Lester Andi Mack - Tumblr Posts
A Shadyside urban legend: the land of lost souls
This was originally written to be a part of @rainbowshipping Dark!FrisbeeCamp AU (@darkultimatefrisbeecamp). This version is nearly the same as the one I sent to her, except that now it has a title, a minor change in the story, some extra details and grammar correction.
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Old Herbert owned a large piece of land around the outskirts of Shadyside, one he used both as a place for his business of dirtbiking, and as the place were him and his family lived, where their house was. It was a popular place where both kids and adults would go to dirtbike, even if they didn’t have a bike or equipment of their own, for old Herbert had plenty they could rent.
Old Herberts’s family was happy and healthy. His only child, a teenage boy named Lester, loved to dirtbike, and was quite good at it. His wife, Alyssa, an extremely intelligent and beautiful woman, loved him and their son very much.
But strange things happened in that land, for it was once a burial ground of Native American tribes, and long ago, when they were forced to abandon that soil, sacred to them, a powerful curse befell on it, but not by the doing of the tribes. It was the Spirits, born of the inherent energy of Nature, entities with who the original inhabitants communed and coexisted with, who were in that place long before there were people to bury, beings that were never human. It was they, who in the anger of seeing all the evil that was being done against those who they saw dearly, who were forced to witness their land being occupied by violent usurpers, made use of their own powers, along with the energies of chaos, death and despair that had been spread by all the violence, to invoke what can best be described as an anchor to bind the dead.
If the colonizers wanted the land so much they would kill for it, them they would have it, but they would find neither the rest or the peace the tribes did in it. Those that fell in that place would never be free, they would have to wander, restless, forever. And so, with the curse, the place once used to lay the dead to rest, became the place the dead would never be able to rest.
And with that, the land became filled with hatred and desperation, with so much darkness that it became a gateway to our world for beings that dwell in the realms of shadows, to creatures of malevolence. They were now draw to that place, like moths are lured to light.
Those that had the blood of the people who respected the Spirits of Nature, and met their end in that terrain, would be taken under their protection in death, safe from the dark entities and other ghosts that wander through that soil. But all others, specially the descendants of the invanders, would have to fend for themselves, alone in that treacherous ground.
And sadly, one day, young Lester suffered a horrible accident while dirtbiking. The injuries where many and terrible. And he did not survive. His life ended on that cursed terrain, and thus while no longer alive, his existence in this realm did not cease completely. For days, old Herbert and sweet Alyssa mourned their dear son, but it was like he wasn’t gone.
More and more, weird and inexplicable events would unfold. Things in Lester’s bedroom would have been moved, as if someone had used them. The TV would turn on semingly out of nowhere, right on time for Lester’s favorite show and on the right channel. And then they started hearing him. His steps, coming closer to them. His voice, reaching out to them. Eventually they even started seeing him, wandering around the hallways of the house or around the dirtbike field, but never for long, always only a glimpse.
And then one night, while they were having dinner, he appeared fully. It started with a weird feeling creeping throught old Herbert’s and Alyssa’s spine. Then the diningroom became cold, as if they were outside during the worst of winter. And that’s when the lights started flickering, and what seemed like a glitch happened right at the entrance to the room. A glitch, just like of those that happen in computers, machines Herbert could barely understand but were masterfully used by both Alyssa and Lester. Except this glitch wasn’t happening in a machine, it was happening in real life.
As if an event so powerful, so outside of what’s accounted as possible by the laws of both Nature and Physics, was taking place right there inside their house. As if reality itself, or at least reality as they knew it, was being tore apart in front of their eyes. The glitch lasted only for a moment, a blink and you’ll miss it situation, and then it was gone. In it’s place, was Lester. It was something they could not explain, but it happened.
In a split second their Lester was not there, and in the next he was. Someway, somehow, from that glitch their son entered once again in the world of the living. He somehow managed to project his spirit from the place it was, trapped in the Veil. Not really here, not really there. But now, he was back. Old Herbert and Alyssa were in disbelief, but happier then they were ever since their son had died.
Of course, Lester wasn’t truly back. As impressive as it is for a ghost to physicaly manifest, even if such manifestation is in a place marked by death and with an abundance of mystical energy, such materialization dosen’t make them any less ghosts. And all ghosts, all souls that for some reason don’t move on after death, are bound to the place were their life ended. Therefore, Lester’s binding to his place of demise is not exclusively due to the curse, even though it was strengthened by it. What the curse did to Lester is to deny him any chance of moving on. The curse makes it so that anyone that perishes on the land has no choice but to stay.
It’s very likely, that if it wasn’t for the spiritual anchor that holds all souls on that terrain, Lester’s soul would have just moved on to the realms beyond. But in that place that was never was a possibility for him. Or anyone.
And so he’s there to this day, with his parents. A ghost that can take a physical form. Unable to grow. Unable to age. Unable to leave. And, for the better or worse, he wasn’t the only dead soul to wander on that land. Many had perished in there since the curse was set, but none had manifested before. At least not to Old Herbert’s family.
Perhaps Lester was able to do so, apparently unlike the other ghosts before the event, because of his emotional connection to his parents, wich he could have used to force himself back into our reality. Perhaps the Veil was holding too strong for them to cross before, and for some reason Lester managed to open a windom in it. Perhaps that’s not the reason at all, and the other ghosts simply didn’t know crossing to this side of reality was possible. Maybe they did, but simply didn’t care. The only thing the family knew when it came to this, is that the supernatural events in that place became far stronger and more frequent after Lester’s walk through the Veil.
Either way, old Herbert and Alyssa didn’t care about about the strange ocurrences. All they cared about was their son. They would investigate the legends and try to find a way to help him. Perhaps there was a way to make peace with the Spirits, show them that they were not like their ancestors, that they mean no harm and only want peace. Maybe then the curse will be lifted.
But if that wasn’t possible and their son was forced to be there forever, so would they. If that was the case, they just needed to wait. After all, one day death will come for them too, and they would make sure that it was on that land. So they can always be a family. Together. Forever.
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