Mistress of Shadow

Chapter 1: Fall Between Worlds

“C’mon Eymber! Drink!” a girl cheered, shoving another bottle of beer into Eymber’s unwilling hand. She had already downed quite enough, as was evident by her unsteady stature. “Mm-umm,” she replied in a negative way. The girl was adamant in her requests for Eymber to drink more.

“Ahh maaan, Eymmmberrr! This’s yhur twenny-firss bird-day,” the girl slurred, obviously more drunk than her counterpart. “Ya gotta get shit-face drunnk!” Eymber still had a little bit of coherency left about her, so she snatched the bottle from her friends hand and set it down on the bar.

“No, Madeline! You come on. I needa get you home!” she scolded. She felt her words started to flow together, and that wasn’t good. Eymber needed all her wits about her if she was hoping to get Madeline home.

Shaking her head, Madeline was reaching for the beer that Eymber had declined. “No,” Eymber said again, taking it from her hand. Madeline was the epitome of disappointment. “But Eyymmmberrr! Ah need dat buurr!”

Sighing, she knew that drunken Madeline would pursue wherever she put it. Unfortunately for Eymber, she would have to take one for the team and drink it herself. Shaking her head, she uncapped the beer and swigged it down in four huge gulps.

She belched, not a pretty sight for a 21 year old girl. Her hand was put on her chest in surprise and her vision started swimming in earnest. “Ah man,” she muttered as she tripped over her own heeled feet. That wasn’t good.

“Aight,” she began, “let’s go Madeline. We gotta get ya home.” Eymber placed a hand on Madeline’s shoulder, partly to guide her friend, and partly to give herself a somewhat steady place to keep lean against and keep her balance.

They wobbled through crowds of other people. Eymber felt her coherency fleeing with every step she took. The beer was taking effect too quickly, it would seem. By the time they had gotten to the door, the world about Eymber was swimming like she was underwater. She leaned unsteadily against a door frame and gripped tightly to Madeline’s shoulder.

“Ya sure ya dun wanna stayy?!” Madeline groaned to her, shooting Eymber an intoxicated smirk. Eymber shook her head. She was afraid that if she said something, the contents of her stomach would spew forth.

They stumbled to the edge of the street and sat down promptly on the curb. “We needa call a cab,” Eymber reminded Madeline as her friend was fumbling with the keys to her car. “Ah did’n bring ma phone,” she replied, shrugging.

“Well lucky fer us ah did,” Eymber said, pulling her trusty phone out of her bra. As her dress didn’t have pockets, it was the only logical place to store it. She tried to unlock it, but to no avail. In her state, Eymber had forgotten the passcode to her phone. “Shit,” she muttered angrily.

Eymber stood unsteadily, “Ima find a payphone. Stay here, will ya?” Madeline peered up at her. “Ight. Ah could go fer a nice naap…” With that, Eymber’s friend passed clean out on the curb. Eymber hobbled own the dark sidewalk, no considering what would happen if she left Madeline unattended.

After about ten minutes of walking, Eymber had yet to find a payphone. A streetlamp illuminated the place she was currently standing, casting sharp orange light over the angles of the city sidewalk. These keen shadows hurt her eyes and made Eymber more nauseated. She placed a hand out to steady herself on the lamp, only to find that her depth perception had been altered as well.

She careened into the empty street, scraping the heels of her hands to the point of drawing blood. She made a sound in surprise and pain. Eymer pushed herself to her feet, only to stumble again. She finally got a grasp on the lamp pole and leaned heavily against it.

Gasping for breath, Eymber tried to call to mind some shortcuts she knew to get to somewhere with a phone. Some hard thinking preceded her remembered somewhere. It was across town, but luckily Eymber recalled a shortcut as well.

Taking a deep breath, Eymber loosened her grip on the poor lamp post and she struck off. The detour she had in mind was to cut through an alleyway that would lead her directly in front of a convenience store with a payphone. From there, she would call one of her sober friends and have them drive her and Madeline home.

Stumbling erratically about the street, Eymber tried to find the right alleyway. Several times she ventured down one only to find that it was the wrong one. By the fifth time of her being incorrect, Eymber was very miffed at the entire situation. In fact, she was about to give up when she spied the correct one.

She knew that with certainty because there was a stack of cement blocks at the beginning of it. It was always there, and there was graffiti on them that marked them different from the rest of the piles of cement blocks around the city. Sighing in relief, Eymber quickened her pace towards the right alley-way.

Her hands, dripping blood from where she had fallen, felt along the rough wall of the alley so that she wouldn’t lose her way. Eymber walked down a ways before something caught her eyes.

In reflective silver paint, a strange symbol was drawn on the opposite wall. She squinted, trying to make sense of it. The symbol was two concentric circles. In between the two circles was a series of X’s, and in the innermost circle there was what seemed to be a flame. The silver shimmered, and in her alcohol altered mind, it seemed otherworldly.

Eagre to get a closer look, Eymber reached up to brush away dust that had somehow collected over the drawing. Eymber had forgotten that she had wounds on her hands, and winced when her raw skin came in contact with the rough concrete, smearing blood, looking black in the wan light, onto the silver paint.

As if in a reaction to her blood, the symbol began to glow with it’s own silver light. Eymber gasped, and stumbled back to the far side of the alleyway. The light grew brighter and brighter until  Eymber had to shield  her eyes lest she be blinded.

A terrible sensation filled her and blackness filled her vision. Her eyes were open, yet all she could see was a void.. She didn’t feel anything, as if her soul was disembodied from her physical form. Eymber was sure she was screaming, but she didn’t hear anything.

Although this phenomena only lasted a second, it felt to Eymber like it was several millennia. The feelings of the human body came rushing back to her, but Eymber soon longed for the comfort of not feeling.

She had fallen several feet into about two feet of snow and into pure darkness.