The Shadows' Empress (Part 4)

Roland continued down the hallway staring at all of the elaborate wallpaper and ornate chandeliers that were once probably very beautiful. But now, the wallpaper was shredded, some parts still clinging to an earlier time. The Chandeliers were all on the floor, broken, dusty and surrounded with broken glass. All but one chandelier. The one that still hung from the ceiling looked just as old as the others. The lightbulbs were all broken, but aside from some dust, there was nothing else wrong with it. Roland began to wonder what could have caused such damage when he heard a deep creaking behind him. He turned around to see the front doors closing slowly until they slammed shut. One of the support beams that hung parallel to the doors broke in half and both halves hung down diagonally across each door locking Roland inside.

“I guess I’m not leaving until I find what I came for,” Roland muttered. Knowing that the entire building could collapse at any moment made him nervous. He decided to try to figure out why the Empress led him there, so he could get out as soon as possible.

Roland stopped in the middle of the enormous hallway, feeling intensely overwhelmed. The hotel was five stories tall, and extremely long from one side to the other. Now that he thought about it, Roland realized that the hotel slightly resembled the Waverly Hills Sanitorium that he’d heard about in a documentary, although the hotel didn’t curve at the ends the way the sanitorium did. It also wasn’t red, but most things in that world didn’t have color, anyway.

‘This place is too big,’ Roland thought. ‘How am I supposed to be able to find anything?’ It was then that Roland realized every time he saw the Shadows’ Empress, she had either expected him to follow her, or had told him where to go.

“Maybe I should’ve gone up the staircase?” He asked himself. A part of him wondered if the Empress was still up there somewhere, waiting for him to meet her in a room that would ultimately have the first clue. Another part doubted she would wait when she saw him walk a different direction. However, Roland decided to go up the stairs would be his best chance, and worst idea, given how weak everything in the building looked.

As Roland backtracked toward the large spiral staircase, he heard a door behind him slam against a wall as it flew open. He spun around to see what caused the noise to see the door break free of its top hinge and lean crooked away from its frame. There was no light on in the room, and Roland was frozen in his spot, not knowing what he should do. He was positive that he didn’t want to investigate, but he was too afraid to turn away from it. After a short period of time that felt much longer than it really was, there was a snorting sound, similar to a horse. A very big demonic horse. The frightened teen began to wonder if this was the Nitris that the Empress told lived in the cave. Thinking of the creature’s name led Roland to wonder why she named it that. The name reminded him of cars built for drag racing.

Before Roland could compose himself enough to leave the area he heard the sound of hooves clip-clopping on the ground from inside the dark room. After a while, an animal seemingly covered in ice stepped out of the room. It was a bit bigger than Roland thought it was. It had to duck its head to exit the room, and when it did, Roland began to feel lightheaded.

“I-it really is a horse…” he muttered, freaking out internally when he noticed that he could see its organs throbbing within its icy shell of a body. There was what looked like cold steam emanating off the horse’s body causing everything around it to freeze. Even the broken door the horse kicked out had frozen hoof marks on it, and the ground around it became covered in ice more and more as the horse stood there.

‘The horse is blue…’ Roland thought. ‘Why isn’t it grey, or something?’

Before he had to think about the horse’s color scheme, too much, it reared back and let out an intense scream that Roland had never heard from a horse before. It made everything in the hallway vibrate, causing some things to fall from the walls. Even the last hanging chandelier came down in an explosion of glass and dusty gold.

That was enough for Roland. The sight of the horse had scared him enough that it caused Roland to freeze, which he thought fitting in a messed up sort of way. But the scream raised his level of fear to the point where his fight-or-flight reaction took over, sending him running as fast as he could back the way he came, praying he didn’t trip on the debris in his way and fall.

