Lain

Getting back to my room, I am quick to collapse onto my bed and bury my face into my pillow. For a long while I just lay there and keep my eyes closed, my mind feeling emotionally drained and exhausted. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to run home and hug Sky, I want to go tearing through the vents and hunt that damn Doppelganger, I want to guard my first warrior, I want to sleep… Oh how much I want to sleep. I haven’t slept in months by this point, perpetually awake and aware of my every moment. Even when I enter my fugue state of half sleep, I am fully aware of my surroundings, able to ‘wake up’ at a moment’s notice. What I wouldn’t give to be able to properly sleep again. To be able to just turn my brain off for a couple of hours, to mentally run away from all of my problems into the land of dreams…

I take in a deep breath, my face buried deeply into my pillow that I dressed in one of Sky’s shirts. Curling up, I pull the pillow in and give it a hug, wrapping myself around it. For a moment, it almost feels like I am giving her a hug. A tear falls from eye, and I give it another squeeze.

“I can’t wait to get home…” I mumble.

…

For a good while I just lay there, hugging my pillow and thinking about cuddling with my loving girlfriend, not even thinking about sex, just simply cuddling and hugging, petting hair and whispering to each other under the blanket. After some time, I eventually manage to work up the monumental amount of energy necessary to pull myself up from my bed.

Thankfully, I had the forethought to remove my nasty shirt and kick off my dirty jeans before falling into bed. So, my sheets and pillow have thankfully been spared most of the mess. Checking the clock, I see that it is still late, the sun won’t be rising for a couple more hours. Throwing on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, I leave my room and head for the showers. After thoroughly scrubbing myself clean and brushing my teeth, I return to my room and take a seat on the floor, sitting on a cushion.

My room isn’t much, nothing but an old office in the security area that was converted for my personal use, furnished with a fold out bed and a desk for me to write reports on. While I do have a lantern, it is hardly ever used, only really necessary if I have a guest over. I hardly ever do. With no window, the room is in a perpetual state of being pitch-black inside, the only light, at least from what I can sense, is the small stream that manages to find its way in from the crack under the door, fed by the lights in the hallway outside.

This is perfect for my current needs, for what I need to do next. I had felt it earlier but had pushed it aside in favor of dealing with more important matters, ignored it to deal with my stress and let myself mope around a bit, but it was there the entire time, just waiting for me to bring it to my attention. Now, I finally need to address it.

Whatever this change that had happened to me tonight was, something that my instincts are telling me was bound to happen eventually… It made something inside of me click into place, something dormant and just waiting to be used, something that I had been trying to poke at for the longest time, but just wasn’t ready to be used yet.

With my eyes closed and taking a deep breath, I focus on my senses, pushing aside what isn’t important right now and pulling what I want into focus. I have to forcefully push my connection to the boy aside, despite being hundreds of feet away from him, I can still clearly sense his location; sense that he is changing. I make myself ignore it, ignore the pang of guilt that goes through me, ignore the desire to go to him. I grab hold of what I want.

I am currently in complete darkness…

I let out a long breath and I can feel it. The shadows that had gathered over my body. A subconscious action taken by my body. A part of me that wasn’t fully developed and ready until now, simply doing its own thing in the background as a passive defense. A way for me to hide while I was still weak. An infant’s camouflage to help hide from predators in the night. Like a baby deer and its spots. A wolf pup with white fur in the snow. A caterpillar looking like leaf litter.

They move over me like layers of slivering snakes, overlapping each other and intermingling until I am left as… well, a blob of shadows… Hmm, people did keep telling me that I looked like a human shaped blob of shadow… Freaky.

