The Weight of Exhaustion

Chapter Sixteen: The Escape

Shadow made several curses going through his head as he followed behind Void.

Of course, of-freaking-course, Void ended up screwing something up with that machine and now they were dealing with the fallout. Since fate couldn't have handed him a worse deck of cards for his life.

He wasn't even physically two yet and his life was already in a downward spiral! Shadow blew a hair strand out of his face, glaring at the back of Void as they walked down the hallway.

What was worse though was that Sabre was being carried by Void, coughing roughly every few minutes. Since fate decided to laugh at his misery, that wasn't even the worst thing! The worst thing Shadow would say was that Shadow could feel Sabre's emotions like he could with other beings of Darkness.

Which meant that Sabre had darkness in him. Add up the coughing and well, Shadow has an idea of where it was.

Shadow would be less upset about having that issue if something good came from the failure of the machine. No, his physicality did not count, since he wasn't even completely physical!

As they walked down the hallways back to their cell, Shadow would occasionally take a step only to phase through the floor. When he would occasionally try and tap the wall, the same thing would happen with his hand. Sometimes his fingers would tap the wall, sometimes his hand would just go through the wall.

Whatever made him physical was wearing off slowly, so Shadow had to think of a way to escape now before he lost the ability to interact with the world once more.

Shadow frowned when the emotions from Sabre suddenly cut off, signaling that he either passed out or just fell asleep. Shadow had a feeling it was the former.

Shadow grumbled when he was put back into the cell they started in, glaring at Void the entire time. What was annoying was that he just seemed annoyed with Shadow, as if he was some unruly child that wasn't behaving properly.

If he thought Shadow was unruly, he will show Void unruly.

Sabre was handled off to him when he was in the cell completely. He nearly dropped him in the process, but it seems as if he was lucky enough to stay physical so Sabre didn't just hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. He quickly stepped back, getting Sabre as far away from Void as possible. Would it do much? No, but it helped the anxiety that twisted in his gut.

Origin, what he wouldn't give to be able to turn off these annoying emotions.

Void rolled his eyes at his reaction, but said nothing as the lever to shut the door flipped up, locking them back in. His footsteps retreated quickly, leaving Shadow alone as he tried to clean the pieces of darkness off of Sabre.

Of course, it would be easier if every few movements he ended up phasing through the floor or Sabre, sometimes both.

It took a few tries, but Shadow managed to get Sabre back on the bed once all the darkness was cleaned off as best as he could. It's not like Shadow was able to strike lightning on his to clean it.

Shadow blinked. Wait...

Focusing inwards, Shadow nearly cackled in surprise and glee. A familiar feeling of pure energy, a feeling that he lost when he became just a shadow, was resting inside of him. It was a pitiful amount, not even enough to fight if needed, but it was something.

Not like he was actually going to hit Sabre with lightning, since A- Sabre clearly does not need to be struck with more electricity and B- Shadow didn't need anyone finding out about the fun little fact.

Now all he had to do was find a way to get Sabre and him out of here without dying, to any of the Chromatic Steves without him being seen. All while Sabre was definitely not in top form.