The horse was catching up much to quickly. Roland assumed the newly fallen chandelier would be an obstacle for the horse, but it was big enough to jump over the broken mass of glass without issue. Roland hadn’t reached the staircase, yet. Even if he had, he’d likely not make it to the next floor. Instead, he dove into a room with an open door on his left. The Nitris ran passed the room, but quickly turned around. However, before it got back, Roland shut the door, and moved a large wooden desk in front of it. The Nitris began to ram into the door to the room, which caused the entire wall to freeze after a while. The ice was too thick for even the horse to break down.

Just to be safe, Roland hid under another desk on the other side of the room, next to a locked door, accidentally hitting his head as he got under it. This caused a narrow drawer to open up and a map and blueprints to fall out. The blueprints had some extra room that weren’t on the map, and each of them had a small drawing in red on the areas where the missing—or hidden—rooms were located.

“Well, now I know where to go,” Roland whispered to himself. “But how do I get out of here?”

Shadow Man (Part 8)

“No ma’am,” Jesse replied feeling his heartbeat intensify. “The last time I saw her she was leaving my house. But that was around half an hour ago.”

            “Oh…” Olivia’s mother sounded defeated. “Olivia got home a little while ago, but she and I had a fight. She stormed off to her room, and when I went to tell her it was time for dinner I realized she wasn’t in her room. Her window was open…”

            Mrs. Sandoval began to cry. “I figured maybe she would have gone to see you since the two of you are so close.”

            “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sandoval. She didn’t come back here. But, I’ll start looking for her.” Jesse opened the top drawer in his desk and fished out a small, red flashlight that he kept for when the power when out. The area where he lived received more than its fair share of thunderstorms strong enough to knock down powerlines.

            “Thank you so much, Jesse.” Mrs. Sandoval began to weep. “My poor baby…”

            Mrs. Sandoval hung up. Jesse got dressed and went into his younger brother’s room. Maybe Izzy would be willing to help Jesse—and presumably various others—to look for Olivia.

            “Hey, I—” Jesse began to speak, but stopped when he heard Izzy’s light snoring. Jesse was tempted to record his brother, remembering that Izzy refused to believe that he snored in his sleep when Jesse mentioned it. Instead, Jesse walked over to his little brother, pulling the comforter up over Izzy’s shoulder.

            “Promise me you won’t leave,” Jesse whispered, imagining something unfortunate happening to the younger boy given the circumstances that had recently arose, as well as some from the past. “I don’t think I can take it…”

            Jesse silently walked back to the bedroom door, closing as quietly as he could behind him. He then headed downstairs intending to tell his parents about his missing best friend. However, they were nowhere to be found. ‘Maybe they went out back.’ Jesse went into the living room, seeing—and hearing—his parents arguing on the deck just outside the sliding glass door that led to the back yard. Deciding now would not be a great time to interrupt their argument, Jesse walked out the front door to begin his search for Olivia. ‘Fuck it. I don’t have time do deal with their crap, right now.’

            It wasn’t dark outside, yet, so Jesse put his flashlight in his front, right pocket for safe keeping, until it got dark out, and began walking. It didn’t take very much walking to find his first clue. After only going about a block and a half away from his house, tracing Olivia’s rout to her house, Jesse found his friend’s golden watch on the sidewalk, the glass of the face cracked in three places; all of the cracks joining near the middle of the clock face. Jesse noticed that the hands had stopped. ‘5:37 pm… That was about twenty minutes ago. She can’t be too far away,’ Jesse thought. And then his stomach sank when he had a horrible thought. ‘Unless someone pulled her into their car.’

            Jesse looked around for other clues to see which direction she could have gone. If Olivia had already been home and her watch was where Jesse found it, chances were that she didn’t go back in the direction of her house. There was always the possibility that Olivia could have calmed down and gone back home, but she was known for holding grudges for at least a few days.

            “What the…?” Jesse said quietly. Looking toward the woods that was behind the row of houses where Jesse found Olivia’s watch, he noticed there was a spot just behind the tree line that was much darker than the surrounding areas. Taking a few steps off of the sidewalk and into the grass, he realized that the spot had a shape; the shape of a tall man with antlers. It had no features other than its silhouette. Just when Jesse thought he might be seeing things the figure turned and began walking deeper into the woods.

