Science fiction. The Violent Verse

Science fiction. The Violent Verse

"Yes, let him come!"

These were his last words. When he spoke about the man whom he had seen once; and he knew he would return. And along with him he would bring a world replete with horrors of a different kind, and shadows of agony that shall follow him wherever he sets his foot.

And when the man entered, the room turned dark, filled with shadows, there were so many of them that it was difficult to establish which one belonged to him. They say he had been raised by the kingdom of the Sun and that is why the Moon was bound to fall in love with him, and in recognition of this love, she gifted him shadows. Endless and infinite number of shadows.

Well, that is the myth many people believe in but the man who said, "yes, let him come!" Knew a lot more, because he knew the reality of the Shadow Man.

And these shadows are not what you get to see everyday, or the ones we cast everyday. These shadows are different, they are cast by some mysterious source of energy, and whatever is covered by these shadows gets consumed and vanishes forever. Erasing its every trace of existence. So, a few of us believe there is more to the myth of the Shadow Man than what most of us know.

Right now, in this room, it is the man who said, "Yes, let him in!" Who is being consumed by the shadows and he is disappearing inch by inch right before our eyes.

In a few minutes there was nothing left of him, just a memory that his mirror bore of him, apart from that nothing else. Every bit of him had disappeared, and when the shadow fell flat on the floor, the strange man , the Shadow Man, looked at all of us and addressed us with words that revealed his desire for absolute authority. Over us, and then through us, over our entire planet. His message was clear, " From now onwards, you will be the planet living under my shadows. And from today on, the Sun will shine but your planet will get to witness its sunshine only when and where, my shadows please. And if any of you disobeys my orders you will meet a fate similar to the man who welcomed me into the room. So, you better get used to this new life or you find a life that suits you better, and of course it shall be a life without the Sun and the Moon. Because now they lie in the domain of my command."

We all were speechless and we had nothing to say at all. We kept looking at his shadows. Shadows that were constantly shivering, shadows that spread far and wide; and then rolled back unto him after having spread out freely for a minute or so. Seeing these dark and ever stretching shadows felt like witnessing a dark sea that had turned violent. And it had been so violent that it had developed a taste for an obedient but decency seeking restlessness. And right now, each one of us was being careful not to fall into this restless sea, because if that happened the ill fated person would then be lost in these endless waves of dark shadows. Whose mere touch could make you disappear forever. So, we had assumed body postures where our heads popped out like a keenly watching kingfisher', and our bodies resembled that of a meerkat on guard.

While we stood there completely startled, the man moved a bit and gradually turned around, and somehow the shadows turned too, and in a moment he contained them like a Japanese foldable hand fan. That he constantly furled and unfurled at will. And as he walked past us trying to understand our moods, the texture of his shadows varied whenever he looked into the eyes of each one of us. It felt as if his shadows were trying to establish our physical identities and our biological signatures as well.

As soon as he had stored the biological signature of the last one of us, he unfurled the shadows and they began crawling in our direction. He could read the terrified looks on our faces, and before we fainted or did something awkward, he tried to make us feel comfortable, "Do not worry! I am the master of these shadows, and they only obey my will. And I neither have the reason nor the need to kill anyone of you. And that means if these shadows fall upon any of you, you shall not be consumed by them. So, there is no need to panic because I have no reason to hurt anyone of you!"