The creature, now positioned a couple of feet from our position now had its gaze fixated on my own, a stalemate of sorts was produced with each camp visually determining the best course of action, typically in scenarios such as this, a ‘shade’ as I’ll refer to them for now, would act on impulse and move to consume a target as there was no fear of resistance. This could be attributed to the fact that any physical trauma or magical for that matter would only cause the shade to dissipate temporarily before reassuming its previous form. ‘Darkness’ in the case of these shades was almost a physical element, it wasn’t simply the absence of light. A shade however can manipulate itself to interact with others, it’s body acted as a sort of poison for other biological creatures but almost at will. A strong miasma would be present alongside the presence of a shade and in most instances, the absence of light when facing a shade would entail certain death. Lacerations caused by shades would cause an infection of sorts to spread, medicine and other means of remedy would typically offer no respite and you would succumb to the spreading infection and die, the only noticeable cure was strong exposure to light. Typical signs are easy to detect, almost as if a living shade was moving through the flesh that eventually penetrated the veins and then ceased function of the heart. Most documented cases from infected patients described an excruciating pain which spreads and depending on the initial site of infection, can cause hysteria or hallucinations.

However, in my case my sword was able to interact with – and harm, these shades. Almost as if sensing that fact this shade, was maintaining a reasonable distance. Nora in turn had an expression of pure fear, upon realising our source of light was placed behind the shade and the encroaching darkness, she had almost looked resigned to her fate, almost as if noticing her weakness, the shade immediately diverted its attention to her and contorted its humanoid form as it glided towards her. It’s body by this stage was a large mass of shadow with no noticeable appendages apart from a long-clawed arm that was slowly making its way to Nora. During this Nora had slowly backed away before losing her footing and landing on her rear. While falling the shade then moved faster with the clear intent to kill as it’s arm slowly extended and got thinner and you could almost see a smirk appear on the shades face as it approached.

Before it could strike however I had drawn my sword and sliced at the arm, severing it, after the arm immediately dissipated into the surroundings the shade let of an ear-piercing screech, inhuman and evil. After seeing my unnatural ability to incur damage, the shade devoted all attention to me and contorted its whole body and brought its face to mine. Normally I would’ve retaliated in kind at the opportunity and struck to end it there, however something I couldn’t predict had occurred during this. The shade had adopted an expression, not a smirk or a smile or anything remotely similar to an expression of joy, instead it had an expression of pure horror, the same pure horror I was forced to look at every night. Slowly the shades face contorted again and began to form a likeness to my deceased friend Rex. It had continued to stare straight at me and upon finishing its transformation it let out a voice that was appropriate to its dark and deformed image, a strong but ominous whisper that spoke to the soul.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Kurt, it’s dark down here, it’s too dark to see, to feel, to hear. I’m losing myself Kurt, it’s too dark, the darkness is moving and it’s too dark.”

The shade had moved itself around me, it was attempting to envelop me while I was faced with my worst fear, slowly I lifted my blade and before the shade could react, I thrust it straight between the eyes as the last words that left its lips rose into the air and departed with the wind.

As the rest of the shade dissipated I continued onto the firewood and placed it onto the remnants of the previous campfire to maintain the fire and sat down again and contemplated what had just transpired. It seems the darkness has the capability to either read your mind and react accordingly or use previous victims (in this case Rex) for its own personal agenda, either way it felt unpleasant, it must have a reasonably strong level of intelligence to deduce my attachment to Rex and use him against me. Furthermore, it must all be connected in some way as the shade we saw tonight wasn’t either of the shades that consumed Rex, although it seemed obvious that the darkness itself was either a single entity or a ‘nest’ of sorts to all the shades. While pondering such things Nora decided to detract my inner monologue, she was looking at me with both a sense of bewilderment and confusion while she spoke.

“It knew you, it also seemed to know what scared you.”

That was true, as I postulated, although it wasn’t too shocking, what was more unnerving was how much was left unknown regarding the shades, how or why they operate, whether it’s on instinct or for a purpose and why I seem to be the only person having continuous encounters with them.

“Kurt, was that person in the shadow, was that somebody you knew?”

Before she could finish I had given her a quick fierce look, a look intended to convince her to not pry any further on that topic.

“I’m sorry.”

Those two simple words were filled with sincerity as Nora looked at her feet and remained silent for a few minutes after realising she had gone a little too far in her enquiry, either way I decided the information wasn’t important enough to keep secret.

“He was an old friend from before, we travelled together for a while. I knew him while I was at school and we helped each other through a lot.”

As I continued to divulge how I came from somewhere that wasn’t quite here, how Rex and I had come here due to some strange circumstance and finally, while leaving out certain grotesque details, how Rex met his demise and how I couldn’t do anything to help. While I did this Nora had raised her head and kept a stern gaze and listened intently, only nodding at certain details while remaining silent.

“From a different place… I thought that might be the case, you spoke a weird language and carried that strange blade, not to mention your weird shadow.”

“Ah, well that I don’t know about, that happened a little before I came here, I saw something I cant quite explain, anyway that’s unrelated to my origin and is somewhat of a passenger for now.”

Nora looked a little shocked at this, she seemed like she was preparing another question on the subject before she decided not to dwell at this stage and continued.

“Well, in any case, you don’t seem like a bad guy. Perhaps we just met in unsavoury circumstances.”

Nora then stood and brushed off her trousers and shirt before approaching me and doing a small curtsey of sorts.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Nora.”

Noticing her intent, I replied, while giving a small nod.

“Kurt.”

After the exchange we agreed to each keep watch of the surronding area in turns, in case other shades decided to show, Nora then returned to bed after we decided I would go first and drifted to sleep.