            “I should’ve brought a knife, or something,” Jesse told himself as he began to run towards the woods. He felt that Olivia’s disappearance had something to do with the shadows that had been plaguing him recently. ‘This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have told her about them.’

            The anxiety built up in the nervous teen more and more the further he ran into the woods. He had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. Or worse, that he’d find Olivia in less than good condition. And then, he saw something orange a few more feet ahead through the trees. Upon getting closer, Jesse realized he was looking at the outside of a cave that must have been made of clay or something similar. He stopped in front of the cave entrance, staring into the darkness thinking that there would be many places for the shadow figures to hide.

            Something about the area was a bit confusing to Jesse. The danger was most likely in front of him, but he felt like the someone was behind him, watching his every move. Knowing he could be attacked if he turned his back on the cave, he slowly turned around to see what could be behind him, other than the woods he’s just run through. Standing in a semicircle was a group of those cats that Jesse saw in his hallway at home. Something about these shadow animals was different, though. They didn’t have any actual features, but Jesse could see that they were in a position as if they were waiting to pounce on him. He felt a wave of energy that somehow didn’t feel right. The cat directly in front of Jesse began to make a motion moving the dirt under it’s paw; A scratching motion.

            “Aw, hell…”

The Shadows' Empress (Part 3)

It took a long time—much longer than Roland would have liked walking through a dark tunnel—but he finally came to the end of it. Breathing deeply, savoring the less stagnant air than that in the cave, Roland stood at the mouth of the cave looking around. His surroundings were familiar. In a bad way. The sky was entirely white, and everything else a shade of grey or black. ‘Just like last time’, the teen allowed to let himself relive the parts of his previous nightmare that weren’t utterly terrifying.

Roland felt a gust of wind blowing against his back, and as he turned to locate it’s source a sound stopped him in his tracks. It was a deep, angry growl coming from inside the cave resembling that of a Rottweiler warning another animal that it was getting too close to it’s food. But deeper. The growl lasted nearly a full minute, and when it stopped, so did the wind against Roland’s back.

He turned around to see that the cave had been moved several yards back, as if it had been silently picked up, and put down further away.

“That’s fine,” Roland whispered to himself. “I didn’t wanna be in there, anyway.”

This was true. The entire time the nervous teen was walking through the cave’s tunnel he was praying he didn’t see the creature the Shadows’ Empress referred to; something he hadn’t done since his mother passed away. Why pray when life shows you there is no God?

Roland returned his gaze to the empty field that he saw when he first left the cave. Only now, the field wasn’t empty. The decrepit hotel that was the focal point of his last nightmare—besides the Empress—was in full view. His heartbeat quickened, although no where near the rate at which it had been going when Roland was walking through the cave.

“I bet I have to go in that…”

Taking a quick glance around the field to make sure there wasn’t some other direction he could go instead of the hotel, Roland looked back at the large front doors. They were double doors made of wood, that reminded him vaguely of The Gates of Hell sculpted by Auguste Rodin. Roland couldn’t help but think about how fitting that would be.

But, before he could walk down the pathway to enter the rotting hotel, he saw a glint of light; something shining red high above the doors. Normally, Roland wouldn’t have payed it any attention, but it was the only think in that world that had any color besides his own clothes, body, and now that he thought about it, the torch he was holding. He looked up to see the Shadows’ Empress standing on the roof of the hotel. As damaged at the hotel was, Roland was slightly concerned she might fall through the roof. She raised a hand and motioned for Roland to come closer before folding her hands together and disappearing into thick smoke as she turned away from Roland.

Roland noticed a couple things at once. The torch in his hand no longer burned with a bright orange flame. It wasn’t burning at all. He had no idea when the flame had gone out, but he assumed it meant he wouldn’t be needing it any more. Dropping it, he listened to the clanging of wood on brick as he realized he was now directly in front of the doors to the hotel.

