Getting away from Larton wasn't too troublesome after bypassing the gate - especially considering how eager this shadowy body was to move. Every stray thought sent it lurching forward in leaps and bounds. Often the sensation was borderline revolting, as if my body was... flailing? in the chosen direction rather than actually moving. It was hard to describe and suffice to say I felt like my control over my own movements was minimal at best.

And that wasn't even accounting for the fact that the entire world near me was still drained of light. Luckily, night was setting in so at least I wasn't an extremely obvious travelling ball of darkness. Somehow, contrary to how I remember things when mom used this power to let me escape, I was able to vaguely make out the general shape of things in the 'real' world. Maybe this how she saw things too?

Thanks to my dim awareness of my surroundings, I knew that after about half an hour of travel I was far enough from the town to allow myself to feel some semblance of safety.

I ran through the events of the past hour in my head, still weirdly disconnected from my feelings - as if there was a closed window between me and the raging heartache on the other side. A few moments later, I had a checklist of things that needed doing soon.

- Figure out how to control this form.

- Figure out how to get out of it.

- Look into why my emotions are so distant right now.

- Mourn Thomas and the rest.

- Choose what to do next, go back home, stay here and get vengeance or move forward.

- Figure out what my power actually is.

'Time to start working I suppose.' I thought with a sigh.

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I spent the better portion of the past hour getting used to the twitchy movements of this body. And while I have by no means mastered it, I have confirmed my previous theory that itss actions react to thoughts rather than actual signals - very much unlike my own body.

Funnily enough, with some effort to keep my mind clear of noise I managed to make the body cease moving altogether, which seemingly caused the surrounding world to freeze. That's when I understood why my perception of time was so off while I was like this.

Everything functioned at the speed of thought, so as long as I wasn't thinking and was merely observing I was able to perceive things... faster? That description wasn't quite right - more accurate one would be to say that the only things that actually forced me to progress through time were physical movements. As long as I wasn't moving, I could spend as much time as I'd like on thinking and considering things.

Normally, I could consider and think about what it would be like to raise my right hand and point at something, but this shadow-form didn't obey that. As soon as I thought about it, the form has already moved and done so. I managed to ram my face into the ground when I thought about lying down - a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

Next thing I noticed - thanks to me accidentally smashing my head into the floor - was the dulled sense of pain. I was consciously aware that I was in pain, but the feeling was distant and easily ignored. Which meant that my emotions would likely come back as soon as I figured out how to turn this form off.

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I didn't manage to make the surrounding darkness disappear, though a careful examination of my senses revealed that my sight, hearing and everything else cut off abruptly roughly fifty meters away from my body - which is where I speculated the supernatural shadows ended.

The last few tests were an attempt to break out of this form.

At first I hoped that since this body operates on thought, concentrating on just wanting to leave it, or return to normal or some such would be enough. It wasn't.

Next I thought back to how the visitor dragged me into this form in the first place - somehow sinking mom's dagger into the tattoo'd triangle on my right hand. No luck there either as no matter how I poked, prodded, pulled or pushed at it, nothing happened. It didn't have anything to do with thoughts that I was thinking at the time either - at least as far as I could tell.

It didn't seem to be on track to go away on it's own either, as my senses or perceptions weren't really changing in any way while I just waited. Plus, if it was time restricted, who says it couldn't last for a whole year - or even longer. No, time restriction was worrying, plus I didn't want to let myself believe that something that was so reactive to my thoughts was impossible to control only in this one specific case.

Movement seemed to have no effect in this regard either - though I discovered that I can leap about twice my own height in this form. And thinking of unusual movements, like 'outwards' and 'inwards' was a truly bizarre experience. For 'outwards', it felt as if my form was trying to rip itself apart - occupy more space than it could. It was a horrifying sensation, like I was about to explode. For 'inwards'... well, at least I know what contortionists must feel like. Either way, it didn't seem to lead to a success in terms of breaking free of this shadowy body.

Without any further ideas, I decided to move on with my checklist and look into the muted perception of my emotions - and noticed a new weird instinct this form had. I decided to let my mind follow what it was guided to do - to focus inward and discard the perceptions of my body. It wasn't easy, even with the guidance this form provided but a while later I saw what I was being lead to - a small circular stone room. It was barren and empty bar two decorations. Two statues, both of which I recognized. At the center of the room was a statue of Morana - lifelike and smiling just the way I remembered her. It was holding one of her daggers with the handle towards me - as if offering it back.

To the side - at the edge of the circular room - was a statue of David - sitting down on a chair and mouth opened as if it was carved while he was chatting with someone across from him.

Neither of the statues moved - obviously - but it almost felt as if they should with how life-like they appeared. An instinct bid me move forward towards mom's extended hand, and a moment later I claimed the offered dagger from the statue's fingers. A wisp of her voice - a distant memory. "You’ll never be alone again."

My attention snapped back to reality in an instant, and a thousand things seemingly happened at once - I felt blinded the brightness of the surrounding area - despite it only being illuminated by the light of the moon far up in the night sky. Everything - the grass under my feet, the air around me - everything - felt more real and vibrant, making me realize just how deprived of sensation the shadowy form was.

My feelings came crashing back and hit me with the intensity of an out of control wagon. I felt my throat tighten as raw sorrow fought rage to be the first to make me scream. I felt the pain of my head from slamming into the ground earlier, I felt immense exhaustion from what happened in the past few hours.

I gasped for air repeatedly, amidst feeble attempts to hold the built up tide back - and failed miserably.