by B.A. Savage
Chapter 6
Shadow stands facing the person who is now blocking her path.
She demands, “Who the hell are you?”
“I was gonna ask you the exact same thing” answered the mysterious man.
Shadow starts to circle him and readying to pounce. The man puts his hands up in a motion to slow down, he explains “I’m not trying to fight you or cause you any harm.”
“You couldn’t do either if you tried.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“Then why’d you stop me from getting them? Are you a police officer?”
“They were running away from you. They couldn’t have caused you any harm as you proved to one of them several days ago. And as for me being a cop? No way. If the police had any solid evidence of some of the things I’ve done before, I would probably be in prison and not talking to you right now.”
She thinks to herself, “Well, we have something in common at least”, but her training has made her over cautious. So much so that is stuck on the fact that he said ‘several days ago’, which means he must had been watching her.
She curses herself silently, “How could I’ve been so careless?”
Shadow yells, “Again, who the hell are you? Who do you work for, so I’ll know where to send your head?”
The man who’s still backing away defensively says, “I’m Archan and I work for Mother Earth and nature.”
The answer caught her off guard. She stops circling him, expecting him to explain. He does.
“As you’ve probably figured out, I’ve been watching you and everyone in my park for the last few days now.”
“Your park?”
“Yes. You see, I’m sort of a guardian of nature you could say. I didn’t really ask for the job. I guess you could say that I kinda fell into it. And it’s my responsibility to look after all creatures big and small, but something bad has been happening here at my park. Something real bad and I plan on getting to the bottom of it.”
“So, why you stop me from chasing crooks? They shouldn’t concern you.”
“That’s right, they don’t. But anything that brings problems to my park does. And why do you mug muggers anyways? Are you some sort of weird kind of Robin Hood.”
“Sorry, never heard of her.”
“Robin Hood was a him.”
“And who cares?” Shadow stated firmly.
“You’re right. Who cares?”
Archan walks over toward a bench. His eyes never leave Shadow. Once at the bench, he has a seat.
Shadow slowly walks over toward where Archan is seated. She asks, “You think I have something to do with that? The ‘bad’ thing that’s happening here.”
“No. But at first I wondered. That was until I seen how easily you could have killed the muggers, but didn’t. Plus the way the victims have been killed is extremely strange and sick.”
Shadow doesn’t respond and doesn’t sit down on the bench. Instead she stands quietly in front of it.
Archan continues, “All the victims had a hole drilled into the side of their heads and their brains sucked out of the small opening somehow. Pretty sick stuff to tell the truth.”
She still doesn’t respond.
He asks, “So, have you seen anything out of the ordinary?”
“Besides you?”
“Very funny. Yes, besides me. You’re almost as bad as my bird.”
“Huh?”
“Nevermind. So you haven’t seen anything at all?”
“No.”
“If you do, please let me know, okay?”
Half-heartily she asks, “And how would I do that?”
“Just yell my name. One of the animals will let me know.”
Shadow thinks to herself, “And I thought I had issues. He thinks he can talk to animals.” Out loud she replies, “I’ll think about it.”
Shocked at her ‘not-caring’ attitude, Archan asks, “What is there to think about? This is a chance to save lives and catch a killer.”
“Why should I care?”
“Why should you not?” You are human just like me and these are people getting killed. I didn’t want to tell you this, Cana advised against, this but we believe that this is not a human that’s killing these people, but some kind of creation gone wrong.”
“We? Cana?” Shadow glances around and finds no one present but them. She thinks, “He’s crazy, time to go before I have to kill him. I’m trying to cut down on that.”
Shadow turns around and walks off, but she hears two words that she has not heard used together in this context in several years.
“We believe a man that goes by ‘The Host’ created it, and with him being exiled. The creature is on the loose and out of control.”
She turns back toward him slowly, “The Host?”
“Do you know him?”
Shadow’s action says yes but her lips say, “No...you think he created a creature with the sole purpose of killing people?”
“It’s not inconceivable. He’s a pretty insane individual and no human could kill people like the way these people were killed.”
The Host is the person who hired her services through the Katsuya Corporation to explore King Foymama’s Tomb.
Shadow starts to ponder the possibilities, “Could he be behind the Shadow project? The project that created me? The program to create a perfect assassin? Is there a connection?”
“So you gonna let me know if you see something?”
Shadow could care less about the people being killed. People die every day, but this Archan guy, no matter how crazy he seems or is, has a connection to her past.
She decides to humor him for awhile. “Yes, Archan. I’ll let you know but... If I catch you following me again, without announcing yourself, you’ll be added to that death toll. Fair?”
Having no other choices, Archan answers, “Fair enough.”
