Chapter 1 – Frolicking Around In The Forest
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Feyla
Shifter: An alien creature with the ability to shift into most shapes, and control an element. They are highly intelligent and are known to have the instincts of a thousand animals. Shifters are violent, bloodthirsty and clever. Their very existence poses a threat to humanity, and it will stay that way until the last one falls dead to the ground.
That’s what they’ll tell you. That I am nothing but a mere hunter, always looking for my next prey. That I like the taste of blood, the feeling of sinking my fangs into flesh. That all I see when I walk the Earth, are the people I’m about to kill.
News flash; not everything the government tells you is true.
A friend of mine once suggested I’d write a diary. I thought the idea seemed silly on so many levels. The mere thought of me scribbling down my deepest thoughts into a pink glittery book was enough to make me shiver. I had never been that kind of person, I had trouble even seeing the purpose of a diary. Why would anyone ever want to read the story of my life? Who would care about my sixteen years of suffering through the hatred that always seemed to surround me.
Then shit happened, I went with a ship called Khaaron to Earth, a bunch of people tried to kill me and I realized that I really needed somewhere to vent every now and again.
Pretty much like your typical modern teenager, only with weird extras like murderous powers and the ability to piss off anyone in less than five minutes.
The thing about writing a diary, is that it never forgets. If you write things down in it, the memories stay there. One’s diary can explain their life, give a detailed description of their being, of who they are. Pages that recap entire days, ink that contains a thousand words deeply intertwined with the mind of the author. It can be the key to understanding a person, because a single book can contain everything they don’t say to your face. When you ask them if they’re okay, and they reply “I’m fine” I promise you there’s an entire page in there explaining why they’re not fine. I am, of course, not suggesting for you to go and read someone’s diary. There’s private stuff in there, and if someone wants you to understand them on a spiritual level, they will simply hand it to you.
Teenagers go on about how tough life is with school, friends and popularity. I don’t worry about school, and I don’t even think I’m legally allowed to use the word popularity anymore (not that I ever do anything legally). I do know one or two things about friends; that I always loose them sooner or later. Being one of the most powerful shifters alive has some pretty big cons, such as the fact that I’m always the only one who survives. That means that I always get to see the few friends I make die, and it’s not something I’d recommend.
These are the words of Feyla Foahri, your average ass-kicking teenager of death and destruction. You are now about to read her diary. Enjoy.
Tuesday
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February 19:th 2063
I’d love to give you a soft start. Slowly and methodically rock you into the flow of the book. Give you a sweet taste of the normal life, and then present the problem. Thing is, I had a problem long before I started writing this. Three years on Earth, and calm moments were about as common as me smiling.
For your information, smiling isn’t exactly an everyday business for me.
The thing about my story, is that it will not be a fucking romance novel. I don’t know how it’ll end, I only know the present and the past, everything ahead is unknown to me. You can have moments of realization and suddenly understand you might die tomorrow. Thing is, for you that’s probably unlikely if you live in a relatively peaceful country. For me, it’s the real deal every day of my life. I live doing my very best to melt into the communities I bump into, just for the sake of remaining hidden from my enemies. But I never succeed for longer than a few weeks. Sooner or later I’m forced to leave. Sooner or later I’m driven away from the few or non-existent friends I’ve made. New scars mark my body. In some ways, they’re like the words written down in my diary. They contain the memories that are too painful to even mention, both physically and mentally. I guess one day I just decided I didn’t want to write a diary on my own body anymore. Right about then this story started taking its shape.
I hated falling asleep.
Mainly because even for the slightest moment I dared to close my eyes, nightmares would always come. Being a shifter didn’t exactly make it better. The way my brain worked, some dreams could become shockingly similar to real life. There were even shifters who suffered from such diagnoses, that made it impossible for them to separate dreams from reality. I had often pondered about why that was. Maybe it had to do with us being extremely aware of our surroundings in such a manor we could act like normally inside of our own heads. Then again, it sometimes shocked me that not even I could see the difference, despite the weird habitats my memories and thoughts could mix together. Most of the times I could easily separate my nightmares from the nightmares my daily life offered me. Sometimes I even preferred the nightmares, because they always kept a way out for me. In them I could run with the knowledge of being physically invincible. Though there was always that problem, mentally, dreams left me much more vulnerable.
I saw the world materialize around me. It was hard to describe, because at first there was nothing around me. Wherever I looked there was nothing but a black void. I floated in it, perfectly still, like I had been ditched in space.
