Chapter 8: Shadows’ Secrets At A Storm’s Heart
Mist knew for definite from the moment Wifusia took off that she was scared of heights. She took her mind off it as Jack filled her in on what had happened.
Mist found it weird, flying while holding onto the leg of a giant white eagle. She didn’t feel the most safe hanging there with the only support for her feet being Wifusia’s talons. As Wifusia swooped and Jack laughed with joy, Mist felt nauseous.
“I don’t feel too good up here!” Mist shouted to Jack as they rode the thermals.
“I’ll ask her to land,” replied Jack. “By the way, do you know what your power is? Like how mine is Animal Lord? Most people who are taken have powers; Wifusia told me.”
Mist just stared blankly at Jack as Wifusia dived slowly to the ground.
Jack laughed softly as they landed in a large forest clearing. As they got off of her, Storm and Azure charged through the woods to meet them. Storm knocked Mist down and licked her face with happiness and Azure trotted over towards Jack.
‘Animal Lord. We meet again,’ Azure communicated with Jack as she lowered her head. ‘I am Azure. You saved my life before and now I will protect you until my heart fails to beat anymore.’
‘Don’t think like that!’
‘I can sense the future sometimes and your future is powerful.’
‘Don’t tell me then!’
Jack chuckled as Azure shook her fur. As Storm got off Mist and licked the cut on his paw again, Jack frowned and looked at Mist with a slightly worried face. Mist held Storm’s paw and looked at the cut. She pulled some anti-septic from her rucksack and sprayed the cut before using some fabric to cover it. Storm whined and whimpered as she did all this but she reassured him.
Thunder clouds started gath
Wifusia poked Jack with her claw. ‘We have to move out. The storm; we won’t be able to fly if it advances any furth
Jack nodded then turned to Mist. “We gotta move out. If we don’t fly now we’ll be stuck here; stuck here helpless in a storm. Surrounded by a forest which could go up in blazes if lightning strikes. I don’t want to die, alone, in a forest.”
“You’re not alone. You’ve got me,” said Mist, smiling.
Jack gave a slight smile back, winking as he did. Behind him, Wifusia fla
Jack held fast to her feathers as she sped faster and faster, hoping to ride the storm to another, safer place. ‘Like flying into a storm is going to be any safer then being exposed in any town or village…’ Jack thought to himself, slightly worried at what was about to happen.
Three long hours passed. The storm nev
“You’re really into your techno-babble aren’t you?”
Mist replied, not looking eye to eye, but between her GPS thing and the clouds. “Yup. Always loved how stuff worked. My dad was an inventor. Mum nev
“Sheesh, she nev
“But that didn’t stop me. I got even more productive, made more stuff. My mum got angry. Then this happened.”
Jack looked ahead of him. He blinked sadly once, then shut his eyes and listened to his surroundings. He blocked out the noise of the storm and could hear Wifusia’s gentle yet powerful wing beats, her steady brea
Jack’s eyes snapped open when something disturbed him. Something was wrong; very wrong.
Mist’s eyes grew wide as she looked at her GPS device. “We’ve moved...,” faltered Mist. “From Britain t-to Russia
‘It was a portal in the clouds. The shadow beasts… They really want your necks. Britain Russia
As Azure trailed off worryingly, Wifusia dived, almost exhausted.
As soon as they landed, Storm and Azure leapt from her talons and Jack and Mist jumped off her back. Wifusia folded her wings in and closed her eyes, tired. She drifted off quickly. With a happy sigh, Jack sat down next to the tired bird. The sky was still raging; and Jack could see how easily it was for the shadow beasts to set a trap and bring them elsewhere. He sighed and snuggled into Wifusia’s feathers for warmth. Wifusia hummed contently and carried on sleeping. Mist hugged onto Storm’s neck and he nuzzled his snout onto her.
Azure however looked to the sky. Her nose twitched as lightning struck. Her ears flicked back and she howled to the stricken sky. Other wolves howled back, as if in conversation.
Jack looked at Azure. Azure howled once more and gazed towards Jack, making eye contact.
‘You’ve been here before haven’t you?’ asked a curious Jack.
Azure’s sad eyes looked back, like crystals. ‘Yes. I can morph my shape and I have come here many times; that portal in the clouds we traveled through,’ she gazed skywards, ‘you’re not the first. Many more like you, hunted, transported; killed.’
