by E Kathryn
Mark shrugged, but he couldn’t help but think he had made a lot of progress so far. “Will you help me learn how to use my Shadow?” he asked. “So, I can get out of here and back to my home.”
Elise smiled warmly and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We all will,” she assured, then joked, “but none of them are kind when it comes to those who are late for meals.” Mark laughed easily as she urged him into the elevator and followed her back into the room. He felt pulled into the crowd as Elise dove in head first like water at the breakfast table.
It couldn’t be said that the Shadows were bickering, but they were certainly competing and rushed to get through breakfast. Their actions were fast, somewhat greedy, and almost playful as they fought over remains with their forks and fingers.
By diving in, Elise snagged Mark the most difficult breakfast foods to obtain—that being bacon and a biscuit—then left it up to Mark to fend for himself for the rest.
Together with Mark, Elise pushed aside a few Shadows to make room for him. “So, Mark, next time you help Kimberly with breakfast, get breakfast for yourself before the others do,” she suggested, then pointed out. “The first one who smells it, gets it.” As she spoke, the last slice of bacon was torn to shreds by several quick hands.
Mark glanced across the room and noted that Sil was awake but hadn’t gotten up from his bed. In fact, he sat alone, skipping breakfast and working on his hand project silently. Mark eyed it, seeing several pieces of leather stitched together in the vague disconnected shape of a leather glove.
Mark recalled that Kimberly advised not to come between Sil and anything he cared about, and she included Emilie, anything he set his mind to, and Winter. Who was Winter?
A crackle of green energy flung bits of bacon and egg from a plate across the table into the faces of two other Shadows. “Fliiy, What the heck!” one of the boys blared.
Mark looked over and saw a little girl with a messy blonde ponytail shrink back ashamed. “Sorry…” she whispered, clenching her fists and containing her power. Mark’s eyes lit up a little. Fliiy’s power did get out of hand often. He frowned to himself, fairly certain he was in the same situation. At least there was hope, that much he was thankful for.
Kip wiggled in next to Mark, snickering. “What do you think?” he asked.
Mark knew what he was referring to. “All of you are completely out of your mind,” he joked and Kip laughed at him.
VIII
SUN BREAKING THROUGH
Kip snagged up the remains of breakfast on his plate before it was stolen. “So, what would you like to do today?” he asked, offering Mark suggestions if he wanted.
Eating much slower than Kip, Mark shrugged. “I want to practice using my Shadow, so I can refine my powers like Keller suggests,” he said. His thoughts stayed with Sil and the privileges Sil had, and yet Sil’s temper kept him here.
“I can help you with that,” Kip said with a small smile. “You don’t actually believe that refining Shadows is something you can do quickly, do you?” He bit into a biscuit. “It takes years with lots of practice, and it’s not something that can be done like exercise, and all Shadows work differently.”
Kip lifted his hand and an immense light formed in his palm, hot but mostly bright. “It wasn’t until I was five that my powers started surfacing. I was seven when I created my first light shot. It’s taken me a very long time to hone my powers.”
Mark listened and watched the light in Kip’s hand. He finished off the remains of breakfast like a civilized human rather than a food crazed animal like the other teens and pushed his plate forward. “What is your Shadow exactly?”
Grinning, Kip got up. “Let me show you,” he offered and hurried away from the table. At that point, Mark got up as well and followed Kip into the center of the room where they had been skating yesterday. Kip picked a spot on the far side of the room as if to prevent anyone from getting hurt when he used his Shadow.
He adopted a stance, and briefly with his fingers, brushed his curly bangs out of his face. He thrust his right hand before him, and Mark could see light and energy drawing itself to Kip’s hand in a spiral down his arms, through his veins with fire. A great light appeared in Kip’s hand, and from it, a fine beam of light like a laser shot across the room at the wall.
Kip held it there with a proud smirk. “The walls are protected from powers like mine by the ASI; otherwise, this beam would slice through to the outside of the building.”
Mark was in awe, most impressed by the extreme amount of light. “It’s that strong?”