Slowly, a world began forming itself around me. At first, a fleck of solid ground right beneath my feet. Ash colored grass and moss that spread outwards like water rings. Roughly a meter ahead of me a pale white little stem burst out of the ground, a single onyx black leaf growing at the top. It expanded upwards, the stem thickening into a trunk that grew thicker than my body. Branches clawed their way out in crooked formations, more leaves sprouting from them. In barely a minute the tree grew several meters tall, its foliage so thick the sky could not be spotted from underneath, even if there was one.
All around me the Shadow World took shape. Small bonewhite flowers popped out of the ground in clusters, grass grew in tall tufts and even a few animals started appearing.
Perched at the low hanging branch of the closest tree an owl sat. Its feathers were a dark red that faded to a black towards the edges, and long talons that securely held onto the rough bark of the branch it sat on. It peered at me with a set of blood red eyes, and then flew off without a single noise.
As more and more animals materialized around me, the forest started feeling cramped. An ash gray deer jumped right past me and disappeared away in between the trees, and for a solid minute a demonic looking squirrel kept eye contact with me.
Up on the pitch black sky two moons floated right next to each other, the bigger one soft blue and the smaller one a yellowish white shade. The trees kept growing, and soon their leaves formed a kind of ceiling that blocked out the moonlight and left me alone in the dark forest. A compact silence settled around me, making me feel like I was being pulled back into the black void.
Trying to see something in the darkness made me dizzy, as there was nothing for my eyes to focus on. I took a careful step forwards, shuddering as I heard dry grass crunching beneath me, breaking the silence. For once I wished the animals of the shadow world would be a little more lively. They had always been creepily silent, as a young child it had frightened me more than the place itself.
The fact that I was left frolicking around in a spiritual world never fazed me, though dead-silent demonic squirrels? Terrifying.
In reality darkness had never been a problem to me. I could easily navigate through it, at times it was almost like I could feel the shapes around me without touching them. No night vision, just a slight hunch of where everything around me was. Sadly enough, that ability always seemed to leave me as I left conscience and entered my own crazy mind, captured in my own dreams. I figured the Mehri had something to do with it all. Della, the soul of nightmares, liked to make things hard for me while I slept. She was basically the only soul able to reach out to me for longer than a few minutes, downside was that her way of communicating often involved me waking up in cold sweat.
I usually didn’t mind the souls of the Mehri. Most of them were the only friends I had, but so far away from the location of their death they found it hard to materialize for longer periods of time. As annoying and overprotective as they could be, I found myself missing them more than ever as I spent my days captured on planet Earth. Their queen Farrien, the soul of darkness, had always seemed to be there for me.
Growing up I remembered how people often wondered why I was so messed up. It really shouldn’t be hard to figure out considering the fact that I grew up with darkness, hatred and fury as my three best friends. Literally.
My thoughts were disrupted as I suddenly registered a light far away. It illuminated the forest in a dimmed blue manor, not exactly making the place look any more welcoming. But as always, if you’re in a dark place and see a distant light… Just walk towards it, and something will happen. Not necessarily something good, but something will somehow happen.
I started walking towards the light source, careful not to trip on any roots emerging from the dark ground. Every now and then the cold black leaves of the trees would brush against my face and neck, and it would send shivers down my spine.
As I got closer I could make out what the light source was. A woman, slowly wandering through the woods. It didn’t exactly surprise me that it was Della, there to make my nightmare just about five times worse.
The soul of nightmares looked just as usual. She wore a long white sleeveless gown that dragged behind her as she walked. The slightly translucent fabric emitted the strange glow together with the rest of her body, and I couldn’t help thinking she kind of looked like a walking UV light bulb. Her pale blue hair hung down her back like a stream of water, flowing aimlessly around her despite the fact that the air remained perfectly still. As I approached she turned towards me, not speaking a single word. She wore her mask as usual, pure white and made of porcelain, no other colors involved to make it look simple, yet breathtaking. It was crafted beautifully, the shapes smooth and graceful. A small straight nose, a set of full lips, high cheekbones and closed eyes. Yet a slight frown and the tilting of the eyebrows made the mask look sorrowful. Thin white strings were attached to the sides, and went around the back of her head to keep it in place. Down towards her neck I could see traces of what hid underneath, pink scars that started underneath her mask and reached down over her pale neck. I knew the story of Della’s death very well, it was one I preferred not think of.