“Awesome. I don’t even have to do much walking when it’s somewhere she wants me to go.” Roland lifted a hand, pressing it against one of the hole-ridden doors and pushed it in, causing a loud creaking to emanate from the hinges and the place where the door dragged against the floor.

He slowly walked into the hotel, strongly hoping nothing fell and crushed him. Everything was broken and looked to be covered in layers of dust and ash but was otherwise the same as things outside looked.

“Are you surprised you’ve made it this far?” Startled, Roland looked up at the large, spiral staircase to see the Empress standing on the steps, just high enough for the boy to feel like she somehow owned his life.

“I’m more surprised the door hasn’t closed behind me, yet,” Roland answered. “Besides, it’s just a dream…right?”

“It is. For now, at least.”

Roland didn’t like anything about that. Not what she said, nor the way she said it. Her sensual voice and wording reminded him of a black widow spider preparing to wrap its prey in a web of silk and lies.

“…So why did you want me to come here?” The teen asked, failing miserably to conceal his curiosity and underlying concern.

“There are truths buried in the rubble of this old building, hidden in the darkest of places only to be known by those willing to brave the dark to find them,” she began. “You have been seeking many of these truths for most of your life, but you have yet to find them. Consider This my way of helping you understand.”

The Empress turned, climbing up a few more steps until her face was no longer visible to Roland. “However, I must warn you. There are some things you wish to know that will unearth things you would rather not.”

Roland stared down at the floor at a piece of wood with the number “36” painted on it, thinking about what she said. “So, what I’m getting is that I can find out everything I wanted to know at the price that I’ll find something that’ll make me wish I never came here…”

“Exactly.” The Shadows’ Empress continued her climb up the staircase.

Not knowing if he should follow the Empress or not, Roland surveyed the first floor deciding he’d be better off going his own way. The idea that he might find out things his didn’t want to know caused him to hesitate, but he began walking to the far left down a large hallway from the lobby.

“I’m probably gonna hate myself for this…”

Shadow Man (Part 7)

He expected that a day’s worth of medicine taken at one time would hit him hard, but he never thought it would only take minutes to feel the effects. It had only been about eight minutes and he was already getting a buzz. His head swam and for the first time since he’d gotten home he neither felt nor cared about anything. The pain from his injuries was gone, which the teen had only noticed now that he couldn’t feel it. Jesse was in his own world when he heard a loud voice from downstairs. It was his dad’s voice, although he couldn’t make out what he was saying. Although, he sounded angry. Then came the voice of his mother replying in a tone that was just as angry, but that didn’t matter to Jesse.

            Jesse felt like listening to music that complimented his high, but he noticed that his body was heavy. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself into immediate sleep. He opened his eyes once more to see the shadow man standing at his bedside, staring down at Jesse with his new grey eyes. Then, Jesse’s eyes closed, despite his sudden wish to keep them open and watch the shadow man to make sure he didn’t try to kill Jesse in his sleep. But Jesse lost the struggle quickly and was soon asleep.

            “You’re going deeper down the rabbit whole, as they say.” A voice filled the air around Jesse who was still trying to understand where he was. All he knew was that he was in the woods somewhere with a wide, unpaved trail winding its way through the woods.

            ‘All I need is a red hood,’ Jesse thought to himself.

            He looked around. Behind him, in front of him, scanning the lush foliage on either side.

            “I haven’t seen a pine tree in a long time,” said Jesse as he stood up, feeling the smooth dirt under his red converse shoes. The teenager looked down at himself. “I don’t remember getting dressed either.”

            “Um…” Jesse spun around slowly realizing he couldn’t see the person he heard talking. “Is somebody there?”

            “I am always here,” the voice responded, reminding Jesse of the trumpet sounds that he saw on the news while in the hospital. Come to think of it, he remembered hearing it the day he was hit by that truck, too. The voice sounded like a giant, off-key trumpet in the sky. There seemed to be no real origin of the sound. He was partly unnerved by it. But, he was also partly intrigued because in the sounding of the trumpet he heard a voice.

