The Pale Shadow. .®.

The Pale Shadow. ®

Story. Suspense. Mystery.

Author: Jorge Ofitas. ®

Characters.

Dionisio Ravel.

Dakini Baumeister.

Chapter I.

It happened once on an estate far removed from the civilized world. Dionisio Ravel, an anthropologist and collector of amulets and ancient objects, arrived in his car at that strange place that did not seem of this world. It rained incessantly, and many thunderclaps galloped through the night. When he got out of the car, the rain stopped. The estate was in the middle of a forest, and a large oak tree presided over the entrance. There was an enormous gate with its rusty ironwork, and no lights were visible in the house. He stood paralyzed, unsure of what to do. Luckily, the clouds had disappeared, and the night cleared. Then, he glimpsed a human shadow on one of the upper floors; the being in question was carrying a candle. He could not discern if it was a man or a woman; instantly, the image vanished. Suddenly, the door made a noise as if tearing off its hinges and swung open, the entire gate falling down. For a few seconds, he was on the verge of returning to his vehicle and leaving there at full speed; what he saw kept him frozen with fear and dread, although he managed to recover himself.

Days before, from his apartment in the capital, he had contacted a Tibetan girl of German origin on her father's side, with whom he had arranged a deal to buy "the pale shadow." Namely, a powerful gris-gris that possessed the ability to protect health for life and grant an unattainable wish. Ravel remained there, not daring to cross the now fallen gate. One of the windows of the house opened, and a woman's voice whispered on the wind:

 

- Come, I have what you seek. Do not fear, cross the gate.

Gathering his courage, he crossed the line that separated the house from that strange forest with trees and flora he had never seen and that were not native to the area in question. There was no moon; the night was dark and unstable. When he took the first step and placed his body within the confines of the mansion, the intense rain and thunder returned like a curse. He could not walk quickly. About five meters away stood a large, impressive oak tree, and beneath its trunk, he observed a strange animal with a single, watchful, and menacing eye that seemed to him like a legendary mythological basilisk, although, of course, that was impossible, he told himself. Suddenly, he tripped and scratched one of his arms on a sharp nettle; they were everywhere. He sucked the small wound, and the bleeding stopped.

He stood there still, with no intention of going beyond the large tree because of that animal which, due to the darkness of the night, he could not see clearly; that eye continued to look at him menacingly but made no sound. Then he shouted:

 

- Hey, Mrs. Baumeister, if you don't come down, I'll leave!

But he received no response. It continued to rain, and the thunder continued to split the air…

When he turned his head again, the supposed basilisk had disappeared. Then, he began to hear strange, terrifying moans coming from inside the nettles along the path. He turned around definitively to leave, but as he turned, a tall woman with a whitish appearance, part of her face covered, took his hand. She only said, without letting go:

 

- Come, fear nothing, accompany me. I have what you are looking for. Come with me, you will like it.

Dionisio seemed to have lost his vitality since she touched him, and like a puppet, he followed the mysterious woman into the dark house. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the animal from the tree again enter the mansion like a swift shadow, and this time it emitted cries and roars worthy of hell itself. At that point, Ravel knew that his life no longer belonged to him. How could he have fallen into such a trap? On the other hand, it was so strange and nauseating that no one could have imagined such a scenario. He pondered. He no longer even possessed the initiative, because seconds later, once he crossed the threshold of the gloomy dwelling, he fainted and lost consciousness.

Minutes later, he came to. He was lying in a bed, very weak, and could not move his body, only his eyes. When he turned his gaze towards the room, he could see dozens of beds; in all of them was himself, and all those bodies identical to Dionisio Ravel looked at him and begged him to help them. Then, he vomited and began to tremble; perhaps he was dying, he did not know because his mind was extinguished…

When the first ray of sunlight entered through the window, Dionisio Ravel awoke. He heard birds singing and was in a beautiful room. There was a flowery balcony overlooking a patio, and this in turn overlooked an immense wooded and rugged precipice. Miss Dakini Baumeister was having breakfast while checking her mobile phone, then she turned her head and looked at him with a wide smile, then with a brief gesture invited him to come down for breakfast.