In her living years she lived a very unhappy life, diagnosed with an extreme case of night terrors. Only at the age of sixteen she looked thin and fragile, like a porcelain doll. She couldn’t sleep through a single night without the nightmares invading her life like monsters, leading to her waking up night after night in cold sweat. When she sought the support of her parents, they weren’t there for her, and it only got worse. She grew older, and the nightmares continued. And then one day, they didn’t just appear when she slept. Even in her waking hours the monsters would haunt her, and soon she couldn’t see the difference between real life and dreams. After suffering for many years, she had enough. So she scratched her own eyes out. When she realized that even with her vision taken away, the terrors were still there, she simply stood up, and stepped out the window.
When Della was then chosen by the Mehri to be the soul of nightmares, she was taken to the shadow world to meet the other souls. There they told her she looked like their worst nightmares, with the many scars on her face and her eyes nothing but bloody holes in her skull. So she crafted herself a porcelain mask, just to soothe the children she was destined to traumatize with terrible nightmares.
Della’s story was one of the less heartbreaking ones amongst the souls of Mehri, which proved just how much suffering some of them had gone through.
“Della.” I spoke aloud. She didn’t exactly react, instead she calmly waved her left hand and then waited for a brief moment.
After watching an entire forest grow to life around me I had gotten quite tired of seeing things come out of the ground, so I wasn’t exactly stoked to see it happening one more time.
Still, I reluctantly saw how a tiny black snake looking thing poked its way out of the dry black earth.
The slick body of the creature split in half and went in separate directions. After going roughly a decimeter each they went straight up. Literally, gravity was being defied like a teacher in school.
What remained weird was the fact that their bodies never ended. Instead they just kept going, leaving what looked like a frame of something behind them as they continued upwards. They mirrored each others’ movements, creating symmetrical patterns on either side of the frame. At last they reached the top, made on final loop and then bumped into each other.
Starting at the top right corner, mirror glass spread across the frame like ice freezing on a lake in fast-forwards. Bit by bit it revealed my reflection, until finally, a mirror as tall as myself stood in front of me. I looked at Della.
“Can’t you have a mirror ready next time you want me to hate myself?” I asked. I didn’t know for sure, but my best guess was that Della was deathglaring me underneath that mask of hers.
“Look.” She said, and pointed at the mirror with a long unclipped nail.
I tried not to sigh, failed, and then looked at my own reflection. As usual, the experience was highly unpleasant.
I tried to avoid all the ugly parts, the imperfections tearing my appearance apart like a dog toy in the jaws of a wolf. I kept my gaze fixed at my forehead, refusing to look anywhere else. Naturally, Della noticed that immediately. She just wanted me to suffer didn’t she.
“Look.” She repeated, this time a lot more firmly. I knew the Mehri would never hurt me, but they could make life awfully hard for me if the wanted to. Believe me, I figured that out the hard way around the age of twelve.
After running away from home they insisted that I needed to ask a woman named Marri to admit me into a training group of hers, fittingly enough a group meant just for young misfit shifters. I of course refused, convinced that I could make it on my own. The thing is, back then I was still on my home planet Amortia, and so close to the location of their death the Mehri were incredibly strong. A whole week I survived on my own. The first day the soul of storms sent all the rage of the sky down on me. The second I got to experience even more hatred than usual form the people around me, thanks to the soul of hatred. Then the third day Della captured me in a twelve hour nightmare, and after that I started leaning towards agreeing to their demand more and more.
So I did what I was asked, and I confronted my own reflection like it was an enemy. Truth to be told, I absolutely hated it. I didn’t just think I was ugly, I thought I was hideous. Terrifying people would call me, small children would look at with fear in their eyes.
About three years ago I arrived to Earth together with roughly a thousand other shifters aboard the ship Khaaron. After a rather unpleasant first meet with humanity, Khaaron was shot out of the sky and the shifter hunt began. The corporation AIC rose from the ground, and suddenly found it easy to gather the money to build an army of soldiers trained to hunt down and kill shifters, as they were seen as a threat. For three years every day of my life had been a battle, but those first few weeks were the worst by far. Back then I had little knowledge of how to fight. I knew hand to hand combat, and I could shoot a bow, but that was nothing against bullets. There were so many of them, and so few shifters that survived the crash. My world clashed together for real the day I was given the scars.