My eyes still closed, I move a hand to try and feel the shadows, but my hand simply moves through them and finds the skin of my arm. I frown and try to push my focus into the slivering shadows themselves, moving my hand and trying to touch the darn things. After some time, I finally manage it. The others gather and move toward the one that I focus on, joining it and merging until it gains depth and becomes solid, yet weighing nothing. With a push I direct it to move, and it obeys, slivering down my arm and into my waiting hand. I take hold of it and run my fingers along its surface, both smooth yet somehow feeling of nothing, an empty space made solid…

Slowly, I open my eyes and for the first time in the last couple of months, I can finally see my own shadow. My body is no longer covered in shadows, but instead they have all been merged into a single tendril of darkness that wraps across my body and flows over me like a single large snake. Directing it, it moves as I tell it, flowing from here to there, wrapping around my waist and then moving back up and over my shoulder, returning to my waiting hand. I smile as I look at the dark tendril, something inside of me happily resonating with it, a muscle begging to be used that is finally getting to stretch and grow.

I look from my hand and the wriggling shadow, taking in my room. Everything is still as it was, as bright as day despite being pitch-black. But despite this, my sixth sense tugs at me, demanding my attention. I give into it, letting my instincts push me forward despite my fears. Something in my eyes change, like a filter getting replaced as my surrounding suddenly takes on a new life.

Small motes of light slowly drift about the room, glowing in an array of colors. Bits of blues, greens, browns, and white float about, but predominantly there is black in here. They float about the walls and gather in the corners and under the furniture, filling the air and bouncing off of one another. Curious, I try to reach out and touch them, but they move out of the way, as if they are being repelled by me, refusing to come within a couple of inches of my body. Looking down, I see that the snake is now glowing with the same black glow as the motes, a few of them even occasionally falling away from the snake and floating away.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Interesting…”

This shadow tendril… it isn’t just made of darkness; it’s also made from these little motes of light…

I try to focus on the same feeling that generated the tendril, the same feeling that pulled the other tendrils into it and made it solid. For a short while nothing happens. Continuing to pull on it, I notice as the motes of dark light start to move towards me, especially those in the corners and under the bed, slowly flowing towards me and bumping into each other until they reach me and bounce away.

I frown at this, confused, but something inside of me tugs, instinct trying to guide my hand. Again, I let it do its thing and feel as something inside of me opens, something not physical, something small and undeveloped. Something thirsty.

It opens and the motes begin to flow into me, colliding with my skin and disappearing inside of me. As they disappear, new ones appear from the corners and under the bed and the desk, popping into existence as if from nowhere. I can feel as the something inside of me continues to fill up, hungrily absorbing the motes until it is full, a feeling of satisfaction filling me. I let out a breath and I can feel as the darkness around me moves with me.

“Very Interesting…”

With a small flex of will, the darkness moves to me and gathers, compressing until visible and solid. I smile as I watch it cover me, directing it to grow like a second layer of skin rather than just making a shapeless blob. I marvel as it gathers around my claws and seem to make them grow longer. After a while, both of my arms are covered in the stuff up to my elbows, my claws feeling as if they had taken most of it, compressing it to a dangerous and sharp point.

I smile at my success and try to draw in more, but the darkness in the room stops gathering, something inside of me reaching its current limit… This leaves me feeling a bit disappointed and wanting to try and push it further regardless, but something tells me that I would hurt myself if I did that. After a little bit of thinking, my mind goes back to when I had killed the bear, how I had woken up with a massive migraine that lasted for a couple of days. I remember the claw marks that I left on its body and look to my own claws. Now massive and serrated.

When I lost my shit and rampaged to save Sky… To kill the bear… my body probably pushed itself to use this stuff before I was ready for it… Hmmm, I would rather not have to deal with another brain splitting headache again. Let’s take it slow for now, I feel like I can make this stuff stronger if I just work at it. Like a muscle growing with exercise.

With a big smile, I set aside my concerns about my current limits and look to the snake wrapped around me. Only to end up tilting my head a bit as I look at it. Looks more like a tentacle than a snake actually… Regardless, it looks like this is my current capacity. Both arms up to my elbows and a single tentacle… Can I shift the resources around?

I flex my will over the gathered shadows and make them move, the shadows on my arms shifting and joining to form a second tentacle, all be it smaller than the first. With another, I make them join into one, drastically increasing its size and length. As a test, I have it reach across the room and grab a pen from my desk, carrying it back over to me and dropping it into my waiting hand. I can’t help as the happiness inside of me grows a bit out of control. I can grab stuff without having to get up from the couch! Best superpower ever!

