Lost Shadow

by Chanda Hahn

  “I can’t keep this up,” Wu Zan said breathlessly, but there was no time to recover. Not seconds later, he was back at it, attacking another morphling. He was doing his best to keep the morphlings at a distance, but he was slowing down.

  A second blur shot by and mirrored Wu Zan’s attacks. Then the runner slowed, revealing himself to be Pilot, who paused midstride to give Wu Zan a wry salute and then joined in on the attack.

  “It’s the Primes,” Wu Zan shouted in excitement. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a rhinoceros charge a morphling, knocking it into a car.

  “And the Dusters,” Leroy called out, giving a whoop as the rhinoceros shifted into the young duster girl—Slip.

  One by one, the other Dusters—for safety or out of loyalty—joined with the lost boys and girls and fought as one unit.

  “Never thought I’d be seeing this,” Onyx whistled, and then a message appeared on his visor. “Hey, it’s John. We’ve got location of Wonderland Games and a plan to shut the system down. Michael, are you ready to take out the cameras?”

  Michael nodded. “Ready.” His face scrunched up in concentration and a bead of sweat appeared across his forehead.

  Onyx waved for the others to follow him. “Let’s go. Let’s blind them.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Killz screamed at his tablet as he stood up and pointed at Merrill. “Why are you sending so many of those shades after my guys?”

  Merrill wiped the sweat from his brow, looking worried as he scrolled his screen, searching through his history. “That’s not me. I don’t know where those other ones are coming from.”

  Killz tossed his tablet onto a couch cushion and turned on Diego, making a show of rolling up his sleeves as he sauntered over to him. “If you have a problem, you should settle it here now.”

  “Calm down, Killz,” Diego said dismissively. He continued to type instructions into his tablet. “I didn’t send them either. Look, I sent my player to help yours. Safety in numbers. But they’re picking us off one by one. Our avatars are falling like flies. What’s going on? I thought this game was supposed to last longer than a few hours.” He glared up at President Helix.

  Helix was frowning at his own tablet, confused as to why his own avatar, Peter, was down and not regenerating. He cleared his throat. “Gentleman, I’m sure there is an explanation. But I can guarantee that this will be looked into and taken care of now. Just give me a few minutes as I make some calls.”

  He laid his tablet down and stepped into the hall to make a call, and John took action, casually slipping over and picking up the abandoned tablet. Helix had left so abruptly, the tablet hadn’t gone into sleep mode and John didn’t need a password to get in.

  John went back to his corner chair and sat down, scrolling through the president’s tablet, looking for secrets, backdoors, and security measures.

  What he saw instead was Peter. Dead.

  “No,” he whispered, knowing that would be enough to send Wendy on a rampage. He found the security access and quickly turned off all of Wonderland Games locks, disabling the elevator code as well. Now, if they acted quickly enough, all they had to do was survive long enough to make it to this building and down the same elevator he had come up on. John quickly swiped through the rest of Helix’s team, searching for an in-game ally. Luckily, Helix had also bought Onyx.

  John typed instructions into the tablet and prayed that Onyx would relay the message in time.

  Take out cameras. Main headquarters location Wonderland Games pinged on your map. Escape elevator in building. Bring Michael.

  John knew that by taking down the building’s defense, he was also opening it up for morphlings to enter and they would be hot on the boys’ tail.

  “And now the cameras aren’t working,” A third investor complained, clicking on his screen. “I’ve got nothing. The screen is blank.”

  John grinned, knowing that Onyx and Michael got the message.

  Chapter 42

  Wendy was livid, her heart aching with sorrow while on fire with revenge, because of Peter. She had promised the shadows vengeance, and she planned to deal the hand of justice, but she wasn’t blind. Wendy stormed through the middle of the park, not bothering to duck or hide.

  Peter reached for Wendy, wrapping his shadowy hand around hers. A vision burst into her mind—an underground room, brightly lit. And right in middle of the room next to a pod—Hook. She saw Hook. . . and Jax.