At first, I fiercely stared into my own eyes. The left one, vibrant green like emeralds, and then the right one; Blind. Dull. Gray. Lifeless. Whatever you want to call it, it didn’t exactly make me look friendly. But as bad as the eye was, the three scars on my face were worse.
They ran across the right side of my face, the middle one starting at my jaw, cutting across my eye and plowing an ugly line through my eyebrow. It looked like I’d been wrestling with a wolf, and that it just so managed to swipe a paw across my face.
What remained the toughest part of that day, long ago, was when I later found myself in the bathroom of a messy hotel room, staring at myself in the mirror. Right then I hit my own personal rock bottom, my face covered in blood, watching the slits in my skin close up as I prayed that my shifter body would be able to heal them. Thing is, I knew all along that it would be impossible. Scars were always left behind, as a kind of con to the whole quick-healing thing. I got to stand there and watch myself turn into some nightmarish horror movie killer looking chick. I looked like the kind of person you’d avoid in a dark alley, heck I looked like the kind of person you’d avoid anywhere. Right then and there, I revolted against everything.
It just pissed me off. The shifters came to Earth to learn about a species that looked just like them, and they were greeted by a missile that took their ship down and killed hundreds. I didn’t know how many had even survived the crash, I didn’t know if anyone I knew were alive, and after only three weeks on Earth I just wanted to die.
I had grown up being hated, feared by my own family and by everyone around me. I had stepped on Khaaron thinking it would offer me a new chance in life, that my powers would finally be appreciated by someone. In no way did I expect I’d need them to fight for my life. I was angry, I was furious. It felt like every soul of the Mehri had placed a small part of their essence into my system. I was fuelled by everything bad and horrible in the world. So I promised myself, that I would live. That I would leave the past behind, and that I would fight my way out of any obstacle that might face me.
Just a few minutes later, I had successfully sliced off the ink black hair that formerly reached all the way down to my knees. I was left with a choppy looking pixie cut with sideswept bangs. It didn’t look very pretty, but neither did my face. Heck, if I was going to look permanently murderous I might as well embrace it. Use it to my advantage even, as a way of keeping people at bay or making their knees shake in battle. Before that day I rarely smiled. My childhood left me about as happy as an animal locked up in a zoo, but there were still some persons scattered around me that knew how to trick the happiness out of me. But, after watching my brethren die, after watching my entire being change, I felt no need to smile anymore. A few more days, and it was like my body forgot how to do it.
I snapped out of the flashback and continued to look at my reflection in the mirror. Around a week after the scars became a permanent part of me, I made the choice of getting a snakebite. Two simple black rings embedded in my lower lips, adding to the sheer horror my appearance offered.
After relieving a rich old man from some of his cash I realized I had enough to properly treat myself a little something. The wiser choice would have been to keep it for later needs, but for once I decided not to go with the smart way out. I realized that my hostile looks could serve as a perfect way of increasing the uneasiness people felt around me, so why not put some effort into it? I wanted them to back the fuck off, to not dare speak a single word to me, and my way of doing it worked.
“Why are you making me do this?” I asked, my voice wavering. My eyes burned, and every time I blinked tears threatened to pool out of them and find their way down my cheeks. I didn’t like crying, even though the act belonged to the souls of Mehri it bothered me more than anything. The Mehri represented everything bad, and right up in there, there was a soul of sorrow. Still sorrow was often closely connected to weakness, which was something I couldn’t afford to show.
Della stared at me, which was ironic considering the fact that the eyes on her mask were closed.
“We can see fragments of the future Feyla.” She said. “Together with the Werins we predict it, and based on it we create the prophecies used to guide you. Speak the prophecy Feyla.” Her voice was unsettling. It seemed to be all around me, rather than coming straight from her mouth. I had always wondered why that was, but it belonged to one of the many things the Mehri never bothered to educate me on. That and the fact that they all had a bad habit of being overly fucking myserious.
“You know the prophecy, I know it. What’s the point?” I tried to stare her down, but without much success. As much as I wanted the dream to end, I couldn’t defy the soul of nightmares in her own domain. It was like nicely asking a rich man to get the fuck out of his own house.
“Speak it.” Della said sharply, not offering me any choice anymore.
I kept the staring act up for a few seconds, but then finally gave in, and spoke the prophecy, which had been revealed by the now dead lightborn before I was born.
“A girl of shadow walks through hate, with only balance to her aid. The leader’s fury she shall break, peace or war will overtake.”