            “Who are you?” Jesse asked, looking toward the sky.

            “The owner of all things natural.”

            “Like…what, exactly?”

            “The plants that use the energy from the Sun, and the animals that need the plants for sustenance, both directly, and indirectly. Light, and the dark. Life…and death.”

            Suddenly, Jesse was feeling more uncomfortable with what the voice from the sky was saying.

            “Wow,” the boy started before muttering “Don’t do drugs, kids.”

            There was a silence that became more awkward the longer it stayed silent. Jesse didn’t like absolute silence, noticing that there were no sounds of wildlife in the forest.

            “What’s going on?” Jesse asked.

            “Future circumstances will be difficult for you to handle alone. I am here to save your life.”

            “Well, thanks. My little brother and my best friend might not be much help. Secretly, I think that they think we’re all going crazy.”

            “They will be of no use to you. They will not survive long enough to do you much good.”

            That last comment caught Jesse by surprise. He had decided to go along with his dream; after all, he knew he was experiencing a dream. But this was too much. He began to wonder if maybe the thought of his friend and brother dying at the hands of the shadow man was just him projecting his fears of being killed by him onto them, but he couldn’t imagine that being true. Those were the only two people he’d never want to die. To be honest, he’d already reconciled that everyone else was going to die, somehow. But he’d never considered the same could happen to Izzy or Olivia.

            “That’s bullshit!” Jesse yelled. “I’m high, and this is a dream! When I wake up everything’s gonna go back to normal, and I’m never going to hear from your crazy, dumb-shit-spoutin’ ass ever again!”

            There was another awkward silence. Jesse started looking for a way to wake himself up; pinching his arms, slapping himself in the face, even falling backward onto the ground. When he stood back up, the voice in the sky finally gave a response.

            “You should call Olivia.”

            Jesse’s eye snapped open. He was still feeling the effects from the Percocet, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. The teenager threw the comforter off of his body, rolled out of bed and clumsily tried to pick up his phone, still charging on his desk. His hand were shaking a bit; because of the Percocet or the fear that something might have happened to his best friend, he wasn’t sure, nor did he care.

            “Texting might take too long,” Jesse whispered to himself as he pressed the call button next to Olivia’s name in his contacts list. The phone rang only two times, when Olivia’s mother picked up the phone.

            “Mrs. San—”

            “Jesse! Have you seen Olivia? I can’t find her anywhere!”

The Pits (Part 9)

His heart once again began to beat harder. However, this time he was more angry than afraid. There was a thud, some footsteps, and then the doorknob turned slowly, clicking as the door began to open only enough for the old man to poke his head out.

Max could only see his head, but the look on the man’s face was nearly enough to make Max run for his life. The man had messy, white hair surrounding a bald center. His face was dirty like he’d gotten car oil on himself and tried to wipe some of it off. And his eyes were wide, bloodshot, and unblinking. The murderer didn’t move. He stood still, staring Max down. The two stood in their places for a few minutes in complete awkward silence.

“Meth is a hell of a drug, huh?” Max asked, not able to hold back his sarcastic joke.

“What’re you doin’ in my house?” The man responded.

“You’ve got my friend in there, and I’m not leaving without him.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “He’s my friend, now. You can’t have him,” he said slowly, and quietly.

Max stared at the crazy-eye murderer in bewilderment, never expecting to hear something so childish from a man nearing the age of retirement. “What are you, six?”

“Max?” came a voice from inside the room the man was leaning out of.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Max returned. “I’m gonna get you out of there!”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Gio said, his voice wavering as if he was going to cry. “He…*sob*…I’m bleedin’ a lot, man. And I’m feelin’ really cold.”

“Just hang on,” Max felt relieved knowing his friend was alive; however, he felt a new wave of panic when he thought about why Gio could be bleeding so much as to feel cold. It was actually rather warm in the house, and warmer outside since it was summer.

“What did you do to him?” Max asked the old man?