Kip nodded, simply glowing with happiness, and released the beam. It let off a substantial amount of force, enough to throw Kip back, but he was used to it and kept his balance.
Satisfied, Kip massaged his right hand from the return shock. “My Shadow controls the phase of plasma. Really, I’m just creating the same elements that power the sun and firing them in the form of a beam.”
His eyes widening, Mark stared, amazed as the pulsing light from within Kip’s veins receded under his skin. “How long has it taken for you to refine your powers?” he asked.
Kip smiled and shook his head. “Right, back to that,” he mused. His hands sparked with light again. “When I was younger, I could only create light in my hands, but my Shadow has a unique tendency unlike any other Shadow. I guess you could say it performs well under stress. So, when I am pressed to use my Shadow, my powers advance dramatically in a few seconds, leveling up in a sense.
“Because of this, my powers can never be refined, because every time this happens, I start over knowing nothing about my powers. The last time that happened was when I was seven and I don’t remember well what went through my mind to spark the advancement other than it was my turn to butt heads with Sil,” he added as a joke.
Mark tried to laugh, but thinking about the appearance of Sil’s burns made him otherwise frown. “So, you can’t refine your powers at all.”
Laughing hard, Kip hugged his sides. “All right, Mark, I want you to show off now. You’ve had enough talk,” he mused and instructed at the same time. “Set something on fire for me!”
Mark stared blankly at Kip, then sighed and struggled to keep this focus on creating the fire. He summoned multiple thought patterns to do it, but he wasn’t sure how, and the first thing he focused on was that his fire was not to burn himself. The temperature in Mark’s hands increased suddenly until it sparked between him and Kip and Mark jumped, startled.
Kip snorted, absolutely tickled. “You just don’t know where to focus. That’s your problem.” Taking Mark’s hands which were cool since he had released his focus, Kip raised them to eye level, then letting go, he summoned light to his own hands. Mark again noticed the coils of energy and light flowing under Kip’s skin and through his veins, lighting them.
“You see my veins are glowing?” he pointed out. “Your Shadow is in your heart, and it runs through your blood. Focus and think about that, and the Shadow in your heart will do the rest for you.”
Nodding mindlessly, Mark took in what Kip said. If his Shadow was in his heart, how did it get there? How did one become a Shadow? He didn’t have to think about it this time as his hands lit on fire easily and without burning him. His eyes widened, both excited and surprised at how effortless it really was. A broad smile appeared on his lips and he beamed happily at Kip.
The fire on his hands was deep red in color. It wasn’t a natural flame, and Mark felt no heat. He extinguished the fire on one hand and touched the other to feel it for himself and indeed the flame produced no heat and Mark wasn’t being burned by it. Cautiously, he thought to instate heat to the flame, and as he touched it with his other hand, he could feel the fire, it was scalding, but the heat did not harm him.
“I wonder…” Mark whispered, immersed in the flames.
Kip smiled calmly. “Humor me,” he murmured.
“I wonder if I can’t be burned by anything. I feel this heat, it’s really there. My hand is as hot as a
burner on a stove, but it’s not hurting me.”
Again, Kip snickered. “Probably, it’s just another way our Shadows are very alike. I can create heat as hot as the sun and it doesn’t affect me, and I’ve never been burned by anything. Fire only burns me if I allow it to, and I can control it whether or not my nerves react to the fire with pain.”
Mark's curiosity piqued while his hand was still on fire. “So, if I want to, I could use my fire to possibly seal up bleeding, like cauterization, and it won’t hurt me if I have to do it to myself.” He smiled, a little proud and incredibly excited. “I can’t be affected by heat, and I can’t be burned unless I want to.” He reveled with the thoughts of this ability, and again, he met eyes with Kip. “That’s incredible!”
Kip lit up his hand. “Now…” he murmured, “I can only create light in my hands, but can you set more of your body on fire?”
