A Dream of Shadows (wip part 1)

I was like any normal child. Full of curiosity at life and love for the world and my family, those friends I made. I always thought it was because it had nothing to do with the fact that I appeared as such a normal carefree child. That perhaps they loved me simply because I was me and nothing more. I wish that it was true, loving me no matter what I look like, no matter how I appear to them. Why is that so hard?

I was getting a little older, about fourteen and by this time I didn't get to spend very much time with my father; a parent divorced from my mother. Whether it be because I was getting busier, or just because he was getting older and seemed to have to work harder to live due to being laid off, it could count towards both of those reasons. However here we were taking a trip. It wasn't one of our usual trips either.
Normally we'd just relax one day a week and watch a movie and eat dinner together, but this was a different trip, a special trip we both felt was necessary and overdue. We were going out of state to spend time together. I was excited, my father was as well it seemed. I wish it had ended normally though, maybe none of this would have happened then. I would have been able to continue to live in ignorance and bliss... sometimes I miss those days.

It was time to leave after a week spent enjoying out trip together, yet at this point in my life I can't even remember what we did... where we went... nothing significant. So was it really that great of a trip? I still hold a small emotion that tells me that it was, that I had loved it at the time. That it meant something to me, which is why I can still feel pain towards my family. Why all of this hurts. I hate it.

A man had approached me while I waited for my father at the car. It seemed he still had some business where we were so he was going to drop me off at he airport for a flight back first since I had school coming up. It wasn't abnormal, we'd taken trips before and I've flown or taken buses alone before. Being approached rather fervently by a strange man however was abnormal for me then. I don't recall the moment where it became physical and aggressive, but I tried to stand up for my father for some reason. I fought back at the strange man and yet because I was so small, because I've always been a small person it was nothing in comparison to the man that was grabbing at me. It hurt. I remember the pain, the terror. I knew nothing of what was happening and what was to come, but I do remember how I felt at that very second. The first real significant memory. I couldn't leave because then father would be sad. I couldn't make my father sad... I knew this. Yet I was taken anyway, despite my cry to the void of the universe to the God I believed would right this wrong.

I was taken and I wept child's tears that nobody cared for even as they witnessed it. Even strangers passing by just seemed to try to avoid the situation, not that there were many. Thinking back on it now, perhaps they were working with the strange man that kidnapped me. Why me though? I could never understand that part, I was not near the place I had ended up. I hadn't been tucked away in a place of solitude. It was a street like any other street on any other day in broad daylight. At this point I simply think that I had only been in the right place at the right time... or is that wrong? I suppose it was wrong at the time.

As I was taken, blindfolded and severely uncomfortable with several bruises from the encounter, I didn't feel any satisfaction in the fact that I had dealt a little damage myself at my attacker... I just wept and sobbed and wailed for my father. I remember reaching a point of shock at realizing it wasn't just my father that would be missing me.       My mother, my sisters, my brother, my friends... all of them would fear for me and miss me. Only having been quiet for a few moments at this shocking realization I began retching I sobbed so hard. I couldn't think about what was going to happen to me, or where I was going or if anyone would find me. Just that I was gone and what would they think?

A great deal of time had passed by the time we stopped moving, arriving to the place I ended up. I still cried but it was quiet and empty now. A person, no matter if child or not can only cry for so long before they fall asleep or almost forget why they are crying. It was nearing the former but was already the latter for me. I still feared, but the initial rush had already dulled and I just felt so drained by the time we arrived. So focused on the inside I had almost not noticed when car doors opened and I was pulled out of the strange smelling car.

Next thing I remember I was lying on my back flat. Still blindfolded and strapped down to a chair. After that point, everything is hazy. The physical pain was terrible since I was never put under but not after long the pain alone did that for me. Looking back at that... that was nothing compared to what was to come. A child dealing with injection after amateurish injection though was traumatic enough to scar me at the time. They hadn't been gentle about it nor professional. Whomever was dealing with me then was nobody with experience.

I still don't know what it was they put in me, since I really didn't and don't care to this day. What came of it was something amazing. Something I could only read about in books, movies and my own imagination. I wasn't the only one effected by this either. So much time passed after that first set of injections and the several afterwards that I lost my sense of time completely. A year had gone by though I believe. I still cried for my family every night, I still sobbed until I retched. I was beginning to be distracted by what was going on with my body more however.

This wasn't dealing with puberty sort of changes, those had already begun several years ago normally. Developing as a woman had a fairly quick advancement on me since I was twelve. This was different. Like there was something shifting over my flesh and clawing my insides. It was abnormal to the point that I would awaken to find my fingers not my own. Razor like claws that had turned my sheets into ribbons in my sleep merely from shifting. Seeing it I would panic and they would return to normal.
All of our rooms were monitored, I knew that, because when this began to happen I was pulled out of the room I shared with other children like me and secluded elsewhere for further monitoring. This happened to many children at my age. Since there had been so many even younger than me there, it seemed once they started to reach my age... they were separated. I could put that much together, since there was nothing else to do and I was beginning to get tired of sobbing day AND night for my family. The nightmares were enough for the time being.

