The Shadows Within

Chapter 0

A//N

Hey guys long time no talk

I haven't really been up to writing but I'm trying to change that. Here is a little something from Epi's story. Let me know what you thing please!

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After reaching oblivion I remained there for an immeasurable amount of time. There was no light or dark, there was just an expanse of nothing. It extended on and on forever. I know why I was cursed to be there, even if it wasn't exactly my fault. I had been betrayed many times and left to rot. A god with nothing. Pathetic.

There was no memory or feeling. It was nothing. Until. I felt it. A tug in my soul and then I was ripped from the bleakness and facing a man. He was older, grey hair and wrinkles, wearing a labcoat, a crazed look swam in his eyes. I had seen that look many times before. Someone who thought they deserved something far beyond their grasp.

"Epiales! I did it! I brought back a God!" he was mumbling to himself whilst writing things down in his little notebook. I looked around and noticed we were in some kind of laboratory. A particularly shitty one at that.

As I looked down at myself I realised I was not in a corporeal form rather I was whisks of shadows attempting to hold shape. I was still just a lost soul but no longer in the land of nothingness I was now back on the land of the living, and by fuck was I going to make it everyones problem.

I seemed to be cased in a large tank of some kind, no direct light was able to reach me much to my pleasure, each time a light attempted to find me it simply skirted past. The shadows, my long lost brethren surrounded me and tried to roll themselves around my soul. A small black sphere in the centre of the tank.

"Epiales, as the one who frees you from your prison, I demand that you bestow upon me powers beyond belief and eternal life!" The old man was now screaming at me.

If this little human thought I would give him anything he was crazier than he looked. Not only was I not a life giver, in the slightest but without a form of my own I am unable to even use any of my powers much less give them to another. Another thing I was unable to do, I was never good at creating life. My talents lie in other things.

I continued to stare at the man as he ranted and raved about the things he thought he was owed for bringing me here. Which in itself was a feat because I wasn't supposed to exist anymore this was going to greatly anger some Gods and I couldn't wait to watch that unfold.

It was curious that this human was able to rip me from the bowels of chaos and bring my soul back. I would have thought that sphere would have been destroyed long ago. By the looks of things in this workroom I had missed out on several leaps of technology and advancements. So who had saved my soul from being judged and then destroyed?

"I brought you a body. One of which you can remain in and bestow upon me the gifts you have as thanks for returning you to this realm."

I was intrigued now, a body? If I had my own form I could definitely kill this little vermin and go about righting the wrongs I was delivered. I was unable to talk in this form but that didn't seem to stop the crazy old man. He was now jittering about the room and muttering to himself once more.

He disappeared from view and I was left to ponder if this man actually knew anything about who I was. I was not a God of life. I was a God of the shadows. A God of death and despair. I ruled over the darkest parts of humanity and revelled in it. When I was at my strongest I had many colonies praying to me and supplying me with offerings and gratitude for sparing their family in battle or birthing. If there was a mighty battle I was there to see which souls could not be saved and to see to it that they would go to appropriate places. Whether that be any realm of the afterlife.

Several long moments later the scientist wheeled in something. On a stretcher was a small man. He seemed to be unconscious.

He was small, with long fluffy black hair and dark skin. He was strapped down to the table and was sweating profusely. This isn't exactly a body, rather a living breathing creature. How exactly did he plan on putting my soul into this child?

Where had he found this child? They looked quite young. I wasn't against being put into any form, I had business to complete. If it came at the expense of this child I suppose that would have to do.

My last form was much stronger though and capable of withstanding the tasks I had to complete with the dead and the shadows.

"Epiales! At last you will again have a form, you will bestow upon me great power in return. You will stop the death from invading my body and return me to what I once was. I demand it!"

The crazy old man was screaming at me once again, pointing his finger at me and flailing his arms around whilst gesturing to the corpse.

Ah so he thought I could stop death from getting to him. I suppose in a way I could do that but why would I want to? I owed this man nothing. He brought me back and there would be hell to pay for it. If I didn't kill him now, I am sure that the other Gods would find and kill him for releasing me from my prison.

This life just got a whole lot more interesting.

He began to mumble to himself and draw runes on the body in front of us. As he did so the glowed black, beginning to move and slither around the child. It almost looked like some of my shadows. I could feel the tugs happening at my soul once more.

I was beginning to flicker and my shadows were dispersing and congregating where the runes were being drawn. I felt my soul beijing sucked into the largest rune on the chest of the body. I was in the body now but I couldn't seem to get the body to respond.

I felt a curious tap on my soul and encountered the host of this body and his shifter spirit.

How interesting this life would be indeed.