by E Kathryn
THE SHADOWS:
Fire’s Hope
THE SHADOWS: Fire’s Hope
Copyright © 2018 E. Kathryn
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-10: 1-7325704-1-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-7325704-1-2
Cover and interior by E. Kathryn
Edited by Tina Winograd
https://ekathrynsshadows.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
I SOME KIND OF MEANING
II ASH AND FIRE
III INDUCTION
IV A SAFE HAVEN
V SILVERSTONARELLENA’S HATRED
VI FAULTS
VII KIMBERLY’S ADVICE
VIII SUN BREAKING THROUGH
IX COMPETITION AND CLUES
X TOO PALE IN COMPARISON
XI A LOST CHILD
XII INSECURITY OF FALACY
XIII DECEIT IN DARKNESS
XIV ESCAPE!
XV THE COST OF FREEDOM
XVI WAIT
XVII DISCOVERING TRUTH
XVIII SURPRISING ARRIVALS
XIX NEW EXODUS
XX DISCOVERING HOPE
XXI BRAIDED
XXII FAMILY
XXIII ONLY ASHES REMAIN
XIV INWARD MOTIVE, OUTWARD ACT, ONWARD FLIGHT
XV TEARS OF THE YEARS
EPILOGUE
THE SHADOWS:
Exodus 3:7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.”
To Jo, Mia, and Aurora for enduring endless emotional turmoil on my characters’ behalf. You guys keep me going.
PROLOGUE
November 6, 2015
In the warm comfort of the night, sweat beaded on Hellen’s body as the tension in her muscles faded. Her gaze lost on the furious pink infant with spindly limbs in her arms.
Tears finally dripped from the apples of her cheeks and a wave of relief washed over her as the droplets of water touched her daughter’s contorted face. The child’s lungs were powerful, and this fact assured Hellen her daughter was healthy and safe. She drew her closer, holding her tightly against her chest so the tiny girl’s fingers curled around her collar bone.
Hellen sank back into the hospital bed, refusing to let her child leave her breast, even as the nurse urged her to rest. This labor had been long into the night, and the stale hospital room was now humid with the scent of blood and fluid.
It calmed her, and the sweet moisture in the air tickled her throat as she panted. Who knew where her boyfriend was? She didn’t have a clue if he even knew their baby had arrived, or if he cared. He didn’t matter now. All her cares rested upon her little girl’s heartbeat as the infant helplessly relaxed into her mother’s bosom.
“Miss Meyvise, we need to test her,” the nurse urged at her side, reaching out to touch the pale-yellow blanket on the infant’s back.
“No…” Hellen moaned, still caught up in the beauty of her daughter’s face as she closed her eyes and fell asleep. “No, just let me have her, just give me a minute,” she cried helplessly, overcome with love for the tiny creation she held.
“It’s been an hour,” the nurse whispered. “It will only take a moment.” With elongated and ungloved fingers which were dry from excessive washing, the nurse pried the child from Hellen’s grasp, and as gently as could be seen, the nurse carried the girl away from her mother. “What are you going to name her?” the nurse asked as she placed the baby within the curved bassinette.
Laying her head back against the pillow, Hellen heaved through the thick air. “Emilie…” she murmured, barely audible. Her eyes locked upon the nurse as the woman retrieved a small red film from a canister, similar to a litmus paper in purpose. Hidden from Hellen’s view, she tested the child for a Shadow.
The woman waited for the reaction of the child’s blood smeared on the paper. She didn’t move for several long seconds, causing Hellen to worry.
The nurse turned, and Hellen could see over her shoulder the thin red film had turned black where the blood touched it. “No!” Hellen screamed, reeling up in bed, “No! Please no!” She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t rush to seize her child. She could only lay there alone in the hospital bed to scream. “No! I’m begging you, please don’t take her away from me!”
Despite her heartbroken tears, the nurse’s eyes darkened, and wordlessly, she wrapped up the baby girl and carried her away. Hellen’s eyes lingered on the sight, scarring her more deeply than murder as she cried out, shrieking for them to let her hold Emilie a little longer.
I
SOME KIND OF MEANING
October 25, 2030
A red strand of hair fell between Mark’s eyes as he sat hunched over a keyboard, his fingers flying across the keys, ignoring the pain in his back from the awkward position, adrenaline fueling every decision he made.
One by one, the party members came online, each name and icon appearing as new voices joined within his headset. With anticipation high, the dungeon opened, and after waiting a solid thirty minutes, the raid had begun.
Mashing the keys, Mark’s simple character, decked to the teeth in armor, followed along the path closely behind his friend, who sat beside him at a separate laptop.
Gary sank back into the huge leather office seat in the basement of his home, far more relaxed than Mark, who was rearing to go as he charged into the dungeon. Without desire for the loot or the rewards, Mark was in it for the adrenaline surge he got from listening to the twenty other voices screaming over his headset as they got slaughtered.
His only consciousness pertaining to the real world was of his annoying bangs that kept falling into his face, especially the obnoxious red one which migrated from the sea of ebony to right between his eyes. It always fell, no matter how many times he pushed it away, and the red patch wasn’t dyed either. Those strands of crimson hair that tumbled before his gaze were completely natural.