The old murderer opened the door through which he was leaning a bit more, walking through it, and closing it behind him. Max heard a quiet click and knew the man locked the door. The killer’s eyes moved up to the right as if he were thinking about his answer before speaking:

“He tried to get away. Ran all the way to my neighbor’s house. Good friend of mine.”

“No way in hell you have friends,” Max muttered.

“My friend knocked him out and returned him to me,” the old man looked over to the workbench on his left where a bone saw lay, drenched in blood that had begun to coagulate. Max’s eyes followed the old man’s to the area he was looking, and Max’s heart dropped into his stomach when he put the pieces of that fucked up puzzle together in his mind.

The old man continued speaking. “Had to make sure he’d never run away again. Tied him down with rope, but the sucker got loose. Electrocuted him in the tub till he passed out,” The man motioned toward the tub full of disgusting brown water, and with a grin said, “Then took him over to the workbench and cut his legs off.”

Max had already figured that was what was happened, minus the electrocution part. But hearing the man say what he did out loud caused his stomach to churn. He felt nauseous but tried not to think about it. Instead, he focused more on his anger at the old man for torturing his friend and amputating his legs. He was also angry at the old murderer’s so-called friend for giving his Gio to the old man to be killed.

“Hey, Max?” Gio called out, sounding weaker than he had before.

“Yeah?”

“You should just go. I can’t feel anything anyway. Not anymore.”

“Don’t give up! I’m not leaving you here!”

“Max?” By this point Gio sounded just as depressed as he sounded weak.

“Yeah?” Max could sense in Gio’s voice that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

“…Where’s Simon?”

Not knowing what he should say, Max decided to go with the truth.

“They…got him.” Now it was Max’s turn to reveal his sadness over their friend’s loss.

Gio didn’t respond, and Max wasn’t sure if he was having a moment of silence for their dead friend, or if it was because he just couldn’t talk anymore. But the silence in the room fueled Max’s anger and seemed like the best time to strike.

Max had the sledge hammer resting on his shoulder as he took a few steps closer to the old man. He stared into the murderer’s eyes which seemed to have dimmed as his hair greyed. The two glared at each other for a few seconds. Then Max kicked the older man in the stomach as hard as he could. The old man doubled over, still trying to stand up. Max brought the hammer down on the man’s head with all the strength he had left hitting the man directly in the back of his head dropping him to the floor. Max stared at the man’s head, watching the blood pour out of his head and coat the floor around it. Then, he braced himself and walked into the back room.

The Shadows' Empress (Part 2)

Roland turned off the TV. He planned on watching the rest of the Olympic games that would be shown on the local news channel; however, he didn’t feel like watching thirty minutes or so of the news. Besides, none of the events he wanted to watch would be aired, and he was getting incredibly tired. Roland hadn’t actually done too much during the day aside from some assignments for school, which he had all day to do. His father allowed him to stay home from school thinking Roland’s nightmare that morning was caused by some issues his son refused to talk about. Maybe having the day off to destress would do him some good.

Whether it did or not was yet to be tested. Roland finished his assignments early that morning and spent most of the day drawing and watching highlights from the winter Olympics. Having so much time to himself made him more anxious than anything. All day, he could only think about the dream he’d had the night before. Or rather, his nightmare. As much as he wanted to forget about it, something about it seemed too real to ignore. So, he tried drawing the woman he dubbed the Shadows' Empress and wondered if there was a way to force himself to have the same dream again. Though, he didn’t count of it. Roland’s best friend, Connor, once mentioned that he could control what happened in his dreams—something he called lucid dreaming. That didn’t sound like what Roland was going for, so he didn’t bother trying to learn how to do it.

The teenager stared at the television, looking at the reflection of the kitchen behind the couch where he laid. For a second, he wondered where the light was coming from that caused the line of light that shone diagonally across the tv, before realizing that the light in the kitchen was on. He had forgotten to turn it off when he’d gone in to get s a root beer.

“Last one out, get the lights,” he said, quoting his science teacher from freshman year—the year before.

