Shadow Town

Chapter 8(Ending)

She woke up screaming again, but then she realized it wasn't her screams. It was a man's. It was Dakota's. She tried looking for the source, but realized it was directly behind her. She assumed they were chained to the same tree, on opposite sides unable to see each other. She was glad she couldn't see his bloody body, but she got a good guess of how badly he was hurt from the screaming and yelling. She forgot all about her own pain, it was drowned out by Koda's. She couldn't bare it and started to uncontrollably sob. Not because she was scared or hurt and dying, she felt incredibly guilty and responsible for everything that was happening to Koda right then. She'd never sobbed that like in her life, she barely cried when her uncle died, but the burden of another human's pain was the ultimate sadness. Koda must've heard her sobs in between his screams and stopped. All she heard now was stifled grunts, but this made her feel even more terrible.

The grunting stopped after a couple minutes, then footsteps pattered away and complete silence.

"A-astor? Are you there?" Koda said, sounding completely defeated.

Astor stiffled her crying and sniffled,"Behind you."

"I think you were unconscious for most of it, but you can probably guess what happened considering our current circumstance," he sighed,"I'm sorry, i should've been more prepared for that to happen."
    "Don't you dare be fucking sorry, Dakota Burnes," Astors said quietly, trying to suppress her anger,"I'm the one who's sorry, all of this is my fault...God, i should've listened to you"

"Why didn't you listen to me, Astor? Why don't they ever listen?" he said softly.

"I-I just" she sighed then answered,"I thought you were completely bonkers and your face scared me and-"

"Im not that ugly, am I?" she couldn't see him, but she imagined him cracking that stupid smirk.

"No it's just you have a wide smile and large eyes, just like the people you were describing and my brain switched to stupid mode and thought you were one of them. Also, it didn't help having dead bodies hanging in one of your rooms. Like, what the hell was that?"

"Hmmmm" he pondered then said,"I think maybe my face is permanently like that now. Even when i'm relaxed. But, i can't really help it. It just stuck when i had to do it everyday to blend in with them. It's like a survival instinct, smile or die."

"But what about the bodies?"

"That, i'm not proud of. I was planning on showing you once you were properly incorporated, but i didn't plan on you finding out immediately after initiation. I started capturing subhumans a couple months ago to extract any kind of information i could get, and it kinda escalated to torturing. Of course, i had to kill all of the ones i captured which was okay but the concept of torturing didn't sit well with me at first. So this whole ordeal is kinda ironic, i guess i'm getting my just desserts," his voice was slightly shaky.

"Koda, you shouldn't of came after me."

"I had to at least try, damnit. The other ones I didn't go after because I was too scared of what would happen to me. That was very selfish of me..."

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't of left," Astor started crying again, but this time quietly so he didn't know.

"I forgive you, Astor. I'm not going to die holding a grudge. And I don't think what you did was stupid, you did what any normal human being would've done and I can't blame you for that," Dakota sounded completely calm now, his voice devoid of any pain.

"Why did you tie me to a chair when you knew I was hurt?" she blurted suddenly, tears were still running down her face.

"I don't know, this place was kind of driving me crazy. I thought it would be a good idea to put you in initiation before you knew anything about this place. I wanted to study your behavior in a situation where you would be trapped and hurt. It was a sort of test and you sorta failed. I was testing you because i was planning on kind of being a mentor. Teach you how to survive and stuff like that, if you were to stay. Im sorry, im just realizing right now that that was kind of a shitty thing to do."

She sniffled,"How did you get here? And how did you know you had to stay here?"

"Well to be honest first time I came here I thought I was having a bad trip," he burst out chuckling,"I was so high, when I saw everybody smiling at me I just smiled back. I went to town looking for a bar, but they didn't have one. I went into the forest and wandered around for awhile, until I realized that nothing was going back to normal. So I went back to the giant black marble pyramid, I don't have a name for that yet, and tried to go back into one of the holes but it wouldn't let me. While I was trying to get in, another guy came out and we scared each other to death. His name was Mike and he was sort of a military guy, really big and muscular, bad attitude and short temper. I explained to him where he was as best as I could but he didn't believe me. So we snuck into town together and observed and I swear I've never seen such a large guy get that scared. The weird thing about Mike was that he always had a plan for everything, like he came up with every possible outcome as he went along. He wanted to stay and observe the town, so i stuck with him. A couple hours after we met, he broke into the house that is currently mine and killed 2 subhumans with his bare hands. We decided that was where we were going to stay. He stayed there for about a week and mapped the whole place out, gathered food we stole, wrote down everything that happened in an empty journal he found. Well one night, i guess he decided he didn't like me or something and left town. I awoke in the morning alone, and waited the whole day for him to come back. I knew something was wrong so i went out looking for him. Well the morning after he left i found him. He was in this courtyard, bloodied and beaten, tied to this very tree, and he hung himself with his own chains. Now i wasn't sure what happened but there was another guy tied to the tree beside him who cleared things up for me. This guy was on the verge of death, he was red all over and extremely emaciated. He took a look at me and screamed, DON'T LEAVE! with his last dying breath, then he dropped dead. Now i'm a pretty rational person, but this place isn't rational. You follow it's crazy rules and it doesn't hurt you. Sweetheart, the devil himself created this hellhole." He wheezed and she heard sputtering, he was choking on his own blood. He started breathing heavily and both she and him fell silent for a while.

"What is this place?"

"Some kind of strange dimension, I guess. I have a couple of theories. This town is either controlled by some kind of sadistic higher being or it's some kind of parasitic living thing. It feeds on negativity, emotions like fear, sadness, anger. The previous eight revealed to me an extent of their earth situations and none of them were good, all of them were depressed. I have another theory. You know how sometimes stuff just goes randomly missing, never to be found, like it was swallowed up by the void? I'm guessing that missing stuff ends up here, actually swallowed up by the void. That's how this town is able to function, it's supplied with magically disappearing objects. Everything from food, to clothes, to my unused hospital supplies was stolen from the real world. Everything but fucking chocolate!" He raised his voice slightly at the last comment, and sighed. "I don't have a theory for the creepy subhumans though, or why they function like normal humans. But you can thank the sadistic higher beings for their wonderfully creeptastic imaginations for coming up with that crap," he let out a "thank you" and then fell silent. There was a deafening silence for a while, only broken by labored breath and tiny groans.

Astor broke the silence and told him to talk about his personal life. They exchanged stories for a while, but they didn't know how long because the red in the sky didn't change at all. They talked in low muttering voices, occasionally chuckling half-heartedly or crying. They talked about their families, friends, dreams, ambitions, lovers, enemies, favorites and dislikes. They unleashed their deepest feelings, thoughts and secrets with each other and they did it shamelessly. After a couple hours of talking and coughing they knew each other better than anyone back on earth, more than their families, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends. They were in a silent mutual agreement to send their last mortal legacies into each others dying heads. Dakota was the first to die. The silence Astor had to endure was more painful than any mortal wound inflicted on her. She didn't believe in God, but if there was one she thought, she cursed him for letting this dimension exist. As she bled the last of her blood out, and her heart started slowing her last thoughts weren't on her mom or dad, her closest friends: Amanda the trombone player, Leo the runner, or Matt the painter, her dog or dead fish. Her own life didn't flash before her eyes, but Dakota's did. Her last thoughts were on Dakota the stranger, his legacy that she ended. She was willing to bet his last thoughts were on herself, the girl he tried to save.

The End