Note

This story was created off the top of my mind. No planning, nothing. Even the character's names were thrown in without proper planning or thinking. So if it's bad or anything, there you have it.

In the Shadows

It’s always lingering, following, watching. Always there, but not once did anyone think about it, not until the time I spoke up about it. They never thought of it as a possibility, not scientists, priests, preachers, not even those who believe in the superficial. But oh, do I know that they exist. They’re always there, watching, following you every step you take. No, no, not the shadows themselves. Not the shadows, but what’s in the shadows. They hide. They hide in the shadows, in corners, in alleyways, in even a human’s shadow. They hide and they watch, waiting for the perfect time to strike. What do we call it, you may ask. Well, we call it death, the one thing which shall await us at the end of our given time. We fear all the things that could kill us, such as other humans, animals, natural disasters, but those are not what we should fear. We should fear death, that which lies in the shadows, waiting to strike. Death creeps ever closer, but it is not visible to the normal human eye. It is not tangible to the normal human hand. It is not audible by the normal human ear. It is not tasteable to the normal human tongue. It is not smellable by the normal human nose. No, no, normal human senses shall not work with death. Death is hidden to all but one, as I am not a normal human. I have not normal human senses, but I had been gifted and cursed with such a blessed but demonic ability. I can see death. I can hear death. I can smell death. I can feel death. I can even taste death. Not in the least is it pleasurable. The sight is ever so ghastly. The sound is harsh and crushing. The smell is disgusting, revolting. The feeling is horrible and agonizing. The taste, it is ever so nauseous. However, I must do such things, such things as save those who death is close to. Yes, those who death is close to, not who is close to death. I have been called insane for my words and for my actions, but no one truly knows what it is I speak of or do. I have seen many taken by death. Death settles in the shadows, waiting. When the person is taken by death, death wraps around them, enveloping the entirety of their body, the entirety of their soul. Death’s grip is far too strong for any of us to overcome. Death’s grip shall not let us go. However, I do not have a death. Once my time comes, my soul shall linger in limbo, it shall remain forever in this world, the world we call Earth. I shall never obtain satisfaction, nor shall I obtain eternity in agonizing pain. Rather, I shall remain in the middle, forever watching them, humans and what is in their shadows, death.

Science can prove nothing about death. Religion can prove nothing about death. Only that it is the end of one’s life. Or perhaps we were never living to begin with, but always dying. When one is birthed, so is another death. When one dies, so does death. If a death is not birthed with a newborn, there are two outcomes. One comes that who is similar to myself, one who can see death in the shadows. One who can touch, feel, taste, and hear death. The other is that death has already taken the newborn away, which is the most likely option. I do not fear death. I fear becoming a lingering soul, one who shall never return to anywhere, not to a new body, not to heaven, nor to hell. I fear being in limbo. I fear being alone. I fear the emptiness that is to come. I fear eternity. Is fear like death, ever lingering in the shadows? Can someone see my fear, gripping my throat, squeezing ever so hard to keep latched onto me? Or is there no one who has no fears? I am not experienced in that area, and so I would not know. Is fear all in the mind, or is it something in our shadows, keeping bound to us so it never fades away? So many questions, but there are no answers to all the questions that have and could be asked. The world is a mysterious place, keeping us in the dark about what truly stands near us. I’ve not once met another who can see, feel, taste, hear, and smell death, not once. I am unsure if I ever shall meet another who can also see death. Death is no God, death is no angel, death is not any of the sorts. Death is a hidden, breathing thing that stands next to us, but is not truly alive. It hides in our blind spots, the places in which we cannot see it. Not literally, but mentally. It hides itself from us. However, death cannot hide from me. Death should not fear anything but me. Death should fear me, death should escape from me. But death does not let go once it has grabbed on, no, not until one forces death to let go.

Today, I stand and watch all the deaths passing along with their hosts, walking along the street, minding their own business. I look down at my shadow, but nothing is there, not a death for myself. I see all the deaths, each one closer than others. They are hungry, waiting for their host to fall to their death. Death rises from within the shadow, pulling itself up by grabbing onto the host it has selected. The more one wishes not to die, the stronger death is. The more one wishes to die, the weaker death is. An old man passes by me. Death is already at the man’s throat, its hands already at his throat, squeezing slowly. In front of me, the old man halts. He stops, not to move. Slowly, death starts wrapping around him. His entire body soon being enveloped by death. He slowly falls to the ground with a harsh thud. People around all gasp and rush to surround the man, but it is far too late to do anything. Coming out of the man, his soul, as death is wrapped around it. Slowly, it ascends. To heaven this old man’s soul shall go. As all this happens, I take a cigarette from the pack I had on me and light it, puffing a bit of smoke and watching the people. I see one particular person who turns to me, noticing my cigarette, but they quickly halt as they see me. However, when I look closer at the woman, I notice she does not have a death. Can she see death, as well?

