Shadow

Chapter 16 - The Opener of Ways

The Shadow had followed for centuries.

It walked, or for a better word, floated, around the world at a time where the species known as human beings had not yet dominated, or in its mind, contaminated the planet. It only identified with darkness and violence.

To balance out the world, you needed hot and cold; dark and light; and of course, good and evil.

On a clear, hot day, when the sun shone its ray vertically on the equator, a gargantuan sphere appeared out of nowhere and stayed glued to the ground. The sphere was covered by thousands of tiny black bubbles, resembling blackberries, and beyond the bubbles, in the heart of the sphere, lied a pulsating yellow light. One of the bubbles shot out like a cannonball and melted into the ground. The yellow light turned an infuriating red.

The sphere vibrated, and tremors took control and cracked the entire fifty-mile radius of dry ground. The melted bubble dropped into the surface of the Earth, and right into the lower mantle. The sphere floated up high into the air as if escaping from the planet and released a long blast of yellow light that dominated the sky as well as the grounds.

Then, like a flying UFO, the sphere hovered over the sky and then disappeared.

Quite sometime after, tremors shook and cracked the ground again, like something had punched a massive hole through the earth, and for whatever reason or purpose, the melted bubble, which lay dormant within the darkest corner of the world, was set free like an imprisoned genie and now awake from a long, unwanted sleep.

The bubble evolved into a floating apparition; practically a non-existent, invisible puff of smoke that the winds carried to unpredictable and unfamiliar destinations.

It became the Shadow. It adopted that title because although imperceptible to the naked eye, it was a rather dark, opaque object that blocked light from a light source, much like the sun. It would appear in a dark form of itself in the minds of humans in the centuries that was to come. All the odd shapes and colors of the world were perplexing and extraordinary.

It moved around for decades taking in all the sights of the wondrous pictures and landscapes the world had to offer with its eyes, even though it did not possess actual vision, it could still see. Through whatever vision it possessed, it provided much-needed information and stimulation that would be important for years to come in its development as a powerful deity.

It encountered life in many forms due to its exploration and witnessed evolution unfold.

Before the Shadow came into contact with any human beings, it had its first altercation with a live animal. The Shadow had floated across the hot, dry desert that had a cracked terrain for miles. The crack formation occurred within a period where water was hard to come by. There was complete and utter silence all around. The Shadow hadn't seen a single, living, breathing organism until it came across a feathered being laying by its side on one of the cracks. Because of the heat, it either collapsed onto the ground or was incredibly dehydrated. The Shadow hovered above the feathered being and studied it; the being was rather small, and its beady, black eyes were full of terror. It had a rather long, sharp tool sticking out in front of its face.

No, it is not a tool. It is a beak. Yes, a beak. It is used to defend itself and also consumes food and water to live.

By studying organisms up close, the Shadow not only gained knowledge by itself but intelligence also. It spoke the language that indeed the universe would later adopt. The Shadow knew that the sun was the source of all life on Earth, and water was a necessity for any living organism in terms of survival within one's own habitat.