Ravel did as he was told and descended a spiral staircase to the patio. Apparently, he had arrived very tired and fainted. He had apparently had a high fever, and she had to inject him with a sedative; he also suffered horrible nightmares.

 

- You gave me an anxious night, Mr. Ravel, but now I am glad you are better. Take this little box; it contains what you longed for. Do not open it until you reach the city. It is a golden rule; if you do, I am not responsible. Heh, heh, heh. Come on, cheer up and have something; the day is wonderful. Will you stay here for a few days? You are invited.

But he said that he had to return to the city that same morning, and after paying Miss Baumeister, he started his car and returned the way he had come. He remembered the nightmare with absolute clarity, and not for a moment did he have the slightest certainty that the experience of the previous night had been anything other than that, just that, a dreadful nightmare. He was very impressed by Dakini's beauty and the ostentatious mansion she possessed, where he had spent the most horrible night of his life. On the other hand, he felt very recovered and tried to forget everything.

Before reaching the city, he stopped on a roadside lay-by to see the coveted amulet and opened the small box. To his surprise, he saw a small painting of the horrible woman from the nightmare. Who could she be? He took a photo of it with his mobile phone and searched the internet for any similar sketch in case it existed, and what he found was that his mobile phone exploded, turning off immediately. He became a little angry until he checked that the box had a trick closed compartment that he immediately knew how to open, and there was his amulet. Finally. It was a mythological Basilisk made of white gold embedded in a large oak branch, with letters engraved on it in an unknown and strange language similar to Hindi. He kissed it and hung it around his neck, resuming his journey. He smiled, thinking how that nightmare had been the premonition of such a wonderful and powerful amulet of incalculable antiquity.

When he got out of the car to go up to his apartment, he heard a whisper in the air that said: - Ask for the unattainable wish, ask for the unattainable wish… Then he began to sweat. What was happening to him? He went up the two floors somewhat quickly to his door and tried to insert the key into the lock to open it, but he couldn't. He heard footsteps; someone was approaching from inside his own apartment. It can't be, he said to himself, no one knows I live here, and no one has my key either. Who is in my house? His face turned to pure fright and horror when he saw that the person opening the door was himself, wearing his clothes and holding his mug, and behind him appeared Miss Baumeister with the same amulet he wore around his neck. She said:

 

- Who is it, my love, at this early hour?

- There's no one outside, Dakini, how strange. I don't see anyone on the stairs either. I'll check the doorbell later; it must be broken. 

And the door was slammed shut. What happened to Dionisio Ravel, who was left without a body? Was Dakini a sorceress who stole his soul? What then was it that wandered alone among the people who could not see him, while his body lived another life not chosen by Dionisio? And most importantly: - What would he do from that moment on? And what would be the fate of his spirit… Ravel's shadow remained anchored on one of the landings of the staircase…

Chapter II.

An intense and depressive shadow weighed down what supposedly remained of poor Ravel. If he and his spirit were there, who was the man who carried his body? In those days, Dionisio Ravel was no expert in matters of the soul. He left the landing and went out into the street, finding that he traveled at the speed of thought and could pass through doors and windows or appear wherever he thought. The first place he traveled to was the estate where it all began, that is, Miss Baumeister's mansion, but when he arrived, the surprise left him so sad that he settled under a tree and spent days there trying to figure out a solution for his wandering incorporeal destiny. He stayed like this until he began to feel hunger and thirst. How could he feel such desires without possessing an organic body? he wondered, and returned to his city and his apartment; he had to observe his other self and the mysterious Miss Dakini Baumeister.

He saw in situ how they made love, and when they fell asleep, he tried to enter his organic body, but after several attempts, he had to abandon the idea as he was rejected by his own organism, perhaps now occupied by another soul or spirit. He needed to learn more, but he didn't know where to start, so he began investigating the origin of the amulet and also what he could about the strange woman who caused his wandering status.

