The unordinary

Prologue
It was a normal summer day, filled with the warm breeze and chirping of all
the birds and the sound children screeching. But unbeknownst to the
“ordinary” people, there was a secret society that was coming in to existence
to protect the unlikely and unknowing people from the mystical and evil
spirits all over the world that set out to damn the world.
But the one thing that sets this strange society out from the others would be
the fact that its made of children, well not children per se, but rather
teenagers. Special children all over the world that are over thirteen, wielding
the gift to “see” spirits.
The creators, Sarah Jenkins, Nathan Knox and Celia Maxwell, the secret
trio, were no more than thirteen years. These three along with a group of
other “seers” from their seemingly normal village, Baxtershire, began an
organization on 28th June 1870 to save the world from the wretched spirits
that have been roaming the Earth haunting people and causing deaths from
“ghost touch”, a cause of death that no doctor has been able to figure out.
Whenever a human is touched by the spirits, they die from instant paralysis.
The proliferate increase in these deaths called for the creation of this noble
society, to save oblivious human from the wrath of the lost souls that rose
from their graves out for revenge on mankind. But little did the founders
know that “the unordinary” would befall a threat that could destroy the world
by a member of their own society, one that swore to protect the world from the wrath of the spirits.
Imogen Maxwell, I stared anxiously at the name on the door. My name. I am
the grand daughter of Celia Maxwell, one of the founders of the unordinary,
the girl that fought 100 spirit single handedly and saved our tiny village and
quite literally the entire world. This really shouldn’t be hard for me. As soon
as I stepped into the underground head quarters for the unordinary, Anthony
latched onto me and proceeded to fawn over my great grandmother while
rambling about how brave she was.
Listening to him rant only made my anxiety worse, I am one minute away
from unloading my stomach’s contents onto the clean floor. I will never live
up to her legacy, I will never amount to her, I do not deserve this gift. For me
its like a curse. It all started the day I turned thirteen when I had a vision that
told me to go to the well on the other side of town. I found it strange and
ignored the urge to so, but somehow, I ended up at the well because of Lily
Knox, my bestfriend. And that was when I saw a ghastly figure floating
towards me and Lily. I vividly
remember being frozen in shock
when Lily unsheathed a sword from
god knows where and sliced
through the figure.
As I had a slight aneurism from the
daunting experience, she calmly
looked at me and said “ I knew you
had the gift, I mean you were bound
to, both our grandmothers were the
founders of the unordinary, Now we
can fight against the spirits
together.”
I was brought back to reality when James, who had been next to me all this
time, had stopped my journey down the memory lane.
“Are you okay? Look your own office, you must be excited. Oh who am I
kidding, of course you are. Fun fact this was actually your grandmother’s
office too. No new join has an office, well except you and Lily, but that’s
different, your grandparent’s literally created this whole organization. You
know I bet you or Lily will become the head after George retires next year.”
My face paled at the the mere thought of it. “Don’t even say that” I
whispered hoping that he would stop talking. He just smiled at me with a
look of disbelief.
“Well anyway, I’m sure you know what you have to do here, Lily must have
briefed you on your duties and your responsibilities in the society, but let me
repeat them just in case. Your visions will lead you to the spirit, once you
are in the presence of the spirit, do not show fear, they feed on it. And the
you can do three things to deal with the three types of spirits. A sword
coated with brusbane will do it for normal spirits, namely, the tame tame
spirit. For wild spirits, your sword won’t work, so you have to use your silver
dagger to destry it. Once that is done, you have to write about your case in
order for future references” James elaborated
“You did not tell anything about rogue spirits, if I’m right.” I questioned.
“Oh you won’t need to know anything about it” he replied quickly “And to be
honest, I don’t know much about it since there are no rogue spirits anymore,
your grandmother obliterated them all. The only thing I know about it is that
they can only be destroyed by a special weapon that your grandmother
forged herself.” James added.