“You,” she says, horrified by me, “You’re shrouded.” Shrouded? What does she mean?

“I haven’t a clue what your words mean, ma’am.”

“Shrouded in death.” Death? Nonsense. A death does not occupy me. A death does not claim me as their host.

“You speak nonsense, woman,” I say aloud, plainly for those around to hear, even, “Each and every person here has a death, except me, and except you.”

“No, no, you, too, have not one death, but many.”

“But death comes from the shadows, crawling up one’s body, soon to envelope the shell and soul of the human, as you saw from that old man. I have not once seen death on me, not once has it crawled up my body to take me.”

“But you are most certainly covered in death. Death is all around you, more than a single one.”

“What shall you mean?” I state. Now, a crowd of people have formed around us, the two speaking of death, shadows, and such nonsense, so they think.

“Have you saved many from death?” she asks me.

“Of course, why shouldn’t I?”

“Death latches on to saviours, as well. Not one, but every death you have prevented has latched on to you.”

“The death of others has latched onto me?” I had been confused. Not once have I heard or seen this.

“However, even though you are shrouded, not one can extract your soul.”

“I see.” I learn new things everyday, but this is a big learn.

“Once you die, you will not go to heaven, nor shall you go to hell. However, you shall not linger around in limbo.”

“What do you mean?” I shall not linger in limbo? I haven’t a clue what it means.

“No, not in limbo, but in purgatory.”

“Purgatory?” The one place everyone should fear even more than hell. Purgatory, a location where lost or hopeless souls are tossed away, like trash. My soul, however, is not lost, nor is it hopeless.

“For saving those who were meant to die, you have been banished from both hell and heaven, but you cannot remain in limbo, otherwise, you can still stop death. Thus, you will be thrown into purgatory, a place of eternal suffering and boredom. A place where you are forced to watch all the horrid events of your life pass by, over and over. A place where nightmares occur, a place where those you love die over and over right in front of you, where horrid things happen, even worse than hell’s everlasting eternal burning.” And now, I suppose I have something new to fear, purgatory. I suppose it makes sense, if you block death from doing its job, they’d probably resent you. After all, they aren’t just doing their job, they’re feeding off of the human.

“I’m ready to accept purgatory,” I said, “Even if it means my own eternal suffering, I’d like to save others.”

“So you’re willing to throw your own life away for others,” she said to me, “Such a kind heart.”

“Not at all,” I said. Of course, I wasn’t sure if I was lying or not.

“So, if I were close to death, you’d save me?”

“Of course. I save everyone I come across, if I have the ability to,” I said, “Old age is something different. I can’t save them once their throat has been enveloped.” When one’s throat is completely covered, it’s far too hard to release death’s grip, and so all you can do is just stand there and watch them die. After a few more exchanges of words, we part ways, not without first giving our address and number to each other. It’s possible we could partner up together. Not that she’d be saving other’s, because she doesn’t want to be stuck in purgatory, which I’m already locked in to go.

Construction sites, a place where a lot of death likes to linger around, mostly because of falling objects which crush the humans. Death cannot leave shadows, and so at night, they are most active, roaming around, finding a new location. It may sound strange, but there are stray deaths, which they fought for a host and failed, so they retreated to other shadows. If there was no shadow they could retreat to, they were forcefully shoved into the light, in which they quickly vanished into nothingness. Rather, they were enveloped by the gates of hell. If a death fails to satisfy its hunger or if it falls into light, it is taken by the gates of hell, dragged down into hell. I have seen it only a few times, but it looks horrifying. I stood just outside of a construction zone, watching as people climbed up and simply worked. Quite the dangerous job, but people believe it’s necessary to move on in life and improve. I watched as two deaths were suddenly fighting over the soul of a portly man, who had been at the base of the place, a clipboard in hand, shouting orders. The deaths were grappling each other, trying to shove the other into the light. Each looked the same in appearance, but one was thinner. The thicker one, however, was struggling to remain in the shadow, and soon, it lost its balance, tumbling into the light. Without a care, the other death latched back onto the man, and the other, well, the other was desperately trying to grab onto the ground, but it was futile. It was soon swallowed into the depths of hell. The gates then closed, and that death was no more. I turned away and started walking off, when I saw the woman from yesterday. I just realized, none of us know the other’s name.

“Sorry that I hadn’t introduced myself,” I said to herm, “My name is Jacob Myers.”

“Elizabeth Marrow,” she said, “Why are you here and what the hell just happened to that death?”

“It was forcefully removed from its host by the other death which wished to occupy it. In other words, it was dragged down to hell because it went into the light.”

“To hell just because they went somewhere else, huh?”

