Shadows of a Life

Chapter 1: Bad luck in the library

     I bolted upright in my bed, falling off in the process. The tangles mess of sheets fell off after me in a failed rescue attempt, bringing my boots as well. The sheets landed harmlessly on the ground but the boots fell on the top of my head. I took them off my head and put them on my feet, where they belonged. I glanced over at the full sized mirror on the wall. My silver hair that trailed to the back of my knees normally, was disheveled, but still presentable. My skin was a usual pale grey, nothing new there, and my eyes were their stationary red pupils with black in the areas where humans have white. I stood up, kicking the sheets aside. I started walking out of my room. Just as I twisted the knob I realized that I was only dressed in my undergarments. I sighed, walking back over to my dresser pulling out a grey sweater and matching grey yoga pants. I grabbed a simple black cloak with a hood and pulled it on as well. I looked in the mirror again. My hair peeked out the sides of the hood, trailing down most of my body. My face was nearly impossible to see with the shadow of the hood hanging over my face. All that was visible was my eyes, which naturally glowed in the dark.

     I headed for the door again, this time fully dressed and presentable. My room was a part of a corridor that was long, cold and dark. The carpet here was ragged and torn up, from the monsters that ran this castle. They varied from many shapes and forms, some gruesome and bloody, others more elegant looking, but all had the same intention, to bring death to all they crossed. Most of the common monsters weren't hard to kill, a quick shot of an arrow to the head, or a stab from a sword would do them in. Some of the others, like the dragons or the human mutations, were just easier to hide from. I turned left at my first opportunity only to be tackled by a mass of grey and purple. the creature immediately started licking my face in a smelly, wet maneuver. "Aeron get off!" I yelled giggling. The beast jumped off my chest and sat next to me. Aeron was about the size of a small lion. He had soft grey fur with a contrasting purple eyes and a purple flaming mane to match. Aeron flicked his tail back and forth with such force, that anything, literally anything would have shattered if it was hit. His tail looked like something from a devil, as it had an arrow shaped point at the end. Aeron's paws were the size of small dinner plates that were equipped with claws that acted like switchblades. To complete his appearance he had two horns, one at either side of his head, that curved downwards to his chest.

     I sat up and Aeron inched closer towards me licking my face again. To a mortal, Aeron would have given them quite a scare. Most human beings weren't comfortable having lion sized dogs with flaming hair and horns walking around. Aeron was named after the Celtic god of slaughter and war, which suited him very well, since he did have a habit of murdering anything that tried to harm me. I got back on my feet and adjusted my cloak, which had fallen off after my encounter with Aeron. The hallway was lit by several flame lit torches. My species had a high distaste for fire or any form of light for that matter. Even though I try to make myself seem less like a stereotypical Shadow, I still had to get rid of the light since it posed as a huge threat. I held my hand above my head and simply snapped my fingers, then watched as all the lights flickered out one by one.

     I continued walking down the hallway. Normally because of the darkness in the corridor, you wouldn't be able to see, but because Shadow's have "issues" with light, we are capable of seeing things in pure darkness as mortals would see it in light. Majority of the castle was made of stone, that echoed as you stepped on it. There never seemed to be many people in this place, but then again, it might just be because the castle is huge. I forgot the actual reason why I left my room in the first place. Then again, I don't think I really had a reason to leave other then to explore more of the castle. Even if I got lost I could just walk through walls until I found a familiar place of refuge, or I could open a portal into the Shadow Dimension, and then open another portal back.

The corridor that I was in though, happened to be a familiar route. One of the castle's enormous libraries was nearby so I decided I would head there to see if I could find a mechanics book, or even better and ancient spellbook. Aeron seemed to have a vendetta against libraries. Every time I took him into one, he seemed to burn at least two bookshelves down. Then again, fire breathing Shadow dogs aren't exactly "paper friendly". I took him in the library anyways, disregarding the ancient paper that hung on the door in faded ink reading "No lanterns or oil allowed". Aeron wasn't a lantern or a tin of oil anyway.

     The library was huge and magnificent. the room was a rectangle with huge arching ceilings held up by stone columns. Bookshelves lined the walls, and sat around the room in an orderly fashion. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a boy dressed in light green but when I blinked, he was gone. I walked up to one of the enormous bookshelves that went up to the ceiling and ran my finger against the spines of the books. Most spellbooks would react to the touch of someone who was capable of magic by glowing the color of the element they were written on. A fire spellbook would glow red, darkness spellbooks would glow purple, earth spellbooks would glow green so on, so on. I continued running my finger along the spines of the books until I couldn't reach anymore. I muttered a quick levitation spell and continued searching for a spellbook, floating alongside the bookshelf. It wasn't until I had reached the fifth shelf from the top did I find what I was looking for. The book glowed a dull purple indicating that it contained spells with the element or darkness or shadows, which happened to be my specialty. I guess my name wasn't Darkness Append for no reason. Aeron barked impatiently at me. "Hush!" I yelled at him opening the spellbook. I flipped through the pages scanning the spells quickly. It had a few spells in it that Shadows had as a basic skill, such as a shadow manipulating spell, which would let the caster take control of the silhouettes of nearby objects and use them as they please. I had seen other Shadows use this spell to fight by making the shadows of the manipulated objects filled with a powerful energy known as Shadow Energy. This energy was deadly to most creatures except for Shadows and Light Beings.

     Light Beings were like the exact opposite of Shadows. They usually eminated light which automatically posed a threat to Shadows. Since Shadows wouldn't be able to exist without Light, our two species have been able to co-exist in a somewhat normal way, ignoring the fact that if we stepped out of line, our species would be slaughtered in an instant. Of course, slaughtering all the others of my kind wouldn't be such a bad thing. They were the reason why I had exiled myself from my home dimension.

      I snapped the book shut along with the memories of home. My mood was too good to be thinking about depressing or enraging things currently. I floated back to the ground gracefully where Aeron stood, his posture showing boredom and impatience to the extreme. I threw the book at a wall, or more specifically at Aeron's shadow. The book melted into the wall as if it wasn't there. For my kind, other things shadows posed as moving storage units. Throwing an object into a shadow is kind of like a mortal storing something in a teleporting lock box that is accessible just about anywhere. I began to walk out of the library, Aeron trotting loyally at my side. Since I didn't have much to do today I decided to be somewhat normal and walk back to my room. As soon as I grasped the door handle a loud noise shook the room. It sounded like something crossed between thunder and a drunk rhinoceros. I turned around just to see a  wall topple down into a head of debris and books. A huge black and purple head of some enourmous beast poked its head through where the wall should have been. The mouth of the creature opened revealing a huge array of teeth, each one the length of my body. The mouth glowed a warm purple color before erupting with flames and I knew right away, that I had just come face to face with a dragon.