  Instinctively, she ripped her hand away and turned, traveling in the opposite direction. He’d tried to share his thoughts and memories with her, but she rebelled.

  He panicked and lunged in front of her, his shadowy hands reaching for her shoulders. She froze in place as he leaned in and hugged her.

  Through the embrace, he showed her the past. Them laughing and playing on a rug together at Neverland. Lost in dreams and games. She saw her thimble, and his acorn. He showed her the night he met her again, how she looked on the park bench defending herself from the shadows of the night. She saw herself asleep in his arms in the rain outside of the church. Their kiss.

  “What is this?” Wendy asked, confused. Why would he show her these things now? “What are you doing? What are you trying to tell me?”

  He showed her the memory of him flying her to her bedroom and leaving her on her bed to wake up safe and sound with no memory of ever meeting him. She watched through his eyes as her bedroom window became smaller and smaller as he flew away.

  Peter’s shadow pulled away from her and she felt cold at his absence.

  “No!” she gasped. “No, I won’t let you.”

  He was saying goodbye.

  “You can’t. You promised me that you would always be here. That you would always come back to me,” she screamed, not caring if the whole world heard her. “You pan right now, and I will come to you. I will find you and help you remember me.”

  Peter’s shadow placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. She knew that posture, knew he was telling her no.

  “It’s not fair!” she cried. “Then let me come with you!”

  This idea seemed to distress Peter because he flew up in the air.

  “No, wait, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant,” she said regretfully. “We’re supposed to be together, grow old together, go on adventures together.”

  His shadow drifted down and settled inches in front of her. Wendy held her hand up and he pressed his shadow hand to hers. With their hands clasped, he leaned in close and kissed her lips gently, and through his touch—his hand, his mouth against hers—she heard his words in her mind, clear as a bell.

  You are my greatest adventure.

  When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

  No, she couldn’t lose him again. Wendy closed her eyes and focused on that instinct. Raising her hands, she called the shadows, and eagerly they came, wrapping themselves around her like a gossamer veil. She wouldn’t let this happen. She would fight for Peter, even if it meant going to hell and getting his soul back.

  Deep in the throes of the shadows, she heard the otherworldly scream—the painful echo—as the morphlings changed direction. She knew by the purple dots on her visor, they were closing in. So many of them, they nearly looked like a solid mass. So be it.

  She set aside all her fears, as if the morphlings weren’t even there, and she refocused, centering her every thought on Peter. On his laugh, his mischievous green eyes, and before she knew it, the shadows had pulled her into their realm. They didn’t travel far, and as she went into the nightmare realm, she was surprised to discover it wasn’t as scary as she remembered it. The noises the morphlings made didn’t seem as horrendous, but more like a painful cry.

  Then she was out, back on the physical plane, landing on the ground, amidst a battle of Dusters, lost boys, and morphlings.

  “Wendy?” Michael cried out, running out from behind a car, when he saw her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She looked at his scared, young eyes and saw the bruise that was forming on his
cheek. Patting his head, she gently unhooked his arms and moved through the streets, ignoring the morphlings and fighting and focusing on the still body of Peter on the makeshift stretcher outside of the Wonderland Games building.

  The fighting had become so thick he had been forgotten. She kneeled next to him and placed her hand on his chest. His body was still warm, but growing colder by the second.

  Come, she commanded. Peter, come.

  His shadow came at her bidding, and she tried to direct him into his physical form. Peter’s shadow tried but was unable, his shadow skating off of his old body, like he was covered in slippery soap.

  Try again.

  Again and again he tried, but each attempt was just as unsuccessful.

  Tears flowed and her lower lip trembled. He was gone. Stuck in this shadow form.

  A morphling rushed toward them bent on devouring Peter’s shadow. Wendy spun on her heels, thrusting her hand out instinctively to the beast and it stopped mid-lunge. She was taken aback, shocked that the morphling stopped, though she didn’t know why.

