Shadow Things

II

The sound of the wind was a muffled rush in his ears.

He was falling too fast, each storey of the high-rise hurtling away towards the midnight sky. His heart had jumped to his throat and his muscles had bunched up on their own, tensing for the moment of impact. Darkness seemed to be closing in on him, peeling upwards around him like a cradle of death. Or perhaps it was the shadows, coming out to eat him.

Hansel did register that his death was imminent, that this was really going to be the end for him. But his head stayed devoid of any thoughts or emotions. No fear. No surprise. No memories snaking out of the dark recesses of his mind to sting him one last time. Blank. Undisturbed. He was falling and that was it.

Briefly, his eyes snagged on the grinning boy up on the roof. The boy's smile was brazen, his eyes shining conspiratorially, as though he was about to tell a wicked secret while Hansel fell fell fell—

And stopped.

If Hansel hadn't been looking at the boy he wouldn't have seen it, and if he hadn't felt the jarring tug in his guts he wouldn't have believed. But Hansel had kept his eyes on the boy. So he didn't miss the moment the boy reached over the edge and caught him.

The boy didn't catch Hansel with his hands, he caught him with shadows.

Hansel saw the boy stretch out his arms, saw the long shadow ribbons unfurling from them like a magic trick, then dropping towards Hansel like the fast strokes of a brush. The ribbons wound around his torso to make an impromptu harness, stretching with his weight, then pulling taut at the last possible moment, right before his body could collide with the street below and break.

The ribbons sprung him back into the air, jerking his limbs aside, and when they went slack again Hansel's arms swung downwards and the back of his hands scraped over the grimy stones of the street. His feet found purchase on the ground and his shoes dragged with his determination to keep himself from bouncing up again.

For a dizzying second Hansel saw the world upside down: everything hanging from a ceiling paved with stone. There were hazy boxes of light in the far distance, spilling out of rows and columns of square windows and fading imperceptibly into the rich, velvety darkness. Then he twirled himself upright, planting his feet firmly on the ground while he tried to unentangle himself from the shadow ribbons in vain.

The shadows were bizarre things—they were at once material and incorporeal, solid yet intangible. A shadow could touch a human, cut him up or kill him, but the same wouldn't work in reverse. A human cannot lay a hand on a shadow, neither with skin nor with weapons, which, essentially, made the creatures invincible.

Even though he knew this Hansel still grappled with the ribbons binding him, trying to pluck them away. But his fingers just kept slipping through. The ribbons pulled back slightly, and Hansel felt his feet lose touch with the ground. A dull frustration began building up inside him; he could care less about shadows chasing him down the streets or stabbing him, but he hated being trapped like this, dangling from the ribbons like a marionette. What was the boy trying to do?

The boy. Hansel's eyes skipped towards the roof he'd just fallen from, but with the poor angle and lighting Hansel couldn't make out the boy's shape or location.

Was he a twin? A long-lost brother? Was that why he and Hansel looked so much alike? It would also explain how the boy knew Hansel's birth date.

Hansel twisted in his restraints fruitlessly. How come the boy had the ability to manipulate shadows? How did he know Hansel's name?

Who was he?

Whoever he was the boy didn't seem to be given to gentleness. Hansel felt a violent tug come through the ribbons, causing his teeth to clack together. He shot back into the air like a ball on a string, and when he was high enough, he was tossed onto the roof equally unceremoniously. Hansel landed in a bad tumble, hitting his knee against the weathered concrete. The ribbons stayed attached as he rolled with the momentum, tangling him up in knots that had neither beginning, nor end, weaving together and wrapping around like cassette film stirred in a bowl.