writing_shadows

This has been kicking around in my head for the last 3 years or so. It's still not what I really pictured in my head, far from good enough, but then I still don't rate my abilities as a writer at all. Hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Erin looked around as she left the club. As she expected, she could see that strange guy again, just down the road, rummaging through some rubbish. As she looked at him, he looked up back at her, and she felt that shiver again, that she got from time to time around people, usually when there was some sort of oddness around, that almost no-one else appeared to notice. It was one of the reasons she’d fallen in with Mal and his group. He didn’t try and gloss over what was really there, he believed her when she said there were things out there that defied explanation. More, he said he had a line to real secrets.

She had to admit, she’d been a little dubious when she first heard about him and his group. She’d joined so many similar ones over the years, searching for those truths she could feel just over the next hill, that there was more to this world than what everyone just accepted as the norm. But they’d all been variations on the theme of drawing in the gullible, none giving her that shiver that she’d come to rely on for signs of true weirdness. Until Mal. His real name was Malcolm, but Mal suited him better, for all that it was an obvious affectation. He seemed somehow more in touch with the world unseen, and he could provide proof where others used trickery.

But now it seemed that the oddness that she’d noticed all her life was focussing more on her, since she’d first met Mal a few weeks ago. It was a day after her first meeting with him and his followers (she really wasn’t sure what word to use- she was one of them, but she didn’t think of herself as a follower- she just wanted to know some truths about the world that she could feel, and he was the first person she’d met that might be able to do that) that she’d first seen this strange guy. He looked like one of the random homeless people you saw in London, but when she’d got near him, her weirdness sense (she had to think of a better phrase for it than that, too), had gone off the scale. Without meaning to, she’d half-jumped away from him, and then he’d actually looked straight at her, stared at her for a bit then frowned.

Since then, she’d seen him frequently- almost every other day, she’d turn around, or look up, and there he’d be. He was always doing something innocuous, but she knew he was stalking her. The trouble was, every time she tried to point him out to someone, he just wasn’t there. Worse, she had to keep reminding her friends about him in the first place. It was like they just couldn’t remember he existed at all.

Still, not even her weird new stalker could dampen her mood entirely for tomorrow. She’d got an email from Mal saying that he’d finally “broken through”, and he had new insights to share with them all.
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The next day dawned, and she managed to get through her typical Sunday okay, despite the excitement building as the evening (and her meeting with Mal and his group) approached.

That evening, she headed to Mal’s house, keeping an eye out for her phantom stalker, but there was no sign of him. She got where she was going (a nice part of Wimbledon- Mal never talked about it, but he seemed to have money from somewhere- he managed to keep up a decent sized detached house in a good area after all).

She got to the front door, rang the bell, and the door was opened by one of the regular members of the group she recognised. He seemed a bit odd though- like he wasn’t all there or something. When she asked how he was, his only response was to say, “Mal awaits you in the living room. You should go to him now”. Weirded out somewhat, she proceeded into the house.

She knew something was wrong as soon as she entered the living room- she could feel that tingle that was a sure sign of oddness, and the only person in the room (Mal, she assumed) appeared to be sitting on the far side of the room, but it was hard to tell, as all the lights were off, and the shadows seemed to gather around him.

Feeling bizarrely like she was somehow suddenly in a horror film, she said, “Mal?”, whilst fumbling for the light switch. As the light illuminated the room, she almost wished she hadn’t. For the first time, she understood those people who’d talked to her of the price of knowledge. Because what was sitting in that chair wasn’t Mal. Oh, it looked like him, somewhat, but shadows clung to him even with the lights on, and there was a radiance in his eyes that was nothing natural. Besides, she’d learned to trust her instincts in these matters, and they were all screaming at her.

“Who are you?”, she said- having narrowly changed from saying ‘what are you?’.
The figure in the chair stood up and looked at her and said, in a voice that was totally unnatural, yet felt so right that Erin had trouble listening to what it was saying.

I am the truth that you seek. Worship and obey me!

As it spoke, she felt a desire to do what it had said wash over her, to submit and glory in its presence, listen to what truths it would reveal. But she shook her head and forced her mind out of the haze it was getting in to. A part of her at the core fought back, telling her that this was wrong, and she shouldn’t obey. She clung to that core, and fought back against whatever it was that was trying to make her obey this thing that had once been someone she thought of as a positive acquaintance at the very least.

Registering her resistance, the figure frowned, then spoke once more.

All must worship and obey. Those who do not are as nothing. Thus you shall be as nothing.

It gestured towards her, and she could see a ripple in the air moving towards her, destroying everything in its path. She closed her eyes, realising that she’d finally found some of the truth of the unseen world, and it was going to kill her. She braced herself for the pain. And then, after a few more seconds had passed with nothing happening, she opened one eye again.

And she was treated to the view of a familiar back. She recognised the unkempt hair of her recent stalker, and, now she had a moment, the smell of unwashed clothes, and unwashed people wearing them hit her nose. And then it hit her even more- her sense for the strange was going off the scale- almost more than she could cope with, after everything else that had just happened.

