Kayden Van Din
She couldn't grin wider if she tried. Kayden felt a sense of happiness as she pushed herself up from the green grass. Norman and Brannon were silent, their mouths sealed with secrets, their brains fogged with worry. Her brothers, the weight of her existence were finally gone.
She could be free, if she wanted. She could leave this dream-like stage and wonder aimlessly in the forest. But what about Eryn and Shadow? What was Kayden to make of them? She could assume Eryn's body lie rotting amidst the trees somewhere and forget about it. Eryn was just another victim of her thought.
Shadow was no enemy. It was her accomplish, the doer of her ideas. Kayden laughed softly.
"I've been running from It this whole time when Shadow is exactly what I need." She wickedly grinned. "It's exactly what I need."
And for once Kayden felt relaxed as the dream dissipated around her.
Shadow slithered like a snake towards her, and this time she did not try to run.
"You'll stick around?" It asked and Kayden was shocked. The voice that came from the creature wasn't snake-like in the slightest, like one would think. Instead, it sounded oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. It was distantly familiar.
"Um..." She started, taken back a bit. "Yeah. I-I think so."
"What made you realize it?" It was like taking to a voice without a body. A teenage boy voice, like a boy from school or something.
"Realize what?" Kayden responded like Shadow was an old friend that she hadn't seen in a while.
"That you need me." The statement could've been something out of a novel written for teenage love enjoyment.
"I don't need you." She recoiled from the creature, her past fear of it momentarily returning. "I just know that I can't run from you. I have fully acknowledged the fact that you are a piece of me and I think it is you who needs me." She felt crazy talking to a shadowy glimmer, but the voice felt so relatable. So real. If Shadow were a human being, the voice would match perfectly to a boy with cropped hair and a broad nose. His eyes would be lighter than his chocolate skin accompanied by a short physic. This was crazy.
"Are you suggesting that I'm a short little black boy with no friends except you?" Shadow blurted suddenly, which made It even more realistic to Kayden.
"No!" Kayden exclaimed, even more astonished than before. "How did you-? Get out of my head, you little parasite!" She plugged her ears and shut her eyes, trying to block out everything she'd just heard. Soon, very soon, she would wake up with Norman knocking on the door asking if he wanted to play chess. And she would groan and tell him to go away. Yes, that's what all of this was, a freakishly long nightmare with everything bloody red.
"I'm still here, you know? And watch what you call me, too. I can give the full-fledged experience of what it feels like to have me wrapped around your neck."
She could see Shadow in her head, his face contorting into a glare. His threat was terrifying, but Kayden knew that It wouldn't hurt another part of Itself. And that's what she was. "Can you look human? I mean, I can't be getting these images from nowhere." She tried to reason with herself to avoid going completely insane. Even though everything that was happening to her seemed to convince her of just that.