Jack didn’t like how that sentence ended. He gulped as Azure walked over.
‘I was meant to protect them; the victims of the shadow beasts. But this trap was unexpected. I am but one. While I have allies they cannot tell people like you from normal people. I hope you and Mist survive long enough to return home.’
Jack nodded and Azure lay down at his feet. Jack felt safe around her; after all, she was a shape shifting, wolf guardian. Sort of. Azure curled up and covered her head with her tail before quickly becoming in as deep a sleep as Wifusia. Jack looked in Mist’s direction. She was playing about with Storm for the first time since Jack had rescued her, and her memory.
Jack sighed. He needed rest. As he rested his head against Wifusia’s side and closed his eyes, he thought back to his past; his life before all of this happening. He remembered his dad and his old pet, his feelings when his mum made his dad leave and all the less happy times thereon. He then thought about what he was doing on the day that he was taken.
That morning, Jack was walking through a field. Birds always watched him and he did wonder why, but he now knew. He thought nothing of it then but when a wild, injured deer allowed him close that day, he began to wonder.
He remembered how blue the sky was as he walked on to the crystal forest. It was a natural phenomena, having appeared seemingly from nowhere, and was still unexplained. Jack always thought it was odd how he, and the animals, were always the only ones ever in the crystal forest. His mum knew nothing of it and insisted he should let go of imaginary places. Jack’s mum never listened to him, not after she made his dad leave.
It wasn’t any different when he phoned her. He remembered that phone call he made, all the sudden hate. He had done nothing wrong, he wasn’t even aware of the events that had happened following his kidnapping by the shadow beast that was a sabre-toothed tiger.
He hated the shadow creatures for all that they stood for and vowed to himself, quietly, that one day he would be rid of them so that people like him with powers were not treated like criminals.
Jack sighed a final time and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 9: Nightmares
Jack’s dream was the most disturbing he dreamt in a while.
He dreamt he was walking through a town; a ghost town. The ground was slightly black – burnt - and the houses and buildings were broken and wrecked. He looked down at his feet then looked up again. A sudden mob of people stood in front of him, and among them were several police officers. Instead of normal eyes, these people had raging balls of black fire.
“This is just a dream!” Jack tried to reassure himself as the sky turned swiftly a deep green. His gaze shot upwards as it did so, the shadow creature that was the sabre-toothed tiger leaping from one ruined rooftop to another. He could hear its deep chuckles.
“I’M AFRAID YOUR END IS NEAR ANIMAL LORD!”
Jack was hating this dream as he yelled back, “THIS IS JUST A DREAM!”
The mob laughed and Jack redirected his gaze back to them. They were seeming less and less human by the minute. They started approaching Jack and he used all his strength to call animals by his side. He could feel that they were there but they weren’t coming; they couldn’t, something was stopping them.
Jack was alone in this dream. “Why are you doing this?!” he screamed at the mob, afraid.
Someone yelled back. A farmer, but not a farmer. As this ‘man’ stepped forward, pitchfork in hand, Jack looked at his feet.
Shadowy wisps in the rough form of paws were where his feet should have been and Jack began to slowly back away.
“You destroyed our town! We were peaceful then you came along, with a pack of cats and massive wolves at your command and you told them to tear our little place apart! Then you set some of our houses alight! That’s why we locked up every good for nothing animal after we killed those beasts!”
Jack faltered. He knew this wasn’t real but it felt like back when Tyger was still around. “I haven’t done anything! I don’t remember any of this, I wouldn’t do this…!”
But the mob in this dream would have none of it. The police officers started to step towards him and their ethereal, lifeless eyes bore into Jack’s inner soul. He had a fear, a fear that was not kindled, for these people in his dream. He thought they would really kill him as he slept.
Jack tried to wake up. He couldn’t bring himself round. So instead he addressed the officers.
“So what happens now? This is just a dream,” said Jack, looking about for the sabre-toothed tiger again. “You can’t kill me!”
“But you do not know what we can do; or what we are,” replied the farmer, eyes burning stronger as it fed off Jack’s fear.
***
Mist shook Jack awake and he yelled out. Mist looked at him in surprise.
“What was that for?” she asked, curious.
Jack explained the dream to her. He was scared that the events of the dream would really happen and that he would be at the mercy of the creatures.
Mist took his hand in hers and looked into his eyes. It was like a warm comfort for Jack, knowing that she had proper eyes, not shadowy fireballs.