“Seems unfair, but it’s just how they work. They have a job and they must strictly follow that job, otherwise, they get ‘fired’ from their job.”

“Don’t make puns,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“So that’s what happens.”

“So that’s what happens,” I repeated her. Everyone and everything has a role, and their role is to keep watch on their host and take them to either heaven, hell, or purgatory. Limbo is for those who are lost, or for those who do not have a death attached to them, and therefore, death does not take anyone into limbo.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked me.

“Don’t know, just got bored and started roaming around.” And now, I’m continuing to roam around. There wasn’t much to talk about, so we just spoke a few words and departed once more. Strangely, I felt more fatigued than usual, so I decided to head home early.

The next morning, I felt just as exhausted as yesterday. I did, however, drag myself out of bed and move on with the day. I quickly took a warm shower, found some clean clothes, ate breakfast, and left, making sure i had everything I needed with me. Even still, I felt just as exhausted as when I woke up, if not, even more exhausted. What was this feeling of losing my energy? I walked around the city, particularly to the town square, where a tall clock tower was. There were large masses of people walking around, meaning a lot of deaths, as well. I sat down at a bench and watched as they all passed by. I pulled out a cigarette and my lighter, lighting the cigarette and puffing smoke. I watched the smoke float away, up into the sky. I huffed a heavy sigh as I slid back a bit, my body sliding ever so slightly downwards, to the point which my bottom had been on the edge of the bench. I looked around, but nothing in particular caught my eye. I suppose it was due to this lack of energy that I can’t focus as well as I normally do. I finished my cigarette and snuffed it out, tossing it aside, next to the bench. I stood up, sluggishly and grunting as I did so, but surely, I was up on my two feet. There wasn’t much to do in a small city like this, so there’s no wonder some people would try stealing, but to think they’d do that in public, and to someone who has pretty much nothing on him, how dumb can someone get. Then again, it isn’t very likely anyone will step in and stop this.

“Hey you, scumbag,” I heard a rough, grizzly voice behind me and turned around. A man with a dirty white shirt, a torn black leather jacket, black jeans with the left knee torn, and leather boots stood there, a few zits on his face and a scar on his cheek. He had black hair a small flakes of dandruff floating away like snow. In his left hand, a knife. His right, well, he didn’t have a right hand.

“What do you want?” I addressed him.

“Don’t get rude with me, poncho.” Poncho? What kind of nickname was that?

“Just put the knife away, buddy. Besides, I got nothing on me other than a pack of cigarettes and a near empty lighter.” I pulled out the pack of cigarettes, which had only one left, and the lighter I had, which had hardly and fluid left.

“Oh really?” he said, jutting the knife forward in a way that he was trying to scare me.

“Really,” I said, shrugging. Nothing more than a pack and a lighter. What, can this guy not get the hint?

“Give me your jacket.”

“My jacket?” I said.

“Yeah, hand it over.”

“Bug off, bud.” I clicked my tongue. He seemed angry, but I wasn’t giving my jacket to him. After all, I’m almost entirely certain he won’t try attacking me with the knife. Almost entirely certain.

“I said give it,” he looked extremely frustrated, perhaps constipated at this point, at least by his facial expression.

“You’ve got a weird face there, sir.” I said.

“Why you,” he lifted his knife, but from behind him, a hand grabbed onto him.

“Drop it.” A husky voice. Just barely, I saw the black uniform and black hat with a badge. Saved by the police. The man dropped the knife, like instructed, and submitted to the officer’s demands.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” He said, “Just my job.”

“S’ppose so,” I said. I crossed my arms and turned, slowly walking off just as I spotted a figure. Miss Marrow. I walked over to her.

“Quite the show,” she said.

“Was that a show?”  said.

“Looked like it from here.”

“You could say that, but,” suddenly, the words stopped coming from my mouth. I hadn’t purposfully stopped, they just halted entirely.

“Hey, you going to finish that statement?” I heard her, clearly, but I couldn’t say anything. It felt as though someone was gripping my throat. The air I’d been breathing had slowly started to drain from me, as well. I fell to one knee, one hand around my throat, the other on the ground. Things were getting hazy and noises slurred. I felt someone’s hands on me, but the words were just random, unknown sounds to me. I could feel my body getting heavier and heavier. By now, I could feel the concrete on my entire body. It was, of course, hard and a bit cold, but I couldn’t lift myself up from the feeling of three hundred pounds being stacked on me. My hands were no longer moving, nor had any other parts of my body. Slowly, everything faded to darkness. I could then feel mysele leaving. Everything was darkened, but I could still see it. Below, people, gathered around one body, my own. The body that I was no longer in. I was being carried away by death. I was being sent to the one place everyone dreads. Purgatory.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.03.2017

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I am thankful of both Samuel Holloway and Makyla Sampson for always being there for me and being the greatest of friends I have had.