“Follow me to the left flank!” Mark fired into the microphone on his headset, getting more hyped as he led a stealthy trio around the army of ghouls, abandoning his party.
Gary stood among the trio, joining him in the enraged crusade up a path overlooking the largest opening out of the dungeon. Hundreds of monsters spawned, waiting right around the corner to smite the main party.
They hadn’t been seen yet, and there was a thin path around the ancient cathedral, which was lined with chests of loot and gold, endless rewards for the one who got there first, but one could only be so stealthy with so many ghouls ten virtual feet beneath them.
“The bridge is out above the exit. Do you see that?” Gary pointed to a collapsed rope ladder. His nimbler archer inched closer to the ledge, crouching and casting a spell to hide himself.
Mark nodded to his friend, thinking over their next move. His brawny character could last far longer against the horde of ghouls than any archer, but a single arrow could equally stir up the beasts if Gary fired into them.
Gaming was all Mark thought about day and night, and with his best friend nearby who shared this passion, Mark’s addiction flourished. This level of gaming wasn’t exactly accepted within his own home. His mother thought he got a little too into it.
Gary addressed the t
hird member of their trio, forming a plan and deciding it would be best to help the others deal with the ghouls in the first catacomb, then deal with this ambush later.
However, Mark tuned out. Gary saw it in Mark’s dark brown eyes as he rationalized the situation, weighing his options, and jumping the gun. Greedily, Mark’s character dashed forward, opening one of the chests along the path to snag some gold before flinging his character into the fray.
“Mark!” Gary shouted as the gray armored character disappeared into the sea of monsters. Digital blood flying, Gary slapped his face as Mark screamed, elated, quite effectively holding his own even though he was surrounded on all sides.
“You idiot!” Gary laughed, firing arrows into the beasts below. He took out as many as he could, but carelessness rapidly depleted his arrows, and he was forced to draw his sword and jump in.
“I got this!” Mark assured, starting to aggressively slam the keys harder to the extent he was becoming oblivious to how his A key was sticking. He was taking damage. His character veered left because his keyboard was breaking, and there was no way Gary could get to him in time to give him cover.
Utterly surrounded, Mark’s heart raced, struggling to deflect oncoming blows and hold on to what little energy his character could regain.
The health gauge fell into the red. Gary threw his hands up and growled at the computer screen. “I died!” he spat. “This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so greedy. You had to go rile them up. Now there’s nothing stopping them from annihilating the rest of—”
“Shut up!” Mark screeched so loud, he was sure Gary’s parents would be slightly concerned about the noise. “Come on!” he yelled, mashing one key over and over. Nothing was working. Only a few more hits and he’d be gone.
The ghouls pushed him farther back to the passageway where the rest of the raiding party battled. “No!” Mark shrieked, and as the final blow struck him down, a party member charged in to be met immediately by the frenzied monsters. “No!” he screamed again, realizing he’d thoroughly ruined their chances of catching these beasts by surprise.
In horror, his dead character watched the rest of the party get slaughtered. Gary’s character revived from the back, too far from the fighting to be able to do anything, and Mark stared at his own revival timer in fury. His fingers useless at the keys, his hands formed into fists, growing tighter and smoldering.
Shouting a curse, Mark slammed his fists on the keyboard harder than he thought he ever could in real life. The screen shut down abruptly, and Mark felt his heart and gut implode as his psyche grasped what he’d done.
Abandoning the game, Gary shrieked and burst up to his feet. “Whoa! Fire!” he cried out as Mark jumped away from the seat.
“No, no! Not my laptop!” he screamed, not sure what he was seeing because, indeed, his keyboard was on fire, destroying the computer entirely. Before he could think further, Gary threw a towel over the flaming laptop and Mark hurriedly patted it down with his hands to try to suffocate the flames. “Oh no, oh no! No!” He fretted, his voice finally coming down before the towel also caught on fire.
Smoke welled at the ceiling of the basement, and Gary coughed. However, Mark’s only concern was for the expensive gaming computer he’d do anything to save. Losing his mind with worry, Mark ripped the towel off the computer, also knocking it to the floor, and he stamped the fire out of the towel. When he was sure the fire was out and the towel was ruined, he turned back to the fried computer in despair.
Kneeling, Mark froze, astonished. “I know I said the fan was acting up… but I didn’t think it was this much!” Turning over the laptop, Mark observed the charred surface and sighed. “Maybe the hard drive isn’t too damaged. I’ve got all my school on there and everything…”
“Mark, did you not just see that?” Gary screamed, standing back from Mark and staring, disturbed. Mark gazed at his friend, brows drawn. “Your hands…” Gary trembled. “Before you touched the towel—they were on fire!”
