The Divided Earth

Shadow Beacon

Thomas was dazed and confused. He was on the ground looking up at what seemed to be his silhouette cooked into a solid black shape in the air above him. The others had escaped. Whisked safely away in a twister to some remote sanctuary. 

It took him a few minutes to gain his senses. He curiously looked over his surroundings. They were strange and unfamiliar. The world he was in seemed unnatural. The landscape was surreal and dreamlike . 

The rocks, trees and hills of this strange place seemed to float on thin transparent rectangular sheets. The sheer planes gradually changed the landscape as they slowly pushed past each other. The only thing not shifting in his field of vision was a dark silhouette. It was a mans silhouette. It rose next to him like some ghastly disconnected shadow. 

Thomas crossed his arms, shifted his weight onto one leg and keenly observed his silhouette. His dark disconnected shadow imitated his movements. He wasn't sure at first but now he was sure. It was a dark reflection of himself.

An odd sensation stirred in Thomas. The intentionally conspicuous shadow beckoned to Thomas like a lighthouse calling to a ship.He suddenly had the urge to reach out and touch the dark figure. He could not fight the sensation attracting his attention. He could not fight the urge to connect with it.

Like a siren it called to him. Thomas reached out and placed his hand flush against the dark mass. He was suddenly transported back to where he last saw his friends. He was transported back to the forest but no one was there. He was all alone or so he thought.

He did not see Zaghloul and his ghoulish horde coming up behind him. And Zaghloul quickly pounced on Thomas or what he thought was Thomas. But Thomas wasn't really there. It was only a specter of Thomas. The real Thomas was still in the 'in-between' with his palm pressed against his black impression. 

Somehow the silhouette acted as a portal for his thoughts to travel back to his world. His consciousness was visually represented as solid form on the other side. Thomas's proxy was   crushed under the creatures weight as Zaghloul pounced on him. Whatever impaired the surrogate afflicted Thomas. He found himself having difficulty breathing under the massive weight of the creature. 

Zaghloul snatched Thomas in his claws and held him high over his head. "See no one escapes me!" he snarled and browsed arrogantly over the ghoulish parade of grey subordinates. Then without warning he pulled the specter of Thomas into two bloody halves. 

Thomas flinched but could not pull his hand away from the silhouette carrying him to the other side. In his mind he could see his doppelganger flopping in agony in the hands of Zaghloul. And his spirit reeled in pain as his alternate jerked in pain. Blood and guts spilled from the proxies carcass and tumbled down the monsters huge arms.

He watched in horror as his transported self was torn apart by the alien. His stomach impulsively turned when he realized wherever the creature inflicted a wound he was exposed to pain. Whatever happened in the real world also effected him in this strange world.

His arms shot with pain as the creature began to gnaw them to the bone. There wasn't an inch on his body that didn't swim with pain as Zaghloul fed on him. Thomas's mind could not process all the pain and he lost consciousness and fell to the ground simultaneously pulling his hand away from the thing that connected him to the his home world.

Zaghloul stood in disbelief as the internal organs he was bathing himself in disappeared. "This smells of Laken," he murmured , "it must be his sorcery that snatched my dinner." His eyes thinned and he slowly skeptically scanned the woods searching for the alien wizard.

"Your alchemy is no defense against me and my ultimate conquest of this world and it's pitiful lifeforms." Zaghloul roared.

Thomas, still in the 'in-between', began to awake. Disoriented and filled with horror he began to blindly run. His direction random and aimless. Once he gained his reason he slowed to a purposeful jog. With his sanity regained, he noticed his dark silhouette had followed. It matched his stride towards sanctuary.

The horror slowly subsided and plopped down on a rock to rest. In the distance he could hear voices. People were close, speaking to each other. Suddenly the shadow did something impossible and very unexpected. It rose and began to walk towards the echoing voices. The black mass severed whatever ties it had to Thomas. The emissary seemed to have a mind of it's own.

The dark agent stopped and appeared to beckon for Thomas to follow. Thomas was reasonably anxious and unwilling to budge. Bewildered at the dark specter's request he strained his eyes to see where it was going. 

Everything in his field of vision was shifting. Sheer transparent planes gradually changed the landscape. But he could detect what his shadow was walking towards. It was a vague impression of a group of people huddled together. Thomas could hear the muffled voices of the group talking.

Thomas couldn't curb his curiosity. He promptly followed his shadow. When the dark reflection got to the group it stopped and ominously waited. Thomas vigorously pursued in hoped to identify the band of cackling folks as friend or foe. 

As he reached his destination he gleefully realized it was his comrade in arms. It was Glen and the others. Thomas gentle placed his hand on his shadow. He suddenly materialized in front of the mystified and rattled cluster of rebels.

"Where did you come from?" Glen and Aden asked in unison.