Roland stretched, extending across the couch, and stood up, walking toward the kitchen and turning off the light. He turned back around to head upstairs with the sudden feeling that he was being watched. He used to get the feeling often, despite there being no one watching him. Roland looked through all of the windows on the first floor. Seeing no one he turned his attention to the locks on the front and back doors, which were visible from his spot on the third step.

“Ugh…I should stop looking around,” Roland said to himself out loud. “There’s never anyone there.”

Walking past his younger siblings’ bedrooms, Roland took a moment to check on them. He did this often. Now that his mother wasn’t around to do the things she used to do for him, Roland took it upon himself to do them in her place. They were sleeping, which Roland found amazing with as much energy as they had just before their bedtime.

“Hey, Dad. I’m going to bed,” Roland said as he came to his father’s bedroom door. “Goodni—”

“Stop bothering my family. They’ve done nothing to you.” Roland heard Jacob say.

“Okay…I’ll just see you in the morning,” the confused teen muttered under his breath.

Roland continued to his room, shocked by what he’d heard. He wondered about who his father could have been talking to, but was too tired to let it concern him for too long. Instead, he stripped to his boxers, and got into bed. His mind immediately drifting back to the Shadows' Empress. This time, though, he only thought about how cool he thought her new title was.

‘There it is, again.’ He thought. ‘That feeling like someone’s stalking me.’

“Fuck it. Nobody’s ever there.” Roland rolled onto his left side, trying to think more about what his dad had said. But he couldn’t. He felt a strong presence behind him but was too sleepy to see who was behind him. And his eyelids seemed heavier than they were a few minutes ago.

Everything was completely dark, again. Roland looked around but couldn’t see anything. He began to panic. Something wasn’t right, and he could tell that whatever he’d gotten into, it was bad. He frantically began to walk in different directions, hoping whatever was going on would stop and he could wake up in his bed.

Roland stopped. ‘I’m asleep. I think…’

He began to pace in the darkness as he spoke to himself—his way of making sense of things. “I don’t remember going to bed, but that’s nothing new.”

Roland calmed down as he realized that he was in familiar territory, despite not being able to see where he was.

“In my nightmare last night…I fell into a hole at the end, and it closed up over me. Maybe I’m still there, and my nightmare’s just starting from this point.”

He chuckled to himself. “That’s actually kind of bad-ass! Bet you’ve never done this in your dreams, Connor!”

Suddenly, there was a feeling of wind blowing into Roland’s face, and the smell of salt water.

“You’re back. It’s nice to see you again so soon.”

Roland whirled around to see a small light illuminating a hole in the wall. And just inside it, the Shadows' Empress. Roland’s heart felt like it skipped a beat.

“I didn’t know you could stand in the light,” he said. “…Even though you were technically in the light when we first met…” He felt his cheeks burn as the blood rushed to them. ‘Blushing again? Hopefully, she can’t see it since I’m standing in the dark like a creeper.’

“If you don’t want to stay in this hole forever, I suggest you follow this tunnel to a much less…lonely place.” The Shadows' Empress spoke slowly, and calmly as she did before. With a hint of familiarity.

‘Who is she?’ Roland asked himself. ‘Why do I feel like I know her?’

“Why should I follow you?” he asked, not meaning to be defiant. Can you blame a boy with trust issues?

“If you wish to stay in the darkness you’re welcome to. But do mind the Nitris. They do not enjoy visitors in their caves.” The Shadows' Empress walked away through the tunnel until Roland could no longer see her.

“I’m not looking for a fight with some shit I’ve never heard of before.”

Roland walked to the opening of the cave and, before entering, took the candle held in a sconce on the left side of the opening. He took a deep breath and forced himself to continue walking.

“It’s only a dream,” he told himself. “Right?”