Mark outstretched his arm to find out and thought deeply on how to bring the fire up his arm. It was an effort, but it stretched up to his elbow where he stopped it at will. “How come you can only make light in your hands?” he asked, noticing the fire didn’t burn his clothes which surprised him a little, but then he realized he didn’t want to burn his clothes and that mental restriction had taken place subconsciously.
Shrugging, Kip ran a hand through his strawberry-red curls. “I don’t know. It’s just my Shadow, unique from all others, but because I can level my powers, I might be able to light up more of my body someday. I don’t know what purpose it would serve, and I’m fine with just my hands.”
Mark smiled, feeling a rise in confidence, and bemused by Kip. He looked over Kip where they stood. His hair was rather short, and its color was confusing for Mark to look at. Redder in color than fruit but not dyed, it was natural and even had a slightly pinkish hue to it.
His eyes reflected the color of the sun, and for the hour this morning, they were also slightly pink with gold and purple like the sky. Kip’s eyes weren’t human, Mark could see that. All of Kip’s features appeared like a flaming sunset, bright and exquisite, a sight normally seen only once before it was painted over with black and indigo in the night. Kip’s existence was a painting of the sky and the sun.
The red strand of hair fell between Mark’s eyes and he sighed brushing it away with his fingertips, recognizing the irony of the situation. “What about other Shadows?” he asked. “Your Shadow is so complicated, and Sil’s is too, but that’s only two Shadows to fifteen others around me.”
“Go ask them.” Kip shoved him from behind. “We’re not shy about showing off our powers. Using Shadows is equivalent here to asking someone how their day is. All we think about is our power.”
Kip pushed Mark to the beds to sit and find another Shadow to talk to. The Shadows dispersed, helping themselves to any entertainment they had at their liberty. “That’s odd,” he remarked. “I’d think that would be a bad thing for Shadows to be seen for only their powers instead of the person they are.”
Kip nodded and shrugged. “Shadows are different from humans,” he stated as the two sat on Mark’s bed. “Humans think about people and the person. Shadows think about powers and how they work. We have personalities just the same as humans but that’s not the focus of who we are.”
He gazed off at the others. “Sure, we care for each other’s person, but in an introduction, we’d ask about the other’s power before we ask about their personal interests aside from Shadows.” Looking at Mark, Kip smiled. “We’re just different, and we think differently,” he said.
Mark shrugged as well and sighed, looking at the Shadows. He locked his eyes on Sage the Shadow Quill then looked to Kip. “What about him? Those quills on his body don’t disappear, do they?”
Kip smiled, intrigued, and promptly called out, “Sage!” The Shadow with gray quills turned sharply from where he lounged in the room and came over. Kip grinned seeing Mark’s utter embarrassment. “Sage, Mark wants to know about your Shadow,” he stated as a broad question.
Sage beamed and sat on the floor. “What do you want to know?”
Mark gulped. “Can you make your quills disappear?”
Sage held out his arm, showing off the quills which grew out of the greater curves of his elbow, wrist, and on the back of his hand and forearm. As if they were his own fingers, he flexed them all to stand on end.
“Nope,” he replied in a happy voice, “I have a Physical Shadow—as opposed to an Elemental Shadow—my Shadow is a part of my body permanently. Some Shadows like me can make it disappear, but that’s another story.” Before Mark’s eyes, Sage grabbed hold of one of the quills and yanked it out like a strand of hair, wincing slightly, and gave it to him.
Hesitantly, Mark took the quill and looked at it. The quill was under five inches long and blue-gray in color. Sage smiled as Mark felt it at the point for its sharpness and along the shaft for its shape. Along the sides were two groves. If Mark broke it in half, it would have a sort of rounded T-shape.
Mark reached out to give it back, but Sage smiled and refused. “It’s not like I can put it back on,” he mused. Mark looked over Sage’s appearance. He had quills everywhere! For fun, Sage frilled out all of them so their pointed ends were most potent, and Mark spied various places under Sage’s shirt where the quills were flexing outward.
