Story #190 - Shadowed

Shadowed

Don't.

Don't tell me I'm wrong.

I've heard it enough to last a lifetime, and I'd argue that you've said it enough that you should never utter the words again. I know – you feel it justified – you're sure that it's in my own best interests to know that you think I'm wrong about this, but you have to stop.

We don't have the time.

Stories of the Shadowan, the stalkers of the night, are something I know you've heard, something you must be familiar with. No one in the Six Realms can avoid knowledge of the horrors of old. Your mother spoke of them to you, told you if you did not eat your stew or collect wood for the fire, the Shadowan would come for you in the night, creeping up out of the darkness to suck your soul dry.

You trembled in your childhood state, desperately afraid and foolish enough – or so you thought – to believe.

Your mother was wrong, of course. Shadowan do not come from the deepening dark around your bed, or the stretching black outside your window. They come from within, from the night you hold inside.

I have seen them.

I know.

You do not believe me, and I understand. Here I sit, telling you I have not only seen the demons of story and song, but that I still live, still walk and talk to tell about it. It seems like a nightmare, like a fantasy you would never have chosen. It is true, nonetheless.

It was merely a feeling for many days, for weeks on end as I went about my daily life. A sense of mounting fear, of impending doom. I ignored it as best I could, and continued to work, to live, to act. Sound drew me awake one night, and through the moonlight in the room I watched in frozen terror as a shadow pulled from my chest and began to swirl on the bed in front of me. I leapt up, and the thing followed, its form beginning to coalesce. By the time I had reached the door, it had my form and my face, and was reaching out a blackened hand to touch me. I ran.

Night became a time of terror, and should I not leave a lamp burning or have a candle snuff out, I would be met with the shadowed half of myself. Sleep came in fits and starts, always with the understanding that I might wake to my death.

I assure you, harm only is what the beast intended. For just a moment that first night I felt its cold fingers graze me, and it was as if life was being sucked from my soul. My limbs went weak, and I felt my mind begin to dull, a blackness closing in on the small spark of life I called my own. The Shadowan wanted me, and its hunger was unending.

You face says it all, even if your words do not. You humor me, and do honor to our friendship, but cannot bring yourself to believe. Let the candles burn out, then. Let the lamps go dark. Let us together fight what I know is in the night, and if there is nothing that comes, you can call me a fool for the rest of our days.

***

There – I've snuffed them out. Do you not feel the sinking cold? Can you not see the shadows swirling at the edge of your vision? Let us wait.

Be prepared.

I can sense your humor rising as the minutes slip past, and I would feel the same. This must seem a merry joke, one I have played on you for sport, but I can assure you that is not the case. I speak only the truth.

Move closer, my friend, and you will see my evil manifest.

Do you feel it, the chill from my soul? Place your hand here, on mine. Do you see? Something comes. It will not be long. Stay ready.

Closer, inch closer.

Good.

You look perfect, frozen in fear, locked in terror like that. If you'd listened more carefully, you'd have known I spoke lies. Escaping one's own Shadowan is impossible no matter how many doors you bar or how far you run. My old form was doomed the moment the darkness burst from me, and I have been changed, altered to crave the flesh of humans, re-designed to savor your screams.

I would tell you not to worry, dear friend, that what I will do to you will not hurt, but I am done lying for this evening. You will endure pain as you have never known, and soon you will join me on the hunt. It is not something you desire now, I know, but what you truly are will soon emerge. Grip your chair tight, my friend – your change is coming.

***

You feel it now, don't you? The strength and power that comes with our new forms. The age of men is ending, and our age is coming once again. They drove us out millenia ago, locked us within their souls, but left a small crack in our prison, one it took only time to widen into a door. We are legion, my friend, we are everywhere.

A small town is next on our road – a fitting target for one so new as yourself. Each soul you free will make you stronger, each brother you liberate will bring you honor. We have become what we were meant to be, brother. Remember that as you move throughout the world, bringing fear to our name, bringing men to their knees.

Do not forget who brought you here, who broke your own bonds, who drew you into the world.

Do not forget what you owe, when the final day of reckoning comes.

I told you, my friend, and you should have listened, should have been more careful. I told you I wasn't wrong.

- D