Inside the Shadow

Chapter Twenty-one: The Love I Had Lost - POV Zach

      “La ‘afhamu. Hal tusafir haqana ma hadatha?” My father's reaction to my attempt to find an appropriate excuse for being on a mission, one to find where this unknown place was that Fatima left for. He spoke, meaning, ‘I don’t understand. Are you really traveling after what happened?’ Having left only four days ago, his words rang in my mind as if he were there with me now. I felt horrible for leaving my father while he was down and in need of comfort, but I believed that I wouldn’t have been able to find my way to the strange place I had been led to that night. Even having only left twenty minutes after Fatima, she had been out of sight, and she had gotten quite far in that short time. Having known that the hospital had become a hotspot for strange occurrences in my personal experience, I headed there first, seeing her vehicle in the lot. I pulled in after her, running inside to be greeted by Dr. Krueger, who seemed to react as if she were expecting me. I then pleaded with her, hoping she held the answers that I sought within my search for Fatima. Dr. Krueger acted as if our interaction was completely normal, like she wanted to willingly guide me to where I wanted to go. She had done just that and brought me into a room that held a different sort of portal rift from the one Key spoke of with Fatima. It was the opening rift for transportation between worlds.  

      “Hesitation can cause panic. Embrace the journey.” The way she spoke was as if she already knew of what lay on the other side. “Alright.” I whispered under my breath as I worked up the courage to just go for it. Passing through the liquidy rift, the transportation of my body led me to the new world. The outline of people greeting me as I was now fully out, their skin oozed black ink like, as if they had Venom himself infused within their very being; unlike any living being I had ever seen on Earth. “Hello there, do you remember your name?” One of the female staff questioned as if it were common for newcomers to hold an effect of amnesia. “Uh... Zach... Zachariah.” I responded in a sort of daze as if I had a sort of cloud over my mind; everything seemed slightly hazy. My task stayed the same; nonetheless, find Fatima and this Key guy. I honestly still held no true reason for me wanting to come this far, but there was no stopping me now. “Welcome, Zachariah. My name is Calista, and his name is Noam. It’s our job to help you become aware of the ways of our land and assist with the adjustment to how different everything will seem at first. Come with us and we’ll get you filed and properly settled.”  

      It was now my fourth day of exploring the new world, and there was very little left that surprised me. Yesterday, they held some sort of grand festival to whom they had deemed their savior. I never got to see them up close, but they seemed to be quite the big deal. “Anything I can help you with?” Came the voice of the female shop attendant, a common lower-level market, one of many. I was really only exploring their realm in search of oddities that I had never seen on Earth. “I’m not looking for anything specific, but I was interested in these.” I paused on a pair of new shoes; They were just my size and my favorite shade of spirulina green. I raised them to check the price; I had a bit of money left from a small fortune that every newcomer is granted to help them settle into the new world. “For you, I can do half off that price, a sort of newcomer discount.” The female Shadowish shop attendant had come over to me in an effort to be more helpful. Them now being half off, I could afford them and still eat later on. “That’s quite the generous offer. I couldn’t say no to that.” I handed over the coins and changed into my new footwear, much nicer than the base ones given with the newcomer attire. Leaving the shop, I placed my old shoes in my bag and proceeded back on my search for Key and Fatima. As I made my way through the rest of the marketplace, I questioned what my next step would be to lead to what I wished to know. Passing many civilians, both human and shadowish, I felt lost.  

      Not truly having a proper destination, no one here for me, and no one even knowing why I was here, not even me. The past few days had felt like complete chaos, even now, as I began to realize that it would appear that I was left to come to this world for myself. I needed adventure, a way of feeling like I’m not who I was back home. Being here, no one knew me or truly cared to find out. I could be anyone I wanted to be, and given that I left all of my Earthly luxuries behind, that helped form the persona I wanted people to see within me. Now here, I, being a commoner of a kind, held nothing, no way to be the flashy and cocky guy I wished to appear as. As a commoner, I was given a place to stay, a communal home where we all stayed in sectioned rooms where we would have our own rooms with a few roommates, and a communal restroom that bared the basic amenities. No fancy chains or clothes, no extra resources such as special hair products that I was used to daily; Only stuff one needs to sleep, eat, shit, shave, and repeat. To be honest, I never worked hard for anything I had, so being in this state of living was a sort of wake-up call. Now I really had to put my big boy pants on and basically start from scratch. Coming to the realization that I had already spent most of my wealth within four days, I thought my first step should be to find a form of work.