The Hybrid

The Shadow Walker

As I walked down the twilight lit Cath street in Middletown, NY, the shadows swallowed me. I am a shadow walker, one in a rare few who can actually move from place to place within the shadows. I was outcasted from my home because of what I can do. My parents packed my bags and threw them out the door, along with me, and disowned me when they found out that I could walk in the shadows. Ever since that day, I've been living on the streets and going in and out of the shadow world. I can still picture the look of horror that settled onto their faces the first time I used my power in front of them. I see it every time I go to sleep and every time I see a family in a shop having a family outing. It reminds me that I can't have that anymore, and it kills me inside.

When I was younger, kids getting their powers used to be an extremely special occasion. There were parties and celebrations when a child gets their first power, but not for me. Sure I was given one when I got my first couple, but once I became a Shadow Walker nobody talked to me. I was shown nothing but distrust and nobody would ever tell me why. I had to figure it out for myself. For the first couple years on the streets I always thought that I hated my powers because they were what made my family push me away, but then when I needed help the most they saved me. It was maybe three years after I was shoved to the streets that I had gotten into some trouble. I had been inside a convenience store and all I did was use my powers just this once to help me get some food in my makeshift house on the other side of the city. I had never stolen anything before then but I was out of food and out of options and so I did what I had to do to keep myself alive. Also running from the police is never fun. The guy running the store saw me use my Shadow Walker powers and he called the police thinking that I was a dangerous criminal. If you've ever run from the police, you know how hard it is. They have the tools and the means of catching someone in any way they can, which was bad news for me.

I was running down the streets of Middletown, hoping that somehow I could outrun them and make it back to Cath Street, but somewhere on the way I took a wrong turn and ended up in a alleyway that lead to a dead end. That moment was it for me, I was going to get arrested and I knew it, but I knew I had to do something. Without another Shadow Walker to train me I had never learned how to use the Shadow World to my advantage. So there was me, an untrained and scared 16 year old kid trapped in an alleyway with the police on his tail. What ended up happening was that when the cops came driving down the alleyway in their car, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was a part of the shadows in the dark alley. When I opened my eyes again, I didn't recognze what was infront of me. I had vanished into the shadows, leaving the police confused and me in a place that I had never been in before. My first glimpse of the New York Shadow World wasn't a pretty one, but at least it was better than staring at the grey cylindrical bars of a jail cell. Having only lived in New York it's the only Shadow world that I can access, but if I were to travel to Michigan I would be able to go into their Shadow world but not New York's. It can be a little confusing but as a Shadow Walker you have to get the hang of knowing the rules pretty quickly, even if you do have to teach yourself how to do most things. And if you're really in need of information, all that a Shadow Walker like me has to do is listen for the rumors whispered in the darkest corners of the Living World, the name of the place we all reside in. New York's Shadow World is worse than its Living World by a lot. I've never overstayed my welcome in the New York Shadow World before, but now it's one of the places that I spend most of my time in. The Shadow People there have become my closest friends even though I have never heard them utter a single syllable or glance at anything but the ground. I've grown used to the comfortable chill accompanying the Shadow World, and I've also accepted that I will probably never meet anyone else who, like me, can bend the shadows to their will.

The only place I am able to train, by myself of course, is there. It is another reason to my growing list of why I believe people without this power don't like it. The only way to train yourself to use the shadows is to force your way into their world and hope that they don't boot you right back out. Another reason that is great enough to be on my list, is that it has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of showing up in a kid. One of the most common first powers that children get around age 13 is the power to move things with their minds, or in other words Telekinesis. I got that power first, then second was manipulating the element of water and third was fire. Most kids only get two or three powers, and when I got Telekinesis and the powers to control water and fire my parents that I was done getting them. Heck even I thought I was done getting them, but then I had to be the odd one out and get a fourth which just happened to be the rarest one. Being a Shadow Walker is dangerous, not only because a Walker could potentially become lost in the Shadows if they don't know what they're doing, but it's also dangerous because the government, or as I should say the Directorate, doesn't like us very much because we have the ability to be untraceable if we so desire. Most of the time I like to stay off of their grid and stay hidden in the shadows because I don't think they would like having another Shadow Walker walking around that they don't have control of like the last known Shadow Walker. She is the reason why I've embraced my shadow powers. She is the reason why I hate the Directorate so much. I'm doing this so I can rescue the only other living Shadow Walker that I know. But just like every other heroic plan, there was a small flaw that concealed a caveat to those who were smart enough to figure out. When the Directorate found out about her, she vanished into the Shadow World. Nobody knows which one and nobody has ever found her, but it's my mission, my duty, to find her and learn more about what I can do that no whisper in the dark has ever been able to tell me. My name is Sorin Rallei and I am going to rescue the Shadow Walker who hides in the darkness. I'm going to rescue my sister Hallen Rallei.