  “I am not scared of the shadows!” Wendy yelled, and the morphling took a step back as the ground heated and bubbled underneath Wendy and Peter, the road buckling like waves as the tarmac gurgled up and churned as if something living was pushing through.

  Fire and molten rock spewed forth and then sank inward as a hole expanded, leaving a great gap and expanse. Looking down into the hole, she could see Jax down below, inside some sort of lab, his body surrounded by flames, scorching, melting everything around him. With his hands held aloft, he fired an endless stream of flames at what was left of the ceiling above him, torching it into cinders and dripping asphalt from the street above down into the lab, and sent glass orbs crashing down around him.

  Wendy could just make out the shape of a morphling burning inside one of the glass chambers still dangling from the remains of the lab’s ceiling.

  One escaped the glass and roared as it flung its arms out to grab the road and try to pull itself up, but Jax’s fire engulfed it and it fell back into the hole, crashing into a pile of ash.

  “Wendy?” Jax called out, surprised at seeing her. “Help me.” His eyes were red from crying, his face blackened from soot. “I can’t do it.”

  She knew what had to be done, and why Jax struggled. She glanced around her as the lost boys made a mad dash to the Wonderland Games building.

  “Inside,” Onyx called out as he got to the front door and opened it, ushering the lost boys and girls inside. Jade, Leroy, Wu Zan, Pilot, Slip, and Onyx hung back and kept up a line of defense against the advancing morphlings. The others ran inside and were met in the lobby by President Helix, who was having a mental breakdown.

  “How’d you get in here? This door is supposed to be secured. Are you crazy? You’re bringing those morphlings right down on us.”

  John stepped out of the elevator and grabbed Helix by the shoulder, spinning him around. His fist connected with the game designer’s jaw with a crunch. Helix fell to the ground, out cold.

  “John!” Michael hugged him in joy.

  John hugged him back. “Hey, here’s the signal for the system. Shut it down, little brother.” He handed Michael the tablet, and the boy quickly began to eradicate the gaming program.

  With her brothers safe for now, Wendy held Peter close and used the shadows to move them both into the lower underground level where Jax was pacing.

  The room had a partial sixty-foot ceiling, covered with half melted glass orbs. The floor was covered with pools of melted and broken glass. The air smelled like a kiln, a mix of coal and heat. Just beyond the pod, Hook lay prostrate on the floor, deadly still. Wendy quickly turned away in alarm. “Is he?” she asked breathlessly holding Peter close to her as she sat on the floor.

  “Dead? Yes,” Jax answered. His face fell when he saw Peter. “Is he still?” he asked, mirroring her question.

  “Yes. I’ve tried to send his soul back into his body, but he’s not panning. It’s not working.”

  “We’ll save him,” Jax promised. “I promised he’ll come back to you.”

  Wendy nodded, unsure of whether to believe him or not. She looked past Jax to the pod behind him that still held an occupant—Alice, the one who Jax loved. A twinge twisted her heart, and she clutched her chest. Was it jealousy? Why should she care?

  Scanning the ceiling, she saw the glass orbs that the morphlings were created in and understood why Jax had tried to destroy them, but that didn’t seem to stop them. Alice was still dreaming, her eyes twitching, and the morphlings were still forming, just outside of the glass orbs, their shadowy forms collecting in the corners where they would slither up into the street, right into the lost boys.

  “Open it,” Wendy demanded.

  “I can’t,” Jax cried, touching the glass. “If I do, she’ll die.”

  “You’ve never met her,” Wendy argued. “She doesn’t even know you’re alive. What if she doesn’t return your affections?” Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. She wasn’t sure how she knew.

  Wendy took a deep breath, carefully laid Peter out and ran for the tablet, then using the information the shadow had shared with her, she punched in the code and watched as the pod began to drain slowly.

  “How did you know?” Jax said, his face a mix of pain and relief.

  “Candace told me,” Wendy answered, but draining the pod was taking too long. The girl was still dreaming inside.

  Screams rang out from above—another duster injured by a morphling—and Wendy bellowed, “Jax, they’re dying.”