Another year passed and eventually I was able to socialize with others again, those closer to my age still though. So the youngest were left with their own age it seemed. I began to feel a little sad for them since they had no guidance, nobody to really look up to and keep them strong. I began to understand then why it was they kept us separated, it left us with nobody to aspire towards. Even I was struggling to find some inner strength.
Sixteen now and struggling with abnormal sixteen year old problems. I had no dances, no crushes, no hopes or goals or future at that point. No cram sessions for school or doting myself to look pretty for my crush at school. They kept us ignorant and as stunted as they could. There was one person though, a girl my age that seemed to still retain this gentleness about her despite everything that was happening here. Most of us, myself included had turned into these mean fairly spiteful things.

Not her though. She was... that ray of light that would keep us all sane and levelheaded. The person we all could look up to. I would pray at night that she would stay with us. Continue to keep us cool and sane. Without her I think we all would become nothing more than animals. It was hard enough trying to cope with the physical changes. Our bodies shifting into different shapes. It seemed everyone had this specific image locked in their heads and could only shift themselves into something specific. You were considered gifted if you had two ideal images you could shift yourself between. Gifted.

We were distracted by this new alien ability now. The nightmares and fears of never seeing our families again were beginning to subside with the continued discovery of these strange things that happened to us. I knew we were all thinking that this was because of the things we had been injected with years prior, and still had yearly injections for. We never saw their faces, never knew what they looked like. Many of us with advancing ages and shifting skill now though, knew their scents. They tried to hide it under heavy things, as if they knew to do this. Had experience in dealing with those like us. If it weren't for our sanity, the one being that kept us together... we would have already gone rabid. So lost in these skills, thinking we were all just turning into animals or aliens or something. Perhaps that was why they let her stay with us, even though we knew they monitored everything we did. She kept us in line.

I didn't care, I enjoyed being with her. I would often stay close to her and talk about our theories. Hungry for some sort of mental stimulation. We'd talk about anything, anything but our own situation. Like it was taboo, or perhaps she knew better than to make our one escape, our conversations about the one thing we couldn't escape. I loved this about her. I didn't know at this point though that I loved her. Ignorant, young and still so much change to endure.

Yet another year went by, moved again to a different place with different people... yet without my dearest friend. I felt empty again. The warmth that had helped me hang on was troubling me and making me fall backwards. I and those like me began to become aggressive amongst one another, just as I feared. I knew we should face our alien skill towards those that did this to us... yet I knew we all feared that if they died, we would too. There were too many variables and yet too many people were frightened that it would lead to their own annihilation so still held to a strong sense of self preservation instead. That anger was still there however and trapped with those just like them. We all were alike but completely different it was frightening.

One boy could shift his form into something so normal, a house cat. Another had such an imagination he became a giant bird that didn't even exist! One girl could become a unicorn... typical of a girl trapped in her feminine fantasies. A mouse, a wolf, a horse, a sparrow, a dog, a lion.. everyone became things they probably always liked growing up. The images they were stuck with. There were two that could become more than one thing however and they seemed to attract a sort of popularity that was almost laughable now that I think about it.
Being popular in a place like that? It was pathetic... truly pathetic. You didn't want to stand out either and soon people began to learn that. Since the more attention you attracted the more tests that were performed on you.

"So what can you become?" one of the sixteen year olds had asked me. I knew what I could become, but I knew there was more. I wasn't completely abnormal from the 2 in every 5 that seemed to pop up, but I didn't dare explore it. I preferred to stay under the radar and would have rather been one stuck with one image in mind.

I recalled the claws I had seen when I first had woken myself to a shredded mattress and knew there was more to it.. perhaps despite my best effort to not seek out what other images were in my head... those that watched us already knew. Maybe I did something like that in my sleep again and again without realizing it.

"Kamodo dragon" I said under my breath. I didn't want to share, I didn't want attention, I didn't want them to be impressed or disappointed or much of anything. I just wanted to be left alone. They wouldn't stop or would get more curious though if I hadn't answered so I gave them the one thing I hoped they'd stop pestering me about later. Most of the others, all of us fairly ignorant... seemed to have no idea what that was, but seemed a bit impressed. Like it was made up and I was this big dragon that could breath fire or something.

I remember as a child hearing about the kamodo dragon and thinking the same thing. I was curious enough to look it up though and found myself completely enthralled by that creature. It wasn't nearly as romantic as it sounded, a vile severely aggressive lizard that crawled around on it's belly almost like an alligator. Biting it's prey and waiting for it to die. I had always been pretty hungry for knowledge, I had just been an odd kid I guess.