I looked at him like a fish out of water. He glanced at me and understood that I had enough of his history l
essons. "Okay then, I will leave now" he said and finally left me alone. I looked at the door of my office ag
ain and finally mustered the courage to go inside. Right when I touched the doorknob, my vision started.
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Find me a ghastly voice whispered, find me where you left me. Help me help you, it said. I looked around
overwhelmed trying to figure out where I was. But the only thing I could see was a blurry forest that seem
ed oddly familiar. Don’t trust them. Help me. Helo me. Help me. I started screaming unable to bear the tor
ture. It hurts. Everything hurts. My head was blasting. My ears were flooded with the sentence help me. I
was desperate for this to stop. Stop I screamed, I looked around again to find someone to help me but I w
as met with the faint, screechy and eerie whispers of the spirit in front of me in the blurry forest. And then i
t went blank
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The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the worried face of Lily and James. I blinked trying to adj
ust to the light and looked around. A group had formed outside my office door. Lily asked me if I was okay
. I nodded unable to speak. Her face showed signs of worry. "I’m okay" I creaked out, my voice incredibly
hoarse. Maybe from all the screaming I did. But to be honest, I’m freaked out. I tried to go inside the office
and I have a vision that knocks me out. I’m not stepping into that office. Ever. But what could that vision h
ave meant? What was the spirit trying to tell me? What did it mean by find me. My head started to hurt as
I thought about all of the questions that arose in my heart. But an intense feeling crept over my body. I ha
d to know. That spirit was calling to me. I will not let this go. I have to know. Lily shook me. "Okay you nee
d to go home right now. Enough of this nonsense. Im not letting you stay here. I won’t let you do this if this
happens to you every time. Plus you are not your grandmother, you are Imogen. The kind girl that can’t h
urt a fly. You are going home" she spoke looking at me determined to get me home.
"I won’t go home. Not after what just happened. I’m scared too. But I have to find out what it means. I kno
w that I have no prior experience or anything but the thing about my personality that I love is my curiosity,
commitment and persistence. I can’t sleep until I know what the spirit meant." I said.
"No, you are not doing anything. Judging by the reaction you just had, I’m guessing that it is most likely a
wild spirit. These spirits take weeks if not months to find. I don’t think you have the heart to go through wit
h the gruelling process" she explained as if I was a child.
"No give me just two weeks. I will find the spirit. Remember I went through the training session you made
me go through after we found out about my seeing abilities. I can do this. If you still fear for my safety, the
n you can come with me whenever I go out." I tried to convince Lily. I really don’t understand why Is as doi
ng this. I don’t even think I’m in my senses. But God the overwhelming urge to find out more is killing me.
Lily looked unsure as if she was contemplating what to say. I looked at her pleadingly, my eyes saying ev
erything. I had to know. "Fine" she grumbled out. "But only if you tell me everything and if you agree that I
will accompany you everywhere. You are not trained to do this alone." She said putting forth her condition
s.
"Yes of course." I said trying to hide my excitement. A part of me was in disbelief. Just an hour ago, I was
fainting at the whole responsibility and spirit hunting thing but now I was jumping to go find out. Excitemen
t courses through me as I thought about all the propabilities.
"Okay so we start by going to the forest" I began only to be cut off by Lily. "No you are going home today,
getting a good night’s sleep and getting energy for tomorrow." She explained like I was a five year old.
"But", "no" Lily said firmly. "Go home" Lily spoke leaving no room for debate.
--------------------
I went inside my home. The afternoon sun burning brightly, illuminating our home. My mom looked at me
and asked me where I went. I resisted the urge to say that I went to the office headquarters. My mom doe
sn’t know anything about the unordinary. She did, because she worked on it. But the thing is, you start los
ing your seeing abilities after completing seventeen years, and along with that, you lose all memories rel
ated to spirits. And my mom did too. There were stories on my mom too, though not as popular as my gra
ndmother. One day, I too will forget everything related to the present in the future. But for now, the only thi
ng I seemed to care about was finding that spirit and knowing what it meant. "Imogen" my mom screamed
. "Where were you?’’ she questioned. "I was with Lily." I replied curtly.