“Don’t let it scare you,” said Mist, her voice soft and gentle.
“Too late for that,” was Jack’s reply. He was shaking; not only because of the cold but because of how scared he was. He wondered how Mist wasn’t cold, seeing as she just wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans. Jack still had his tattered leather jacket and was wearing that, as well as a pale green shirt and grey jogging bottoms.
Wifusia fluffed her feathers and Jack felt a tad warmer. He looked at the sky. The storm had died but it was still gloomy. He checked his watch. He knew it would be correct because it had a Global Tracking Device fitted in it, so it would easily adjust accordingly. ‘Wednesday 3rd December, 6:55am.’
Jack sighed as Azure walked past. She and Jack made wordless eye contact as she trotted off – to hunt was Jack’s assumption.
He had only just noticed that he and his friends were by a lake. It was clear blue and the water was still. Behind him was a small forest, nowhere near as large as where he had started.
‘They’re clever. Forest to a different, unknown forest. Most people wouldn’t notice a change.’
Birds flew over-head and Jack once again wished he was one of them. If he was, he knew he could so easily escape this hell he was living in and fly free; fly free forever.
***
Jack had yet another nightmare that night. He was stood atop a hill, overlooking a vast valley. Half of it was alight with fire. The sky was full of smoke and Jack was finding it hard to breathe.
He looked to his right. Jack was startled when he saw Mist there. She was glaring him down with the same eyes of black fire. Her hair was no longer the stunning golden colour but in fact a hazy dark grey, almost black. It looked almost as it was also smoke but the darker shading made Jack sure that it wasn’t.
Jack looked back down to the valley. He suddenly realised that his hand was stinging so he raised it to see why it hurt. A gash cut across his palm and he knew it immediately; it was a swipe of a knife.
He looked back at Mist, stunned silent at what he saw below. He looked this nightmare version of Mist up and down and saw in her hand she held a knife of black obsidian; almost as black as her blank eyes. From the knife itself seeped a red and black smoke.
Nightmare Mist took a step towards Jack and he raised his hands slightly.
“Why have you destroyed the valley?!” Mist demanded, clutching the makeshift knife tight, her knuckle white.
“I didn’t do it!” Jack protested. He looked Mist with his eyes brimming as he continued. “You know that! You off all people know that I” – he held his hand over his heart – “wouldn’t ever do that!”
As he moved his hand to signal the flaming valley, he noticed the sky was the same colour as his last nightmare.
Mist’s eyes showed no emotion; no mercy for Jack. They remained as black spheres of fire and – no matter how hard Jack wished – they didn’t change back to her gentle eyes that he knew.
Jack ran his fingers through his hair nervously. He only noticed then that his hair was flat against his forehead and he was sweating with nerves. At that moment, a deep chuckle reverberated through the valley. Jack cursed loudly, shouting his anger for all the world of his nightmares to hear.
Mist narrowed her eyes and Jack supposed he was slightly glad because he could see less of those chilling eyes. He reached out to the nearby animals only to get no response. He closed his eyes as Mist took another step closer to him.
She spoke, but not with the voice Jack knew. The shadow sabre-toothed tiger’s voice rasped from her mouth. “WHAT MAKES YOU SO SURE THAT WE CAN’T KILL YOU IN YOUR DREAMS? WE HAD OUR PORTAL GET YOU TO RUSSIA. WE’VE REMAINED UNKNOWN FOR MANY A CENTURY. YOU MAY HAVE POWER BUT WE HAVE MORE.”
Jack opened one eye and stepped back, finding his back against a rock. It was icy cold and Jack felt like it was freezing him to it. He was paralysed with fear as the knife point was held again
“THE END IS NEAR ANIMAL LORD.”
“Then let it come. I will die if I must.”
Mist hesitated and pressed the knife harder against Jack’s throat.
***
Jack woke suddenly. He sat up quickly, making himself dizzy, and held his forehead. His breathing was unsteady and he close his eyes slowly.
The day was young and the rays of sunlight barely broke the horizon. Jack gazed at the clear sky. He marvelled at the soft orange colour that was there and appreciated every second of wonder. Leaning back on a tree, he watched the silhouettes of massive flocks of birds flying on by.
He closed his eyes, listening to the gentle bird song all around him. As he did so, he thought about how he’d get back. He thought about asking Wifusia if she’d be able to fly back but he remained unsure if she was strong enough to.
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