I was somewhat relieved to find out that I hadn't been the only odd child since one of the sixteen year old's spoke up in my defense to attest that the 'dragon' I mentioned wasn't some fantasy bloated creature, then described it. I was already trying to find some solitude again. I didn't want to talk to them about it. I didn't want to listen to their millionth idea for how to escape, or their animalistic fights. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to breath the same air as them, they weren't worth any of my efforts or time.  I wanted to be with my dearest friend and did nothing else but try to revive thoughts and previous conversations with her to give me something, anything to keep me sane. I had already begun to lose hope to ever see my family again at that point, so tried a more realistic hope.

The year ticked by though and they did as they always did. We never saw the light of day, we never had our own personal space. We never went hungry unless we misbehaved in some fashion, and we were never abused unless we tried to attack them... but there was no joy in any of this.

Some people seemed to begin to grow complacent within this alien system. We hadn't been born and grown up in this sort of environment, and yet it seemed it took only a few years to ween everyone off of a normal life. I suppose that was the definition of adapting. You adapted or you went crazy or died. I could understand that.

On the outside I probably look like the epitome of someone that's given in to this system. I never speak to anyone anymore and I stay in line as usual.

Seventeen, eighteen... another year, nineteen. Always changing, yet nothing changes. The faces change, the people change, the problems remain the same and I continue to struggle keeping whatever else is inside me, inside me. Those with more than one gift, one more image, even two more images are taken somewhere else. Is it better than here? Is it worse? Are they alive? Did they die in some experiment? Are they sane? None of us are really sane, nobody here is sane. Everyone is either someone that would put children in this situation and force them to grow up together like this, stupid and afraid and angry. Or falling in line like me, I'm probably the dumbest of all. The nightmares about my family had stopped a year ago and yet I still yearn for something familiar. Would they still welcome me back like this? They're my family, they would love me no matter what. I can't help but fear that they won't though.

I remember my dearest friend.. her name was Amelia. She was still sane too right? I wonder what her image was. It must have been something sweet like an angel or a butterfly. What I didn't know then was that even thinking about her didn't stave off what I was becoming. In fact, torturing myself like that was only making me worse.

I grew irritated easily, impatient. I was beginning to hate, to seethe. I felt that those around me were stupid for fighting amongst one another but in reality it's what kept them healthy. I had been ignorant to the fact that normal humans do that sort of thing all the time... yet bottling it away inside only made things so much worse. It made me worse day by day. I would look on in contempt and not even realize the destruction I was creating. The imminent bomb that was being crafted.

That year seemed to go by in another haze, like the first one, where my hope was beginning to seep out of me. I was slowly beginning to lose the faith I had in my dearest friends image. So sure that she was either dead or tainted now. I could tell it might have been the latter since there seemed to be nothing that wasn't tainted in here. Everyone was tainted, even me.

I went to sleep that night with such a smoldering hate in my heart, not realizing that it was for my dearest friend. A silent fear that if she was tainted I would put her out of her misery or I would be broken. Completely selfish thoughts. My dreams were filled with smoke, then inky blackness. It was different but not alien to me. There has always been black in my dreams the last two years. This time it seemed hungry though, like it was devouring what images I would look at. Spilling in like a physical thing. I'd wake up in a freezing cold sweat to find myself standing in the middle of the room while everyone slept. A hushed sigh shifting through my mind as if there had been nothing there a moment ago but now there was me. It shocked me through my core and I shivered. Noticing I was naked I'd make my way back to my bed and put my clothes back on and try so hard to fall back to sleep, only to find I was restless and too frightened of that oddity to do so.

The following days, weeks, months it was all the same. I would have that same dream countless times a night and find myself standing somewhere different each time. My fear was not for this strange dream or this strange occurrence, but of what I was doing was only sleep walking or more. I feared that this would gain me attention I didn't want.... and it did.

One night, as all the others I dreamed that same intoxicating dream that my consciousness sighed and I suddenly woke with a start. It had happened so many times now however that I wasn't as shaken to the core as usual. I had come to expect it, even in my dreams.
I was not within the room with all the other teens though... I was outside the locked room, in the empty corridor. This shocked me the most and I stared at the door that was the one I knew I was suppose to be in. It wasn't always locked, but we were never let outside... this was only the place we slept... like a jail. Yet I was outside of it... how? It dawned on me right then and there that this was not simple sleepwalking.

I heard boots and immediately I panicked. Yet instead of fear, that bottled rage bubbled up immediately. This actually startled me and I pressed against the door to the locked room. Maybe if I could get back inside somehow and feign sleeping I could get away with whatever had happened. Even I knew it was bad in my case.Had I become a bug or something while sleeping and slept walked under the door? I looked at the door and I knew better, it was sealed, they were all sealed. Even if insects found a way to do things, there was no way.

