Shadow Beings

16. Journey

A few months later...

Truth and Time are two things that we Shadow-Trappers value greatly. It's one of our core beliefs, that our time on Earth is for us to search for the Truth and realise it, even though no one knows what it is. Perhaps it's our true history, our true nature, our true origin, everything about the world... our true self. Perhaps it's nothing or the essence of nothingness. Who knows?

We need time for such a quest and for the present, that would be focused on the demon lord. 

Perhaps the Truth of Vlad is what we should seek now.

The past few months were uneventful at the surface as we mostly prepared the shadow-trappers for what could happen in the future, what we all had to now focus on, while my team and a few others focused on understanding the book. It was the definition of evasive information, but it didn't consist of solely texts. There were certain auras or energies or recondite concepts that I think could only make sense in certain situations in the future.

Our defences have been upgraded thanks to Elek, Galen and a few other Shadow-trappers. The smile on Elek's face, whenever he sees his work function perfectly, is highly contagious. Perhaps having defences is odd for us as shadow-trappers, but the demons could attack us and we had to be prepared.

I don't want anything to happen to the headquarters. Not the place, nor the people here.

There hadn't been any action from the demons either, at least till our knowledge extends. They seemed to simply reacquaint themselves with their land - Jay said its aura didn't feel as much of a listless shell as it did before - and they were probably regaining their energy...

Would it have been better to strike them when they were weaker? No, it doesn't matter. They aren't our enemy. Do people understand that? Have we successfully conveyed this thought to the rest of the shadow-trappers?

I took a deep breath, looking at Holly's endearing figure sitting near the vast bed of flowers, many colours from our visible spectrum surrounding the shadow as she sat still, but her compassionate aura showed she enjoyed a conversation with them. The soft sunlight seemed to brighten the glow on her face, the one she had any time she was surrounded by such lively nature.

Suddenly, a strong wind blew, causing a few of the aged flowers to blow away. A sad look immediately came into Holly's eyes and she closed her eyes. Holly said she liked to think of air as an entity of death for flowers and leaves, but sometimes she felt certain actions of nature were caused by animal activities, not necessarily evolution. She simply felt the aura.

The breeze was still evident but it had softened to a great extent, alleviating everything it moved through. Holly opened her eyes and I walked to her, curious, although my jogging brother beat me to it.

"How did you do that? Did you talk to the wind?"

Holly chuckled. "Not really, communication can be achieved through other ways, too. The energy that runs through the wind is in us too, Jack. We simply need to be calm and let it recognise the pulse of our energy. Abstract energy can affect physical energy! That's one of the powers of our minds," She replied with a smile, kindness shining in her eyes. She really had grown so much during her time with Aqdas, I thought I couldn't be prouder of her.

"I don't know about the power of minds, but the power of Holly is stronger than the power of Audrey."

My ears perked up at the random mention of my name.

"Hey!" I protested. "Why am I brought into this?"

"Well, Holly rhymes with Audrey so it seemed to fit." Jack shrugged.