“What?” Mark gasped, not truly believing this, sure Gary was exaggerating, but as he stared at his fingers, the smell of smoke rising. He clenched his hands into fists then rubbed them against his clothes, pushing down the fear of looking at his laptop. “Everything is ruined…” he murmured, drawing the laptop off the tile floor and picking up what shattered pieces had fallen away.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Gary snapped, stumbling behind Mark and grabbing his backpack from a pile on the floor. Their basement hovel was the only place in the little house to set up the two clunky gaming laptops, and the spot near the window was the only area in the basement that got good Internet.
Mark’s mind slipped away, lost in worry. It wasn’t that he was at all materialistic, but his laptop had been expensive, and it meant a lot to him. It was one of the few things his father had given him that was genuine, a huge gesture, and a step forward.
Now the laptop was just another reminder that any kindness from his father was fleeting. Shoving what was left of his laptop into his backpack, he threw it onto his shoulder, wincing a bit as the school books inside hit him hard.
“What? Are you just gonna leave?” his friend said, ignoring the game he had stepped away from even though his character had gotten killed again.
Heaving a sigh, Mark hesitated, still staring into his palm, expecting the smoke to rise once more. Fear chewed at his heart. The sight of the red flames upon his laptop left him conflicted. He wasn’t sure what he should be more scared about: his father’s reaction to the destroyed laptop he’d only had since last Christmas, or the fact he might have caused the device to spontaneously combust. “You know the Addisons, right?” he murmured, sinking into his chair before the charred table.
Gary shrugged. “Name rings a bell.”
“They’re family friends. The girls babysit my sister a lot,” Mark said, “and… they sometimes tell the story about their brother who would have been my age if they hadn’t found out he was a Shadow.”
“Shadows?” Gary lost all ability to be serious. “So, what are you? Some Shadow?”
Smirking, Mark adopted an air of sarcasm he got from his mother. “Oh yes, I must be some kind of Shadow creeping into your life to destroy everything you hold dear!” Hoisting his backpack up again, he grimaced at the weight of the dead laptop on his back.
“I’m not joking!” Gary hollered, grasping onto Mark’s arm as he stormed toward the stairs. “Where you going, hothead? You don’t have to listen to me, but if you’re a Shadow, you better hide it! Most of the time Shadows are taken away at birth. Who knows what they might do if they find you.”
Mark deadpanned, torn away from the stairs, “They?” he smirked. “You’ve been watching conspiracy videos again, haven’t you?”
“Come on! You’ve seen the news, Shadows are freaking dangerous! None of them know how to control their powers, and on top of it, they’ve got access to another dimension where they can communicate telepathically!” Gary’s enthusiasm worried Mark, his friend released his arm, but the intensity of his voice prevented him from budging from the bottom stair.
“Dude… you need to get off the dark side of the Internet!” he spat coldly, his feet stamping up the hollow wooden stairs as he turned his back.
“Says the guy who has to fight his sister for game controllers!” Gary called up, following him.
Mark waved at Gary’s mom, saying nothing when she asked him why he was leaving so soon.
She called out to catch the boys. “If he’s leaving, Gareth, you have dishes to do before dinner.”
Gary protested Mark’s every step, half-acknowledging his mom. Mark shook him off and at the door he forced a smile. “I guess we’ll have to try that raid again someday… maybe when I can afford a new computer.” He frowned. “It’s not like my dad will buy me another.”
Gary shrugged it off. “There’s always the console games you got. Maybe you can dig up your old games and we can brush up on some of the classics? If you can kick
June off, that is.”
“I’ll get her off,” Mark said, waving as he jumped down the two stairs from the porch and tripped through the grass to the sidewalk. Gary was a few houses down from Mark’s home, and the brisk walk stung his face in the frigid October air.
In Mark’s eyes, the only upside to autumn was his birthday, otherwise, he hated the cold that came with it. He walked as fast as he could, not quite running, but hurrying home to get out of the cold, gray weather.
When his house was in sight, he hurried a little faster toward the small, one-story home with a garage to the side of the front door, four small bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a window that didn’t latch in June’s room which was easy to sneak in and out of. This was only possible if Mark didn’t wake June in the process of sneaking out.
“Mom, I’m home!” he called in a taut but quivering voice as he stepped through the door. He took off his coat as soon as he came in, savoring the warmth of home.
As he hung up his coat, he heard his mother, Marissa, in the kitchen. “You’re back early,” she said as Mark came into the kitchen and made his way to the refrigerator. “Stop! I’m making dinner!” With a grumble and a sigh, he closed the refrigerator begrudgingly.
“My computer… crashed,” he lied, thinking over his words as he sat at the kitchen table. Restless, and a bit hungry, Mark rolled around his father’s tea jars on the table. “How come Shadows are taken away at birth?” he asked, which caused his mother’s shoulders to arch.
Glancing at him from the stove, she forced a smile. “Please tell me you and Gary didn’t spend that whole two hours looking up conspiracy videos. You know your father hates them.”
“I was just asking…” he grumbled, hating everything about how his father oversaw the family, when he even did that. “But… I did some research…” he admitted, then defended himself. “On my own. Did you know when Shadows turn invisible, they enter another world and all you can see of them is their shadow on the ground? That’s where they got their name. They call the invisibility thing the Shadow Realm, and not a lot is known about it.”