My mother, thankfully, did not press further. I ran upstairs to my room. I opened the door and closed it im
mediately after going in and proceeded to fall face first on my bed. I went over everything that happened t
oday and eventually fell asleep.
------------------------
The next morning....
I was already at the headquarters waiting for Lily to arrive. I’ve already come up with a plan for today. My
vision took place in the forest at the edge of the village. I tried to remember any details about the vision thi
s morning and all of a sudden, I remembered that the tree was a huge apple tree. Apple trees were found
ont be east side of the forest so that definitely made the search easier.Another thing that I remembered w
as the fact that the tree had a carving of a flower. With all these facts, I’ve carefully curated a plan for us t
o follow. If we do this right then we can unravel this mystery. I was pulled out of my thoughts by a glum lo
oking Lily who trudged into the office sporting a scowl. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed today
" I teased. "Shut up" she said finality. I did. But only because I needed her for today. "So are we going or
what?" Lily asked. "Of course, I was just waiting for you." I answered. "Well then what are we waiting for?"
Lily groaned out unable to tolerate the wait. "Fine. Let’s go" I said as I began walking. Out of nowhere, Ja
mes popped up and said "Can I tag along with you? I promise I’ll be quiet. I just want to see the two future
legendary heroes in action." "What? No. You are annoyingly perky. I can’t deal with you in the morning" L
ily frowned so deep that I could practically feel her aging twenty years just from that frown. I ignored her a
nd told James that he could come along. "Oh god. I’m regretting everything" Lily groaned.
------------------------
In the forest
We all found the tree after two hours of searching. Turns out there were way oo many apple trees in this f
orest. But the good thing is we found apples. And the tree. But mainly the incredibly sweet apples.
"Are you going to touch it now?“ Lily prodded. "Of course, right after I finish eating this apple." I said. "Sh
ecs trying to stall isn’t she" James said, quick to figure out my diversions. "Ugh" I groaned. "How do you k
now?" I looked at James. "You are making the I get constipated when I’m nervous face" Lily elaborated. T
hat makes sense I thought. Fine. Let’s do this, I spoke to myself. "Wait, hold on. Why can’t I feel the prese
nce of anything?" I said suddenly conscious of my surroundings and the hair on my neck stood up. "Down
girl. Maybe the spirit doesn’t want to show itself." Lily spoke looking around warily for a sign. But that wo
uldn’t make any sense. It called me here. The spirit wanted me to come to it. I couldn’t stop myself as I wa
lked towards the tree and touched the carving of a rose. I felt waves passing through my whole body as I
saw another vision.
---------------------
"Look at me" the spirit whispered. "There is a lot going on in this town" the spirits voice suddenly booming.
In two days the town is going to be a graveyard. Someone is trying to unleash bloodthirsty spirits onto the
town. "Find out why and how" it’s voice echoed. My mind was in shambles. What
is going on. This is way more than what I expected. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? How does the spi
rit know this? What is happening? Who would do that? Why would they do that? There are only two days l
eft for us to find out the solution to this mess. My head started pounding. "Stop" I screamed over and over
again until it finally did.
------------------------
My brain was a mess. I tried to say something to Lily who stood in front of me but nothing came out excep
t meaningless splutters. "Die, everyone is going to die. God I’m such an idiot. Why did I do this? Now eve
ryone is going to die. And my incapable idiotic self cant do anything about it.’’ I rambled unable to stop fret
ting over the fact that such a heavy thing has been layed down on me. I can’t do this for god’s sake. I’m th
irteen. What in the world.
"Ok calm down, take deep breaths, relax and tell us what happened." James said and I did what he said.
Finally after two minutes of inhaling and exhaling I told them exactly what the spirit told me. Lily and Jame
s went still. I could see the gears in their brain turning trying to make sense of what was happening. "Wait
what?" Lily screeched. "This can’t be happening. We have to take this to our chief." James said. Lily hasn’
t uttered another word. Her face was as pale as paper. "Let’s go now" James said with urgency. My body
complied and stood up ready to march down to our headquarters. I glanced at Lily to see whether or not s
he got up. She did. She looked like a woman on a mission. We all started walking without a word. Each of
us mulling over what to do right now. Within no time, we reached headquarters and James barged into R
obert’s office. James explained the whole ordeal to Robert who looked like he saw a ghost, he didn’t I did.