His intelligence had multiplied tenfold, and he could even access his unconscious and retrieve information that had remained hidden in the blind spot of his brain, so he finally managed to know enough to realize perfectly that his astral body had abandoned his organic body, his silver cord had broken, and now the Dionisio Ravel who wandered the Earth with the beautiful Dakini Baumeister did not know he was dead. Could this karmic misfortune be fixed? He did not know and began to search the world for solutions, some light to guide him to sufficient wisdom, if it existed, to repair such a dramatic situation. Time seemed to have stopped for him. The good thing was that he felt no desire to return to his organic body, no harmless desires, only a serenity he had never known in life, but he always asked himself the same questions. What would happen to his other self, the one who apparently enjoyed a delightful life with one of the most beautiful and mysterious women he had ever known? The second question was equally or more complicated to answer: What had really happened for Dionisio Ravel to break with his spirit? Something very serious, no doubt. What could have motivated it? Miss Dakini could and should have the answer. Where would he begin to look for solutions to all these doubts that kept his second body wandering the sphere? People could not see him except in rare cases, but he could hear them, feel them, smell them, touch them, and see everything. In a strange way, of course, because there were times when everything became silent, and then he would hear mysterious verses: "And in the moon parks there is no breeze that seconds the silence / they are flowers or stars they are goddesses or beautiful ones"…

So finally, he decided to follow a mysterious path he found in a ray of full moonlight, a path unseen by mortals, a strange path of uncertain way that he did not know where it would lead him, having no other option available, and feeling somewhat distressed before leaving, he visited the house of his other self. Apparently, Miss Dakini had abandoned his former material body, which lay depressed and on the verge of dying of longing for the love of the strange woman who sold him the amulet. He tried to locate her in his mind, now of instantaneous universal vision or liberated intuition, but he could not locate her, which made him suspect that Miss Dakini Baumeister was probably not of this world, otherwise he would have seen her. He touched his earthly body in case it reacted to the stimulus, but he knew that the aura had volatilized. On the other hand, he also knew that many years would pass before his mortal body died due to its state of spiritual isolation, although it would wander like a living dead among people without dreams, without luck, lost in ill fate. Then he decided to depart towards that illuminated path of the night that opened before him…

Chapter III.

Having never cultivated matters of the spirit, that luminous path was completely uncertain for Dionisio. Beyond any doubt, having been an atheist condemned him beforehand to be a wanderer, although he had undoubtedly been a good person, only interested in the mysteries of immortality more out of greed and desire than out of the very wisdom that inclines the soul to know its principles. Perhaps, he thought, Miss Baumeister had already fled the world or was a being from another sphere, and that was why he could not find her. He walked slowly, and the vision of the earth disappeared for him; a dark shortcut opened before his incredulous and terrified eyes. Where would that path lead? He had always believed that he would find meaning in life, and yet he was wrong. Or was he not? Then he began to remember all the mistakes and harm he had unconsciously, of course, committed towards others. Could he return to his old body, now sick with lust and sloth? He was very clear that the whole mystery of what was happening to him must have something to do with that strange amulet. Suddenly, an intense light blinded him, and he found himself before an impressive wall with a sphinx and a gigantic crocodile resting before it. His body was now completely ethereal, volatile. He tried to return the way he had come, but an irreparable force prevented him, as if he were magnetized towards that wall where there was also a gigantic door that finally swallowed him. What he began to see and feel next he could never have imagined existed in the universe of man, although Christians and other religions spoke of paradises or hells, this undoubtedly had to be the latter. Then he remembered that once a good friend tried to get him to read a strange book that spoke of the afterlife, but he never opened it and scorned it. He observed that there were beings there with books in their hands, others praying, and the majority indifferent, awaiting their irreparable fate. 

To be continued. 

Jorge Ofitas. 2017. ®. 2025. ®.