With another flex of will, the shadow tentacle shrinks down on itself and covers my body in a thin layer until my torso is completely covered, the material running down to cover most of my arms and legs but not quite reaching all the way. Jumping up, I head over to the mirror and throw off all of my clothes until I am wearing nothing but the shadow coating.

“Huh… Looks like I am wearing a body suit. Definitely doesn’t leave much to the imagination though; you can clearly see the outline of my privates… I guess that makes sense though, it’s just a single layer thick…”

With a push, I make the material concentrate more around certain areas, pulling from the edges to thicken and make the body suit not show everything off, but instead have everything be smooth and rounded.

“That’s better. Now people won’t be able to see my nipples or my crotch. Still looks a bit too sexy though… Almost like I am about to climb into a giant robot and fight angels…”

I shrug, turning this way and that, “Oh well, if I end up getting all my clothes destroyed in a fight, I’ll at least have this as an option. A sexy bodysuit is much less embarrassing than running around naked… Hmm, I wonder if Sky would like it if I wore this…?”

I start to blush a bit, but suddenly a thought comes to me.

“Oh shit! What about light? People tell me that the shadows always left when light shined on me. Will this stay in the light?”

I look over and find my room’s lantern and go over to it. Nervous, I flick the switch to On and my senses immediately tell me that I am no longer inside darkness. The room is lit up now and all the shadows in the room have retreated to the corners and under the furniture. Looking down at myself, I thankfully don’t find myself suddenly naked or my bodysuit falling apart like a magical girl getting her clothes shredded by an enemy's attack. I am thankfully still covered and for the most part, decent. At least as decent as a skintight bodysuit can be…

“Eh, still better than nothing…”

Relieved that my outfit won’t be suddenly exploding in the light, I go back and collect my clothes, ready to get dressed. Only to stop before putting my underwear on as I get an idea. With a push of will, the bodysuit collects itself until it is wrapped around my chest as a strapless chest wrap and forming some pitch-black panties that fit perfectly.

“Holy crap, this is amazing! I can make anything with this stuff, can’t I? And they fit so well… I’ve made the perfect underwear…” I say as I look at myself in amazement. “It’s like… It’s like I’m wearing nothing at all.”

With a big smile, I put my shorts and shirt back on, happily moving around and rejoicing over not having annoying bra straps to deal with.

“More tests! I have to know what else I can do with this stuff!”

… I ended up spending the rest of the night playing around with my shadows, figuring out what sort of stuff I can make, how much I can take from my shadow until it becomes a danger of not being able to cover myself properly, how big of a tentacle I can make, how dexterous they are. An important thing that I tested was how many tentacles I could make and how many I could control. The answer is as many as I want so long as I have the resources, but the more there is, the harder it becomes to control them all the way I want. In the end, I managed to find a good level for them, keeping it at two that I can control pretty well while still being able to keep plenty of material for covering the important parts of my body as underwear and having a bit left over for making some scary looking claws on one hand. If I need to, I can merge the two tentacles into one for extra range or just forgo them entirely and cover my arms and claws to the point of making my arms into a pair of giant blades if I want.

By the end of the night, I am feeling rather proud of myself, the fun of getting to play with spooky shadow powers melting away my stress from before.

Hahaha, I would like to see the researchers try and explain this away. They are going to be losing their minds when they see me!

Checking the clock, I see that it has become morning. It’s time to go hunting for that damn Doppelganger. Grabbing my stuff and getting changed, I head for the door and leave, only stopping as I feel the connection to my Warrior lightly pulsing. I had been ignoring it this entire time, but now that I am not busy with playing around, my mind is finally urging me to focus on it again. He’s doing fine, the medics have been keeping him fed and his changes are progressing nicely...

Part of me wants to run over and check on him regardless. He is my only one so far, and that makes him precious. I want to guard him until he is done growing…

I shake off the feeling and make myself focus. Leaving my room, I head for Lieutenant Doles office to see if he is available.

I have a monster to kill. And this time, it won’t escape me.