My mind went blank the moment I saw those hidden faced bodies nearing me, walking down the corridor towards me. There was nobody else there after all. My breathing raced, my skin went hot and yet I dared not move. Their pace didn't slow even as they grew closer. Closer and closer and then.... they were walking by. I stared at their backs in disbelief as they continued walking, patrolling the corridor and glancing to each door casually as they did so. They paused, the two of them just after passing my door where I stood pressed against and walked up to it.

Hovering over me one reached out for the peephole slider that would give them a look into the room. The sound of it, slamming open startled me and I suddenly found myself in the room, naked. As if waking up from a dream. The single line of light from the peephole shone on the floor at my feet and I glanced up, following it to see the faceless man peering through it.

"What are you doing?" the voice came. I shivered at the fact I was naked and looked around then at my bed. The others seemed to be heavy sleepers but a few began to rouse a little.

"S-sleep walking" I confessed, better a half truth than admitting something even I didn't know fully yet. The silence followed made me nervous and I couldn't move because of it.

"Get back to bed" slamming the peephole shut. The sound of the persons voice echo'd lightly through the corridor as they continued to walk, "Fuckin' freak" the other person chuckled as they continued on their patrol and silence filled the room once more.

I didn't know what it was that had happened but things were changing very soon. Very quickly and with my own power. A little time went by before I resolved to try and influence my dreams, perhaps this would lead me to something I desire. I craved to leave this place after all. Who wouldn't? I didn't care about the what if's, I just wanted out of here. My anger was to a point it was beginning to cause me pain.

A few days later I laid in bed, closed my eyes and thought long and hard about my life before... my family... the smell of fresh air, the smell of city air, the smell of grass, the smell of dry and moist dirt. The smell of plants and or clay, asphalt, my favorite foods, of the best candy... a lot of it I was beginning to forget, but it hadn't been so long that I would completely forget everything. I remember even feeling some warmth, a bit of hope. Why hadn't I done this before? I'd learn the hard way of course.

I was just barely on the edges of sleep when I actually felt that physical sigh shift through my body and the blackness edging around my thoughts. I was looking at the dark room again and slipping into the darkness. The shadows it seemed. I had become the image of shadow. It was like smoke at first, a breath that filtered through the air as it filled the whole room. I saw the door and by pure desire to get to it I was there in an instant. Slipping through it's microscopic cracks to spill out into the mildly lit corridor. There was few shadows, but because there was a few I could move. The smokey shadow spilled into that familiar inky tar that slithered along the cracks and imperfections in the building. The sound of footfalls came again, stopped once again at my door. Why was it they only stopped at the room I had been in? Could they see me as I was?

I realized then that because they watched us, my sudden vanishing act was what sent those boots to that room each time this happened. I wasted no time, even as the proverbial alarms were raised. I could hear them going into the room shouting, more boots falling to back them up while I made my escape as quickly as I could with no thought of anything else. I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing. I just knew I had to get out of there. I spent a long time going in circles and dead ends but eventually I found a path I thought would lead me out. Instead... I found the room my dearest friend was kept. I stopped my escape... if even for a moment to watch her while she slept. She was kept at a far end of this place than I was, so the sounds of my vanishing act hadn't quite reached this far yet.

Before I knew it I was becoming whole again. I stood before her bed in quiet thankful silence before I bent onto my knees next to her and just smiled peacefully for a moment. The sounds after long were beginning to spread throughout the building and soon those in the room Amelia and I were in were starting to wake, including Amelia herself. Her eyes went large and round and she stared at me in quiet shock. What I hadn't realized was it was fear as well. I hadn't been fully whole. My flesh shiny and black like tar up to my chest. I was too focused on being there but wanting to escape I hadn't realized my form was conflicted enough to still be ready to dash. I looked at her and just thought she was incredibly surprised I was in her room. I even smiled for her... I hadn't smiled in so long.

The door to her room was beginning to tremble as a force behind it worked to unlock it. Those that awoke in the room, still groggy hadn't grasped what was happening yet, and most of them hadn't even noticed I was there yet. Amelia did though and her fear spilled into terror.

"Get out!" she yelled at me. At the time I took it like a warning, like she was trying to wake me up so I wouldn't be caught. I know better now. I did go though. I was engulfed into that form again and before the door opened I was spilling out into the mans shadow and the next persons and the next until without realizing it I was free of the building. I hadn't even paid attention to where I was going, just moving in a rush. I wouldn't be able to find myself back in that place so easily again should I return.

The thought shocked me... return? Why would I do that?

Amelia...

It was always Amelia. I needed to free her of that place.

(to be continued...)