Moving slightly so he could face her without letting whatever had replaced Mal out of his sight- in fact, one hand was kept braced in that direction, the homeless guy spoke, “I’m sorry it came to this. I had hoped I could track it down before it got this far, but my only clue was the faint mark on you.”

Erin managed to get out, “W-what the hell is going on?”

“Things that most were not meant to see. Most are safer in a world asleep. But you have opened your eyes a little, and so, here we are.”

Her anger at everything that was happening burned through the caution that had previously been overwhelming her.

“Well, thanks very much Mr Cryptic, but if that wasn’t the least helpful answer I’ve ever heard, it’s got to be in the top ten!”

Her mysterious stalker-turned-rescuer did at least have the decency to look somewhat embarrassed at this, before responding,

“Um, I’m sorry, I’m not actually very good at people. But before Revels-In-Secrets-and-Worship, and the poor sod it Claimed recover from what I just did, I’m going to ask you- do you want to see what happens next? And I mean truly see?”

Seeing her about to responding swiftly and angrily, he stops her.

“I’m serious. You have a foot in the door, which is why I can ask you. But if you say yes, there’s no going back. You’ll have entered a world of terror- and wonder- that you never imagined, but unless you’re amazingly lucky, you’ll go from being the one-eyed woman in the kingdom of the blind, to the same in the kingdom of the sighted. And that’s not the half of it. But you deserve the choice. Actually everyone should deserve the choice, but they don’t. Yet. You do though, so choose.”

Erin paused, his serious tone breaking through her sudden anger. Then she gathered her wits, took a deep breath and responded.

“Yeah, I want to see- I couldn’t walk away now, knowing what I do, knowing that there’s more, and live with myself. So, even if it is the worse option, I choose knowledge.”

“I can’t argue with that- and I don’t really want to. So then.”

He makes no gestures, but her senses suddenly tingle further, until suddenly she can see a whole new world before her. The slightly hunched figure before her, whilst still every bit as dirty and unkempt is now clearly wrapped in a plethora of bright coronas. And, bizarrely, looking at him, she feels like he’s somehow a part of the city, without being able to explain how.

On the other hand, she can now literally see Mal with different eyes. Overlaying him is some sort of semi-humanoid shape, that clearly is not and has never been human. It appears shackled in some way by something connected to the man in front of her, but as she watches, the shackles decay and disappear.

You may not interfere, it is my right to be worshipped!

“Seriously, have you not been paying attention? You know you’re not supposed to be here, and you must recognise me.”

He sighs.

“Still, I suppose you do as you are driven to. But my understanding that doesn’t make any difference for you, in the end. You’ve broken the rules, and you’ve hurt people doing so. So I get to stop you.”

The entity seems to reach out to her sight with glowing chains, but they shatter and crumble against the corona of the man in front of her. With increasing desperation, it lashes out with glowing knives that ripple through the air in an identical fashion to what it had tried to do to her. She flinches instinctively, but looks in wonder as they, too, crumble against the same corona. Then she feels a gathering of power, and the man speaks again.

“Enough. Hear my will – you may not act again on this plane until I give you leave.”
She witnesses new energies reaching from the man in front of her, and wrapping the thing inside Mal in a cocoon of energy.

After this, he turns to her again and says, “This next bit will take a little while. But there’s no reason you need to watch it. I can save your friend- although he will probably never be the same again, and there is nothing I can do about that. It would be both relatively dull, and unpleasant, for you. But again, I give you the choice.”

“You’re really not that good with people, are you? Of course I want to see, after what I’ve just witnessed.”

Ruefully, he shrugs.

“Fair enough. I’ve really got to work on my Gandalf schtick some time…”
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Erin would never reveal to anyone what she had watched that evening. By the end of it, Mal was once again Mal (although he had a large gap in his memory, and never seemed to regain the confidence that he’s once had), and what she had been told was Revels-In-Secrets-and-Worship had ceased to be. As they’d walked away from a house now full of sleeping people, her new friend had assured her that, once they woke up, they’d be “as okay as they can be”. She debated trying to pin down an answer with more detail, but figured she’d have more time in future to get some answers out of the slightly-ineptly enigmatic figure beside her. Which reminded her…

“So, are you now going to pull a ‘right I’ve sorted this out, now time to sod off’ on me? I mean, you gave me all that crap about a world that I’d chosen to enter and all that, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard someone pull a line like that…hell, I don’t even know your name. Or why you can apparently defeat creatures from another dimension, but can’t work out how to take a bath. Or dress right.”

He looked at her wryly, sighed (again, he noticed- he seemed quite fond of sighing at things), and responded.

“Oh, you’re going to be hilarious. No, I’m not going to abandon you- as a matter of fact, I can’t, with what you know now. You should listen to me when I offer choices. Anyway, you can call me Talks. And to forestall your next question, yes, there’s more than that. “

He hands here a scrap of paper.

“That’s my phone number. Get a good night’s sleep, then we’ll get on with showing you the kingdom of the sighted. This’ll be one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ things. Laters.”

While she was still thinking up a suitable comeback, Talks looked around carefully, then, while she was looking at him, took a step forwards and vanished.

As she walked home, Erin thought, “It’s still bloody irritating when he does that…”