  Jax closed his eyes and took a strengthening breath. Then he flicked out his hand, setting it alight so that it glowed with power, and he reached for the glass pod as if to melt it, then abruptly whipped his hand back in disgust.

  There was another scream from above—this time, Michael’s. She couldn’t wait for Jax to gather his courage. Her brother was in danger and Wendy wouldn’t abandon him a second time. She picked up Hook’s pistol, cocked the slide, and shot into the glass pod, aiming low and away.

  The glass shattered and the rest of the fluid rushed out. Alice crumpled to the ground, her oxygen mask still over her face.

  Jax knocked down the glass around the edges, desperate to help Alice. He lifted her soaking wet form from the pod and carried her to the floor. Prying the breathing mask from her mouth, he stilled in disbelief when he saw her whole face for the first time.

  Her skin was pale as snow. Her blonde hair had a reddish hue. Jax looked over at Wendy in confusion and then back at Alice.

  “How can it be?” he muttered. “It’s impossible.”

  Wendy leaned close to Jax to get a better look and collapsed to the ground in disbelief. Jax reached out to steady her as she stared at the person in his arms with recognition.

  “How?” Jax sobbed out, rocking the dying Alice in his arms.

  More screaming erupted from above, pulling Wendy’s attention upward, where she saw a spider-shaped morphling crawling up the side of the Wonderland building. With the electric security system down, it had no problem throwing its body against the glass, trying to break into the top floor. She had to stop them, had to stop the nightmares.

  Then it came to her.

  “It never happened,” Wendy said aloud and reached out to touch Alice’s limp hand, which felt cold and lifeless between her warm one, and was instantly taken back to the hallway outside Dr. Mee’s office seven years ago, where she’d rocked herself in a chair. “It’s just a dream,” she said softly, and looked up in fear.

  The spider morphling squealed and then began to dissipate, and with a poof, it disappeared into the air, a stream of dark smoke in its wake.

  “I made it all up,” she continued, chanting the mantra she’d used to repeat as a child to calm herself.

  The sleeping Wendy’s eyes began to flutter as she struggled to come awake.

  “Don’t go there, concentrate on better things. Think happy thoughts,” she encouraged herself.
Finally, leaning down, she brushed her lips against her own forehead. For the girl in Jax’s arms was Wendy herself, or a part of her.

  “Wake up, Wendy. Wake up!”

  The sleeping Wendy gasped, her head falling back, and her eyes opened for the first time in years, but her eyes were black, not blue like her own.

  “It’s just a dream,” both of them spoke in unison. With their words, an invisible command filled the air, soaring through the sky, and with it, the power to dispel the nightmares. Hundreds of morphlings dissipated and floated away like seeds from a dandelion.

  Cheers of victory rained down from above as the morphlings disappeared.

  Wendy held her other half, her shadow, her soul, and cried. All the years she thought she was crazy, imagining shadows, but the shadow she was seeing was herself. She had unlocked her own room that night and led herself to the rooftop years ago. It was her own nightmares that plagued the world, and all she had to do was wake up.

  It was her gift, her power over death that allowed her to live without her other half, her shadow.

  It was surreal to be beside her soul, but the longer she was out of the pod the more ethereal she became, her skin becoming colder, translucent. Jax sucked in his breath and touched Alice’s arm.

  Wendy could feel his warm hand touching her own arm, and she looked down in disbelief.

  Her shadow reached for Jax, gently grazing his cheek, and whispered, “I believe.” Then she faded away and a shadow bearing Wendy’s silhouette took her place.

  Scared, nervous and filled with anticipation, Wendy felt her shadow slip inside her body and she became whole. Joy, love and laughter bubbled up within her and a confidence that comes from knowledge. She wasn’t scared anymore.

  Led by her shadow, Wendy turned and kneeled next to Peter’s body. Alone, she hadn’t been strong enough to make him whole again, but Wendy was no longer missing her other half. Now, with the power of dreams and shadows, she might be able to.