Zoe lit the incense and watched thin smoke dance with the air as it burned.

With each breath of the stale, woodsy scent, she felt more energized and fearless. She let it burn halfway, the rest saved for the break of dawn as planned when she’d go out to the factory.

I have to go, she kept telling herself throughout the night, wrapped in blankets on the couch, late-night infomercials flashing on the T.V.

Lost soul of magic blood. 

Her blood, magic, she wasn't sure, but her soul lost she could agree.

Once the clocks struck 4, she quietly went upstairs to her room. Pumpkin was sprawled out on her bed, enjoying it all to himself. "Don’t get too comfortable," she told him. Now the room seemed a lot less scary. It was like a veil had been lifted from the entire house. She wondered if this was all some kind of placebo effect, but had a feeling that it wasn’t.

She packed only a couple of things, then sat with Pumpkin a little while longer, rubbing his belly, looking around the room as if for the last time. Her eyes dashed across small wooden animal figures, mangas, books, the old wooden dresser of clothes that were either too big or too small that would probably be better off at the goodwill. Above it was a picture, always there, but rarely noticed, of her and her Father, Ellis Banks, at Niagara Falls. Truth be told, she couldn’t remember the last time she saw him. He was living in the Carolina’s now. Myrtle Beach, was it? Somewhere far from this old forgotten town in Pennsylvania. They rarely spoke anymore, and for the most part, she was okay with that.

Next to it was a picture of her as a little girl, grinning to the camera on her last day parentless in Ukraine. Gypsy, they always called her at the orphanage, because no one could figure out why her skin was so dark. She had the monolid eyes and wavy, ashen hair of a Ukrainian, but the deep skin, full lips, cheekbones of an African.

It wasn’t until years later, after being gifted a DNA test, she found out it was true. She was half Ukrainian, half African American. But how that came to be was anyone’s guess.

There was no counting the hours she spent trying to unravel their mystery. How did they meet? Why did they not want her anymore? There were no memories of her father, only dim remnants of her mother, a quiet woman with sullen eyes. She had lived in Pripyat, and her name was Raisa Kotenko. She knew nothing else.

The last picture on the dresser was of her and her, Kristy and Ellis together at the park. That was when her new parents both worked as nurses. Now Ellis was into finance, last she heard, and Kristy temporarily on disability after injuring her back and being diagnosed with severe depression after the divorce.

Zoe smiled. Even if her adopted parents had split, she was grateful. There were so many children back at that orphanage, sick and deformed. She never forgot how lucky she was to not have any severe deformities or impairments other than some mental illness and learning disabilities, but she knew if she could stay out of the mental hospital and actually go to school, she’d turn out okay, and sometimes just being okay is all someone could ask for.

She got dressed and got ready like any other day because it was any other day, wasn’t it?

Before Kristy had even woke up, she was out the door and headed for the oldest factory in town.

The factory on oracle road looked like something ghosts thrived in. Dark green vines climbed up half of the entire crimson red brick structure. Glass windows were either smashed open or boarded. Graffiti marked some areas.

Zoe snuck around it, looking out for a good place to wait where no one would see her inside. The doors all appeared to be locked except one, barely attached to the hinges.

She pried herself inside through a window to the dusty, concrete floor. The rooms were dark. Wallpaper peeled from where water dripped from broken pipes. There were tarnished papers on desks from the late '90s as if someone from that era would come any minute.

“Hello?” She called. “Is anyone here?”

“Upstairs,” a voice from upstairs said quickly.

He sounded young, not like the voice in the dream.

She quickly took out the incense and lit it, then cautiously walked to a small winding set of metal stairs. Before she went up, she made a quick text to Gwen and Luca, hoping they were awake.

At the factory. Really creeped out. I think the ghost is here.

“Can...can you come downstairs?” she asked, trembling with fear.

She could hear floorboards from the ceiling creak.

“My office is up here,” the voice replied.

She looked up the stairs. “Your office?”

“Come up here," he said. "And I’ll tell you all you need to know.”

In a blink, he appeared at the top of the stairs, his bright green eyes glowing in the shadows of the building.

Her beating heart slowed its pace with each breath of the incense. This time seeing him, she wasn’t so afraid. He looked so casual, like anyone she’d see in school.

“I know, you’re confused,” he said. “If you come up here, I promise you will never die again.”

She took her first step up the stairs. At the top, it seemed he had disappeared again, but she heard ruffling of papers and followed the sound to an old room that hadn’t changed in a decade. Then she saw him, facing a large painting of safari animals, giraffes, cheetahs, elephants, walking on water.

He turned to her and reached for her hand. “Ralph Sorci.”

She found it hard, if not impossible, not to be entranced by his enigmatic looks. His eyes especially, like two green suns that don’t burn your eyes but healed them.

She slowly brought her hand to his, like a cold, airy projection.

“Zoe Cl-”

“I know who you are.” He looked back at the painting. “My father’s friend painted this,” he said. “Wasn’t he exceptional? He’s long gone now. Used to travel all over the world, hosting art shows in some of the biggest cities.”

She nodded. The art was strange, surreal, but pretty, and had absolutely nothing to do with why she was there. She noticed the date written on the bottom, 1950.

How old was Sorci really?

“Back to business,” he said. He moved to a large mahogany desk. On it was a name that read Riccardo Sorci etched in gold paint. "He was my father,” he said, noticing her stare. “Died not long after me."

“What happened to him?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

“What about you?" She asked. "You look...so young.”

“I was 17.”

Sorry, she wanted to say, but it didn’t seem right.

“This was just one of his many empires," he said. "Had I had lived to take his place, this would be an entirely different town. Caldron would be a city by now, with underground trains, skyscrapers that rival New York. Oracle road wouldn’t be some dirt path the outcasts live on, but where stock brokers exchange millions.”

"Let me guess,” she said. “You’d be the president of the united states too?"

He smirked. “If the world was lucky.”

He pulled out a bright gold piece of paper, like something straight out of heaven.

“You could take all day to read this,” he said. “Or you could trust me to tell you.”

She looked closely at the paper, written in strange symbols she couldn’t understand, but could strangely feel.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I want a favor from someone else, that someone wants a favor from me, and that favor is you.”

“Why me?”

He pointed to a closet door visible from the hall. “He/she. Whatever you want to call it, is here to collect two souls of magic blood," he said. "I’m a lost soul, obviously. You think you’re alive, but you’re just as good as dead, to put it bluntly. It’s been in your cards to die at 14, and your body won’t stop trying unless you sign this contract.”

She shook her head. It didn't make sense. That would mean whoever she thought was trying to kill her this whole time was actually trying to save her.

“If you sign the contract, it will regenerate our souls and give us our bodies back, but they won’t be the same. They’ll be better. A hybridization of human and alien. He’s basically doing us a favor.”

She looked down at the incense, the smoke almost dying out. “How can I trust you?” 

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” he said. “Sign it, and you will live.”

She fumbled for a pen, surprised it made a silvery mark on the paper.

When she was done signing it, a noise came from behind the closet door.

She stepped away, fear seeping back into her skin.

“Wait,” she said. “I take it back.”

“Sorry,” he said, scrolling up the paper and moving toward the closet door. "Too late."

She ran down the stairs, sunlight falling through the dusty windows. Sitting there contently by the entrance, was Pumpkin. He must’ve followed her all the way there. Not unlike him, she thought. He’d taken walks with her plenty of times in the woods.

She went to pick him up, the strength of the incense completely gone, crying, scared.

Suddenly all she saw was black.