The Spectre stopped dead in its lunge, its face was still twisted with the eternal torment of its final seconds of life. Yet even still, across this permanently fixed expression, there was a flash of surprise and then fear.
Belladonna closed her fingers around its throat, feeling the pressure of flesh that did not actually exist, as a dark energy curled around her hand. The Shadow Essence filled her being, turning her eyes completely black, yet as she held it there Belladonna did not move in for the kill. Not yet at least.
Instead she tilted her head as the Shadow Essence seeped into the ghost. With her amateurish control over the new, unknown essence it simply acted on its instincts and did what shadows did best. It copied and remembered.
Flashes of agony and torment burst through Belladonna's mind. Filling her with a panic that was not her own as she desperately tried to save a family that she did not belong to. She could feel the spectre... She could feel Alan's last moments.