Yet his face held so much worry. Imagine my trauma. "What’s the plan of action now?" James asked wis
ely. "I- I- I don’t know." Robert stuttered out. What in the world? Oh god. Its official, we’re all going to die.
Goodbye beautiful world. And that was when Lily finally decided to wake up and take charge.
"Okay. First of all, we have two days. That means we need to find out who is doing this. Robert go to the li
brary and get all books on awakening spirits. James, go prepare everyone. Make sure no one panics. Imo
gen, you and me are going to have a long talk. Capisce?" Lily ordered. James and Robert immediately go
t a move on and scrambled to follow her orders. I sat down on the couch in Robert’s office. Lily started gril
ling me for anything. I answered all her questions. Lily looked like she was one minute away from ripping
her head off.
"Okay, so whoever this person is, he wants to awaken the spirits. To do that, he needs to be at the gravey
ard right?"
"So let’s keep the town graveyard under surveillance." Perfect I thought, as Lily suggested to guard the ce
metery.
Robert came into the room with a huge book titled "Awakening and Dispelling Spirits". "So..." Robert start
ed, "Turns out that they can awake spirits only at graveyards while being physically present there." Tell us
something we don’t know already Robert. "But the thing is, once this process starts, there is no way to st
op. I thought that we could guard the cemetery but we can’t stop people from going inside, that would be r
ude. So we’re back to square one." We all fell into thought.
"Wait, if someone is doing this, they have to know about us. That would erase all adults, as long as no ad
ult knows right? So we can just keep an eye on the teenagers that enter the cemetery." I said finally contri
buting.
"Yes, that’s perfect let’s go through with that. Wait, but wouldn’t that mean that someone from the unordin
ary is doing that from the inside." Lily spoke out seemingly having a epiphany.
Realisation dawned on all of us. Once again we fell into a silence. That was when James entered. "Every
thing is alright now. The people are calm. They are ready to work." James said. "Great" Lily muttered. "Ho
w about you take a couple members with you and go to the cemetery? Oh and only take the top ranks." Li
ly said to James, who rushed out of the room to obey Lily’s commands.
Lily and Robert started talking again.
"The only way for someone at this office to know how to do that is by reading the book. This book was in t
he restricted section of the library. And only the top ranks have access to this part of the library."
"But maybe someone broke in, we can’t rule out that possibility."
"No chance. The restricted section has 7 specific locks that can only be unlocked by a top rank. So securit
y is tight. Absolutely no one can break in. Plus even if they do, there is a trap door that activated itself if th
e security question isn’t answered"
"That means our suspects are only the top ranks, so we have 7 people that might be out to ruin the town."
"On the bright side, we have precisely 44 hours left to save town and we’ve made good progress."
Is it just me or did the room just get clammy? Oh god I can’t breathe. I could hear Lily screaming in the ba
ckground, but I couldn’t comprehend any of it. Once again, I slipped away into another vision, for the third
time in three days.
-------------------
"Revenge. He’s doing it for revenge. Don’t trust the boy. He’s trying to avenge his parents. Move fast. Del
ay and he will slay everyone in this town before the sun rises again" the spirit whispered in my ear. What?
Another clue. Its a boy. This is it. We have this in the bag. I felt a surge of happiness before my head star
ted aching again. This time the pain wasn’t as bad.
----------------------------
"Its a boy." I gasped out as soon as I regained consciousness. "Whose baby is a boy?" Lily questioned cu
riously. "Oh god you idiot, the traitor. He’s a boy. He’s trying to avenge his parents. How many of the top r
anks are mem?"