Shadow Man (Part 6)

“And you brought friends?” Jesse looked down to see several shadow figures walking around at the Shadow man’s feet. There were seven of them, and they all had a distinct quality that Jesse had never seen before. Instead of the usual creatures that were composed of a uniform darkness, these looked more like smoke. Black at the bottom, lighter toward the top, as if the shadows were evaporating. The three shadows in the front that appeared to be cats of some kind were the strangest, with the likeness of oil being poured into boiling water.

One of the cats slowly walked up to Jesse, circling him and rubbing its face on his leg like a house cat before running away and passing through a wall. ‘So only the big one can break things…’ Jesse thought noticing that he didn’t feel the shadow cat touch his leg. He felt comforted by the idea that not all of the shadow figures could potentially murder him. But only just a little. For a while, Jesse had been wondering if they could somehow shift between normal shadows—or as normal as shadow figures could be—and the solid type that break desk lamps.

Jesse took a small step forward, watching how the shadow man reacted to his movements. By this point, he wasn’t even concerned with the smaller shadows, although part of him imagined one of the cats growing twice its original size and being made of fire for some reason. The shadow man made no effort to move, so Jesse took another small step forward. Still no reaction.

‘Maybe it only reacts when I’m scared?’ The idea crossed Jesse’s mind as he remembered some of the things that had happened in past encounters with the shadow man. Whenever it had taken Jesse by surprise it would move, going so far as to break things when Jesse was the most afraid. But he also noticed that when he wasn’t scared the shadow stood still. Well, the big one did. The shadow cats did their own thing just as real cats would. Then another thought ran through Jesse’s mind: ‘Why cats? I fucking hate cats.’

To test his hypothesis, Jesse walked calmly toward the shadow man, looking at in directly where he assumed its’ eye would be.

‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of you.’ He thought as he came to a stop a foot away from the hulking mass of darkness. ‘But I am a little hungry.’

The two stared at each other for quite some time, Jesse staring into the shadow man’s blank slate of a face. The more they watched each other, the more Jesse noticed two grey specks on the dark figure’s face. They never became any lighter, but they did get bigger. Or were Jesse’s eyes playing a trick on him? He stared a little while longer, watching the specks become the size of a pencil’s eraser. The grew until they were the size of a human’s eyes. As he stared, Jesse couldn’t help but remember something he’d heard someone on a television show say: “The longer you stare at the lights, the longer they stare at you.” Except, in this case, the opposite was true. And it was freaking Jesse out.

“I’m gonna pretend you aren’t real for a while.” Jesse whispered to the shadow man. “I can only take so much bullshit in one day.”

With that, Jesse turned to walk into his bedroom, closing the door behind him without looking. But, just to see what the shadow man did when he wasn’t looking, Jesse opened his bedroom door a few inches to peer into the hall. The shadow man, and all his minions, were gone. Jesse closed the door again, breathing a deep sigh of relief, then stared at his bedroom door for few seconds studying the patterns in the white painted wood; his mind blank. Wanting to think, but not being able to at the moment, Jesse went over to his desk, stood his lamp back up on its base, and brushed the glass of the broken bulb into the trash can on the floor. A part of him wanted to talk to Izzy. The part of Jesse that felt like he was losing his mind. The other part didn’t want to bother his younger brother just yet, so he sat at his desk.

“I’m not even taking the Percocet anymore, and shit’s still nuts.” Jesse told himself. “And now, I’m talking to myself.” He looked down at the drawer to his right where he tossed his prescription. Because it was so full of files, and papers that Jesse never threw away the drawer never closed, the cap of the medicine bottle preventing it from doing so. Jesse pulled the bottle out of the drawer and stared at the label, reading the instructions describing how much he should take.

“Alright, fuck it.” Jesse opened the bottle with a bit more difficulty than he should have had with a safety cap and poured two pills out of the bottle into his hand. He tossed them into his mouth, trying not to think too much about what he was doing. And swallowed them, with some of the water in the water bottle he kept on his desk next to the lamp. Then he took two more pills from the bottle, and took those, too. He took the full amount of Percocet for a day in one dose. Closing the bottle and leaving it on his desk, he stripped down to his boxers and got into bed.