Shadows Chapter V: Spread

The young physician’s work bore fruit. The patient’s breathing was no longer laboureed, its sound no longer the rattle of dry leaves. Slowly, his expression became less pained and, after the course of some days, even turned to one of beatified bliss. Though his flesh did not fill out to become any less gaunt, one could discern a growing strength to him as the semblance of weakness fled.

His improvement was as stark a contrast against his previous decline as were his features against themselves, the depths and shadows of his closed eyes, of the lines where his nose met his face, his jawline met his neck,, all eerily enhanced as though he were illuminated from all angles by strong arc likes, yet no such light existed, and in fact none seemed to touch him at all. He was just, somehow, plainly visible, *there*. Around him remained that dark aura – that border separating him from the otherwise softly lit room.

He remained like that, peacefully resting with growing vigor, for some days before he finally opened his eyes. An attendant was standing over him, checking on him, holding a clipboard that she dropped with a startled gasp and a hand to her mouth. For when they opened, she stared into twin abysses. No irises, no white, just infinite blackness.

Soon, he even had the strength to sit up in bed, and not long after that, to rise and stand. The nurses and physicians did their best to encourage him to take it easy, and to make use of their assistance when standing, but he would have none of it. He rose on his own, stood on his own, and within a week of the procedure, took his first steps on his own. The day after that, he walked out of the hospital on his own, his attendants and guards following in tow.

He returned home to an empty mansion, the servants having long departed thinking his demise an inevitability. Seeing the layers of dust everywhere thick, and the spreading cobwebs in every corner, he frowned. He snapped his fingers and waved a hand at the recesses of the cavernous foyer. He said nothing as, prior to his illness, he was accustomed to being understood and obeyed. In that respect, little had changed. An attendant bowed shallowly and hastily departed. Not long thereafter, new servants scurried about the house, frantically yet discretely cleaning everything, and the aroma of a meal in preparation began to waft from the kitchens.

It took mere days for him to reestablish his routines. The mansion soon gleamed with spotless marble, the cherrywood banisters of the grand staircase in the foyer shone in the sunlight. Servants quietly bustled to and fro, and persons of power sat within the drawing rooms, waiting patiently for their time with him, that they too might receive his instructions and scamper off to see that his plans be set in motion, whatever they be.

None dared to mention the light-eating aura he carried with him, or the growing shadows that seemed to be slowly consuming his features. When he demanded all the heavy curtains be drawn to blot out the sunlight, and the lamps and chandeliers above to all be dimmed, none said a word in reply, but instead promptly enacted his will. Only a week after he returned home, the place that for a few days had gleamed in the sun now stood enshrouded in darkness.

His servants and visitors all accustomed themselves to moving about in the somber sitting, none complaining, none balking. He had previously been a man one absolutely did not refuse, and he had returned to prove he was still such a man. That he now carried with him a touch of the abyss only served to enhance that.

Within a fortnight, the shadows had consumed his entire form – he was then there but not there. When he chose to make his presence known, it was most evident, and when he elected to remain in obscurity, he was most undetectable. While this may have made his servants and guests more uneasy, it also heightened their obedience as they could never be certain if he was around or not.

It wasn’t long before he learned to alter his form, to take advantage of the malleability of shadow. He experimented, methodically uncovering the varied attributes and capabilities of his new being. It did not take him long to achieve an expert facility. But though he thought he’d plumbed the depths of just what he could do as a creature of shadow, he one day managed to surprise himself.

He was entertaining a lower functionary, one who, though not high amongst the ruling class, enjoyed a position of some influence due the people with whom it placed him in contact. They were enjoying a snifter of brandy – he’d discovered he could will himself into enough solidity to enjoy his gourmet palette – seated across from one another in plush, deep high-backed chairs. Suddenly, he stiffened in his seat, his back arched rigidly as he involuntarily tossed his head up and back. A rushing, roaring hissing growl escaped from him, accompanied by a billowing cloud of steamy shadow-stuff surging from his open mouth. The dark nimbus flew from him to engulf his visitor, who had risen to his feet in shock and terror. The swirling grey-black vapors howled around the guest, drowning out his screams and completely concealing his struggles. Then, as suddenly as they escaped his host, the shadows rushed into the stricken man’s mouth and disappeared in a time-reversed reflection of their emergence. When they had all entered him, he crumpled to the floor and rolled over on his back where he twitched spasmodically for several minutes before becoming completely still, eyes closed.

After some time, they snapped open, solid black pools of nothing.

The functionary’s transformation was slower than the First’s. It progressed more subtly, over the course of a year, and during that year, the scene of the drawing room was repeated multiple times, both their, and in the private meetings the administrator attended with others – from men of lower rank to those occupying significantly higher social and political positions. Each time, a new person would awaken with bottomless ebon eyes to begin a year-long metamorphosis.

It wasn’t just the properties of shadow He shared with each infection. The very first convert had received a bit of Him, of the Origin, and also a bond which transcended all space, and gave the powerful man an awareness that spread with each new victim, and a subtle sway over their emotions and thoughts that allowed him to extend and strengthen an iron grip that grew with each new transformation. Within a few years, His numbers were legion, His control over their world near complete as They occupied nearly every major position of power on the planet – political, social, and economic. It mere ears after that when no longer did anyone walk in light, when all were creatures of darkness.

With no new humans to consume, the twisted, cancerous, hungering shadowstuff sought new ways to spread. It was not long before the first animal was infected. Soon, all things that walked, crawled, slithered, flew, and swam all did so as umbral casting of their former selves.

Following the transformation of the animal kingdom came the plants, and all other living things seen and unseen – then the very rocks and earth, and finally, the sky, the sun, and the stars themselves each winked out of sight one by one.

And with the dying of the light, the entire universe of Their reality could no longer sustain itself, for every shadow needs a source, something to cast it, and light to serve as counterpoint. Though He was their Source, He Himself had nothing solid to cast Him, no light source to eclipse. They had all been snuffed out and consumed. So Their reality was threatened with extinction.

Just as the multiverse is made up of soap bubble universes, bumping up and around and against each other with only a thin film separating them, and just as those same soap bubbles from time to time pop into nothing, or sometimes merge one into another, all realities must on occasion come to an end – either through collapse, or merger, a more catastrophic explosion-like event, or sometimes even division into many other universes. This reality, the one in which They arose, had been brought to its end by the actions of a hopeful young physician whose spell held far-reaching consequences beyond anyone’s imagination.

But that universe did not collapse, nor did it burst. Nor did it divide, for that it could not do with no source – with all shadow, all darkness, there was nothing to divide. But merger, why, that was perfect. It gave Them once again light to eclipse, room into which to grow, and sources to cast, and souls for Him to dominate.

This new reality did not suffer the same end as the last, for, though the shadowstuff bore the taint of the cancer in which it had been borne, and hungered for all, He learned His lesson, and had discovered how to reign in its growth with an exertion of His omnipresent will. And so His Legion grew, quickly filling this world’s dark crevices, careful not to consume all, but to leave solid serfs that might serve as their casters. And They learned to dominate their new world as He had Themselves.

The story continues in Chapter VI: Reciprocation.