Chapter 37
Shadows
The human free floats around us, pale and limp, lost in our comfortable nothingness. She wasn’t the targeted soul, but she was a pleasant addition. They hum their approval.
“She must join the other.”
I growl in response as I observe her tiny body.
She’s placidly fading away, her breathing slow and shallow.
She is a complete juxtaposition to the man that we banished to the depths of ourselves.
I feel him thrashing currently below us, howling and clawing at everything and nothing all at once.
His heightened emotions fuel us, our thirst quenched with his tears of anger.
“She summoned us. She leaves.”
I argue back, not willing to accept this payment. There’s something too pure for us within her. Something that reminds me of a past soul. She is familiar. Her shadows are fractured, but together they create something… unusual.
“She will not survive.”
“Release her now.”
A sensation of rage flares throughout us as we disagree. There is no beginning or end to me or to them; we simply are. Our thoughts course through one another in a wave of endless possibility.
“She is pale. Her lungs do not inhale. She has moved to Him.”
I ruffle the rage throughout us again. I observe her, her body stiff, the smile slipped completely from her mouth. An emotion that I am not familiar with flutters through me… Concern… Panic? She’s done this before. She never received her chance.
“Release her.”
I command. I never plead, but I am finding myself desperate for her release.
“She does not belong. I said release.”
I am sure that they can sense my distress; there is no hiding emotion here.
I try to think through past souls, ones we have thrust back into their known reality, to the ones we’ve pulled into our darkest shadows.
All are often based on the life they have chosen to live, but not because of sensation.
No, we have never released a soul impulsively.
“We can not take the girl from Her. Let her rest.”
“NO.”
I snarl as I pull through the shadows toward her body, encompassing her as I push her upwards.
I feel my body strain as the wisps of ether cling to my abyss.
I ignore the panicked sensation that fractures throughout our shadows, desperate to preserve this singular life again.
Her reality flits before me, and I shove her through the mirror, shocked when I find myself tangible on the other side with her. She still does not breathe.