Sage’s smile brightened. It was clear what Kip said about Shadows, and Mark asking about his Shadow was like asking someone about their hobby or profession with interest. “Sometimes, when I move too quickly, the quills come out and go flying,” he stated.
Kip groaned sarcastically. “Sometimes, when that happens, you hit things that weren’t meant to be punctured, like other Shadows.”
Sage blushed, the color looked odd mixed among the blue-gray color of his quills. All the quills turned back, and he raised his arm to Mark. “Want to touch them?”
Mark hesitated but trusted that he wouldn’t thrust the pointed ends at him. With all the ends turned down, the quills were like a smooth armor. Stroking them backward, Mark learned the painful way they grabbed his skin and he felt the points. “It’s so real…” he murmured, “like they’re really alive on you.”
Sage snickered. “Of course, they’re alive. They’re part of me.” Flexing them, he moved his arm back.
Mark leaned away and brushed the red-strike out of his face. “So, Kip…” he said, “would you say his powers are ‘refined?’” he asked.
Kip eyed Sage humorously, and frowned playfully shaking his head, uttering, “Nah… you misfire too often.”
Sage lunged at Kip angrily. “Hey!” He took offense. “Physical Shadows become refined quicker than Elemental Shadows, so I’m more refined than you,” he replied, his quills fanning out.
Kip didn’t reel away. “Yeah, but I’m older than you, and you started growing quills when you were ten. I’ve been able to use my powers much longer than you have,” he countered.
“Wait a second!” Mark insisted, butting in. He looked to Sage, confused. “You couldn’t use a Shadow until you were ten?”
Sage nodded floppily. “Late power appearance is common. It takes a while for a Shadow to work its way fully into the bloodstream, and for some Shadows, it’s longer than others.”
Mark tensed. “That’s it!” he exclaimed and looked to Kip. “That’s what happened to me. That’s why I couldn’t use my Shadow until now.”
Kip didn’t seem to be as shocked as Mark was. “It’s common,” he said. “What should be confusing is how you stayed out of the ASH until now.”
Kip gestured across the room at Sil while he worked on the stitching to his glove. “Take Sil as a contrast example. He was able to use his Shadow soon after he was born, which caused complications while he was being taken to the ASH—from the stories I’ve heard—but not only that, he was able to use it well from early on. All Shadows are different. Sil’s different from me. Sage’s different from you, and the same goes for all Shadows in this room and in the ASH,” he explained.
Ma
rk contemplated this, not responding. Sil had been pretty much the center of his thoughts since he got here, but as he learned more, Sil was getting more interesting by the minute.
He could use his Shadow soon after he was born. He made it difficult for them to take him to the ASH. He nearly stopped his heart when he was younger, and he had a run-in with Kip that had changed him somehow.
Mark knew it wasn’t his business since Sil probably didn’t want him to know, but he had to get to the bottom of this.
Sage left, and Kip stayed by Mark’s side. Mark set his hand on fire again and stared intently at it. “Kip, you and I have similar powers. Is there anyone else with the ability of fire?”
“I don’t know. Seems like there would be now that you’re here. It makes me feel just a bit less out of place.” He lightly punched Mark in the should with a warm grin, but Mark didn’t share in his revelry. He couldn’t help but get the feeling there were a lot of secrets in the ASH that the Shadows simply wouldn’t explain to him.
Mark lost track of time as Kip described wild stories about the Shadows he had grown up around. But the boy’s curiosity silenced him and he got Mark tell him about what it was like outside, living normally and going to school, things Mark never thought would be fascinating to even people who were deprived of it.
Kip explained that Shadows learned what they wanted to at the pace they wanted, which tended to be rather quickly. They had a natural instinct to learn about the outside world and every bit of knowledge they could get their hands on.
Mark admitted he enjoyed learning, but he was rather average as humans went, and the Shadows ached for knowledge as soon as they could figure out how to read. They would learn everything they could get their hands on.
Kip learned to read much earlier than Mark, and he studied chemistry and physics in his spare time. Times like now, to learn more to control his Shadow.
