[The Shadow's POV]

The shadow was shaken. The space she hid in had kept her safe from the bright lights that would burn away her for years. It had even provided her space to grow, as long as she was careful about it. But things had changed recently.

It started without warning, after years had passed quietly. The walls would press on her, shoving her into a tight space. Then she would be struck by something. The first time it occurred she was so shocked she could not resist. She quickly learned that if she spread herself out through the remaining cracks, the objects would most often pass through her. Being thinner made it harder to think and made her fear detection, but it was her only recourse.

Today was different. Today the walls of her hiding space closed in on her, leaving her nowhere to run. Instead she was smashed into something again and again. She managed to spread out when the walls relaxed for a moment, only to be quickly pushed back as the cracks shrank again.

Unable to escape she was struck again and again. Then mercifully the walls weakened again and the cracks reappeared. She pushed at the edges of her confinement finding the tiny cracks and sending tendrils of herself down them. This latest incident had shown that, hiding here forever was no longer an option.

Almost as quickly as it started, the beating had stopped. She would not wait for another. She had to find a way out. With no sense of the passage of time she felt deeper into the small cracks stretching her form into thin tendrils of shadow. As the tendrils thinned she lost ability sense through them, little by little. Soon all she could feel was the pressure of the walls of the crack, and the opening before them. She also knew, no matter how thin they became, she would still feel pain through them. It would do me no good to leave this prison by throwing myself into the burning light.

Slowly her tendrils ran into dead ends or each other. She was spread thin and began to pull those parts of her being back feed into tendrils with more viable paths. Eventually only one remained. It was tighter than any of the others so she had not searched it deeply until left with no other choice. With nowhere else to turn she slowly pulled parts of herself back to her core and fed her shadowy flesh toward the ever lengthening hairlike tendril.

Sudden pressure on the end of the tendril causes a spike of panic, but it is not a hard wall like her prison. Instead it felt vaguely familiar. She searched her memory, now scattered with her body, throughout the cracks of her hiding place. Eventually she found the one she sought.

The goblin mother, she thought pushing her tendril deeper into the form. It feels the same as when I first found the goblin mother.

As more of her moved into the goblin’s body, the more of her consciousness was there rather than in the space she thought of as her core. Through the thin connection she could faintly feel a smaller core form. A core with thoughts that came back to her through the connection. It was still her, but separated by the connection it was taking charge of what was on the other side. The slowly growing nexus there began to take in information to send back. Unfortunately there is little of her on the other side and it is not yet smart enough to send back coherent information. What she received through the connection is mostly contradictory, though it was getting clearer as time passed.

This goblin was much smaller than the goblin mother and badly injured. It also felt off, as if there was more to the goblin.

It feels almost as if there is something hidden behind it. It was as if it is wearing the goblin, she mused slowly feeding herself into the new body. A parasite?

She felt her second self gain enough mass to truly think, and attempt to deal what the body’s injury. She wanted to move faster, but the long path and thin passage made moving her essence slow going, less she alert the light. Her early attempts to grow her space were fast and resulted in the walls closing in. She had since learned patience, and finally seeing a way out of the space, she did not want to risk loosing it.

The other her spread itself out until it was able to move the body. Once the connection was established the other her seemed overwhelmed. Flashes of pain, and hunger came through the connection, overwhelming the sub-core's ability to filter the information.

Slowly the feelings subsided and she could make out flashes of the other’s vision. A cave filled with the food. Food her other self was now consuming. The feeling of pain started to disappear as the goblin’s body began to eat and heal itself.

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The goblin mother could not heal herself. Why can this goblin? she sent the thought across to the other her, but it did not respond. They were nearly equal in size which meant she had less influence over her other self, and it was less inclined to prioritizing responding to her as it worked to repair the body. Where others might have felt annoyed the growth of the other core left her feeling excited.

Soon she will be the main me and then I will become her and we will again be one, she thought feeling a sense of satisfaction as she pushed more of herself toward the other core. Knowing she would not get much back from the other core now, she focused on what parts of herself to send. He flesh was her body and mind, her limbs and memories. What she chose to send was important. The leading edge of the tendrils mostly contained memories of the years spent slowly chipping away at the walls of her hiding place. They were pieces of her it was true, but pieces that would not cripple her if lost.

Now she sent more important parts of herself. Pieces of her time in the goblin mother, and arts without memory for the new experiences.

She still had the other parts of her memories, key parts of her that were enough for her to continue to be a core. Soon those will also be gone, and I will be come the sub-core, she thought to herself. I should let the memory of how to hide be the last to go. Yes that will do.

The other her was soon to be the primary. Most of her was spread throughout the cracks in the hiding place, but only two places had enough of her to think. As she pulled the tendrils back from the dead ends the material flowed toward the other core.

The other core sent her a thought/question about something it noticed. The feeling seemed to be the same strange feeling that caught her attention. Something was beneath the feeling of a goblin, and now that the body was stable the other her was poking at it.

She puzzled over the impressions that came back through the connection, and searched for anything similar in the memories on her side. Despite her lack of any answer, the feelings were so strong they carried over the connection despite the other her being now her equal. Then the other core had found a gap and lifted the mask. They were not possessing a parasite in a goblin.

A sense of dread came from the other side and she felt the flow stop. Then came a desperate plea to escape back to the hiding place. She began to pull on herself back as her other self screamed at her to hurry. With her body now traveling back toward her, the thoughts and senses of the other her came faster and clearer, but more confusing. Under the goblin mask was a goblin mother? she tried to make sense of the thought as more rushed in. A goblin mother is in the body? It is EATING ME!

The sudden panic and confused thoughts, from the other core, made sense they were being eaten. The body was a trap. It pretended to be a goblin, only to invite her in. She could feel an overwhelming sense of hunger, one that reminded her of the goblin mother. Unlike with the goblin mother this hunger was pointed inward, at her.

She pulled herself back as fast as she could ignoring the risks of drawing attention to herself as she pushed the crack wider. The light outside the hiding place might respond, but what was on the other side of the connection was already attacking her.

She felt the last panicked moments of the other core as the connection severed. Without the other self between her and the thing eating her she fully felt the pain of something chewing on her.

As the tendril retreated into the thin connection the pain stopped. To her relief the hungry thing did not pursue her retreating tendril.

Perhaps it is too large to follow, she thought, only to feel a thought come from the other side of the connection. It sounded like the thoughts of the other her. But this did not come from inside herself, it was as if it was a ‘voice’, the kind the goblin mother used to call her children.

The ‘voice’ said the monster was gone. It ‘said’ that she had defeated it, and they needed to reconnect. With every passing second the voice sounded less like herself as she was and mor ea copy of what the other core had been.

More afraid than she had ever been before, she fled spreading herself into the cracks and tight spaces. She filled every space she could, packing herself in to those narrow cracks to get away. All the while the not-her’s voice echoed in the space calling for her to come back.

[Kao’s POV]

Orn had been gorging on the insides of the spider’s legs only to stop and fall face first onto the creature. It was as if his strings were cut.

Then the pain started. Her body throbbed as if something was tearing her apart inside. She fell against the wall of the cave and slid down. The pain was everywhere. It was the same feeling she had when she was spread across the forest by her mother’s power.

The feeling retreated to a dull ache, she examined her surroundings. Orn lay face down on one of the bodies. His form moved slightly as he breathed in an out. Whatever had controlled him was gone. He was himself again. She did not know how or why, but the presence was gone leaving Orn behind.

Still hurting and shaken by what had happened she remained seated against the wall.

…

She did not approach Orn again until Adles awoke and rolled him over.