “I might need a little help with these.”

“Sure,” I drawled, “But only if you tell me what your power does.” 

“Aight.” She shrugged, or tried her best being restrained as she was. “What I just did there, I can give one-word commands and people have to listen. Those two should be ‘stopped’ as long as I’m nearby. Now, chains? And I want my kids, too.” The white-clothed capes moaned with a chorus of childish petulance. “We’re not your kids!” “Edicccct” She gave a slight smile. “I’m Edict, by the way. This is Symbiosis” she pointed to the boy, “and Scanner,” to the girl. I looked to each of them.

“I’m Séance.” and I pushed my power through the cells to the chains, my ghosts’ glow flaring.