The Little Girl and the Shadow

Adventus

"Once upon a time..."

A clichéd phrase, used as the opening to a countless number of tales, all the while its truest meaning becoming lost with each exhausted use.

"Once upon a time..." I will not be so arrogant as to claim I know the very age in which this story takes place. Nor do I believe such a phrase accurately depicts this particular period in time. For you see, this is a story that takes place even before "once upon a time", a time well before we, of the current era, ever established the concept of time—or at least, what we perceive time to be.

In a time before time itself, in an ancient and faraway land devoid of all light there was an age of stagnant decay. It was a time in which the world had been devoured by the great darkness; a calamity brought about by man's lust for power and knowledge. From every corner of the planet, a thick shroud of malevolent gloom blanketed the land, obscuring all light and leaving the world a ruined and desolate husk.

From within this darkness, shadows emerged—beings that were manifestations of the great darkness itself. Humanoid in shape with dark bodies, glowing red eyes, and clawed hands. These shadows wandered the land like mindless drones, shuffling about with no real purpose.

It was a stifling existence, one which seemed par for the course to all but one shadow in particular. A shadow that, by some manner or another, adopted a notion of awareness.

Such a vast and empty world, he often thought. Is there nothing more to this dull existence? Are we to simply wander the land until time's end?

These are but a few of the many thoughts that plagued the aloof shadow. It was a gnawing emptiness, driving him to seek more, to seek something different. Something... interesting.

Perhaps it was this very drive that eventually led him to the light of another. Or perhaps it was destiny itself, acting as playwright to this tale—a tale of an unlikely friendship and a wish that changed the world.