"Three" Robert answered without giving it much thought. Lily looked pale when my eyes found her. I aske
d her what was wrong. "We just sent them to the graveyard" Lily said. Robert and I looked at each other i
n panic. "Ummm I might left out a tiny detail from the vision." I began. "The spirit said he was going to des
troy everyone before sunrise."
If Lily was pale before, she was practically translucent now. My ears stopped working as soon as Lily start
ed admonishing me. After ten minutes she cooled down, looked at Robert dead in the eye and said, "Whic
h one is it?Harry the goof, Nicholas the dumb or James the optimist..." stating our options as to who could
be the evil mastermind. I could see the tension in her’s and Robert’s eyes. "You said he’s trying to aveng
e his parents, so his parents must be dead. That would mean that it’s either Nicholas or James. There is n
o way it’s James so it’s Nicholas." Robert pointed out.
"It’s James", me and Lily having had another epiphany said confidently that it was James. "How? No way
?"
"Gut feeling" I said and Lily nodded. "But we could ask the librarian is she saw James wandering around i
n the library looking suspicious. That would give us our proof" Lily being the smarter one explained.
"I’m going to trust you both, only because you know so much." Robert said. "But first, let’s confirm with the
librarian."
After a short wait, the librarian stumbled into the office and immediately answered our question "Yes, I sa
w James going inside the restricted section.’’
That confirmed our suspicion. Now we just had to stop him." "Robert go get some people. We have to sto
p him." Lily ordered. Robert walked out of the room when she turned to me and said "it’s Robert. And did
you see his face when we told him. I didn’t think much of it but now, it makes sense. He immediately got t
he book, without needing to search in the library. And we know that the library isn’t sorted. He must have
known before. As if that wasn’t enough, Robert is an orphan."
I looked at her baffled. I thought we agreed it was James. "What?" I gasped. "Well how do we stop him?"
"Simple, let’s get to James first and tell him to accept the claims and then once Robert has his guard dow
n, we arrest him and put him in the dungeons in the forest where no one can enter." Lily quickly formulate
d a plan. Robert came back with 5 people. "I and Imogen will go first. You can leave after we leave and on
ce you arrive, you can hide in the bushes" Lily looked at the 5 people and said. Let’s move"
--------------------------
At the cemetery
We were quick to spot James. With no time to spare, we quickly explained to him what happened. He loo
ked incredulous. Now we just have to follow the plan. To be honest, my heart was thumping. I was feeling
queasy. My brain conjuring up every possible scenario where things went wrong.
Lily looked at me and James and gave us a small nod. One that anyone could miss because it was such
a small gesture. I started screaming at James. "Are you crazy? Why are you doing all of this?"
James just looked at me. I continued screaming at James. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lily hailing
Robert over. As soon as Robert came over, James pounced on him. I followed. Robert started shouting at
us. "What are you doing? Leave me. He’s the villain, not me."
"We know Robert. We know everything." I said calmly trying not to let my fear show. The 5 people that ca
me along now had their swords out and were pointing at us. James cascaded the entire situation to the 5.
Their swords soon lowered as they tried to process the treason committed by Robert, a person everyone t
hought they could trust.
Lily turned to Robert and asked him "Why did you that? Just for revenge? You were about to kill hundreds
just because your parents died?"
"My parents did not die. This organisation murdered them. They failed to protect my parents. The villagers
 shunned me after their death. They were one of the first people to die after the organisation came to exist
ence. They failed and I was left alone. The villagers thought I was cursed. Do you know what I had to go t
hrough?" Robert cried. "I had to get revenge on them. I had to avenge my parents.’’ Robert said now sobb
ing. I looked at him with pity. There is nothing I can do. He brought this onto himself. At least he can repe
nt his action in solitude in the dungeons. I looked away and left. They could do the honors of imprisoning
him. I walked outside the graveyard and sat on a bench. Who was the spirit that helped me? I thought to
myself. Why did a spirit help me? How did Robert’s parents die? So many questions were yet to be answ
ered. Maybe I will find out as I walk down the years. But for today, Lily and I figured it out. Today is when
my story stops and starts. I was now ready for the start.

The end.