“With only balance to her aid, Feyla.” She said, as if that line in particular made the most sense. I wasn’t with her.
“Yeah.” I said dryly. “Out of all the idiotic things I’ve heard in this universe, that line might just top the list.”
“The prophecy is about you Feyla. These lines have a deeper meaning than you could possibly imagine.”
“I don’t want deeper meanings, I want a septum piercing and a chocolate bar.”
I had a slight feeling I was starting to annoy Della, but I doubted she’d do anything about it. She had already put me through the misery of looking at my own face, and they were all well aware of how much that pained me.
“In one particular glimpse of the future, we saw that balance is essential. You need to find balance, in what way, we do not know.”
“Oh gee that’s helpful.” I spat sarcastically. Della remained silent. “You know what I’ll give ya’ll for your next birthday? A manual on how to make fucking sense to those who don’t spend half their life solving puzzles.”
“What do you see when you look at your face?” I present to you, Della, the queen of changing subjects and generally ignoring everything you say.
“Three scars and a blind eye.” I replied, completely honest. There was a reason I avoided mirrors. That particular part of my face tended to attract all of the attention, which was a shit deal since it was by far the ugliest.
People didn’t even approach me to find out if I had a nice personality. Not that I’m very nice, but still.
“You think there’s nothing good left in you, in your life. We have a theory amongst the souls. Perhaps you just need to find peace in yourself, balance out your bad emotions with good ones.”
“Should I attend therapy too?” I figured Della didn’t appreciate my sass that much, but I was not in the mood for her mysterious bullshit. It was more out of control than Jacob Sartorius acting like a sex symbol.
“Do I need to remind you that the faith of the entire shiftrian race might be in your hands?” She asked. I pulled of the typical eye roll, perfectly portraying my inner rebellious teenager.
“The prophecy can go fuck itself. I’m doomed. Shiftrian war ships come here every day, but as long as AIC has the Hydra we have no way of winning. I’m stuck here all alone. I haven’t met another shifter in ages, and my last encounter with one ended with me nearly killing him. No one wants me around, I don’t fit in anywhere and it’s just a matter of time before AIC gets me too.” I paused for a moment, expecting Della to snap back at me. She stood there, perfectly silent. “Give up on your fucking prophecy Della.” I spat. “We’re all going to die here.”
I turned around and began walking away from her. I knew I could only leave the shadow world when Della allowed me too, but I didn’t exactly care. I would prefer staying there forever if it meant not having to speak to her for another second. Maybe I would even prefer living there. I could leave my body behind on Earth, and spend the rest of my days as a soul wandering the vast forests the strange place had to offer. Maybe I could get a pet demon squirrel.
My thoughts were cut short as the ground disappeared underneath me. I lost my breath as literally everything around me disappeared, just like that, and I was in the black void again. Though this time I was falling, which was a lot more frightening than floating.
For a solid minute my biggest fear was to hit the ground. Somewhere at the back of my mind this tiny voice was stating that I could not die in a dream, but even so I preferred safe landings. I think I started to suspect Della was fucking with me when ten minutes had passed by, and I was still falling.
I finally started feeling my body waking up. A tingling sensation that started at the very tips of my fingers and spread like a wave of warmth through my body. One last deep breath, and my soul was reunited with my body.
Hallelujah, am I right?
***
I was awoken by the haunting screech of a lone raven. The bird sat perched atop one of the low-hanging branches of the tree right above me, peering down at me with a set of pearly black eyes. It was bigger than any raven I had ever seen before, with a wing span of at least 140 centimeters. The bird had been quite literally stalking me for a minimum of three days, which was starting to seem like a bad omen.
From where I lay on the ground I flicked my hand at it. A sharp wave of shadows emerged from the very tips of my fingers, slashing through the air towards the large bird. Right before the half-solid shadows collided with it the raven extended its massive wings and flew off so close to me I could feel one of the feathers brushing against my right cheek. I glanced over my shoulder, just in time to see the raven disappear up amongst the lonesome trees. I knew it would be back soon enough. It always returned, every time I chased it off. Within the hour I would see it flying high above, or sitting in one of the trees, watching me.
Around me the forest seemed awfully silent. As far as I could see the tall pines rose towards the sky, their branches reaching out to the sides like wobbly arms. There wasn’t much snow around despite it being in the midst of winter, only specks here and there to break up the pine-needle littered ground. Flecks of pale green moss grew on the moist boulders and large rocks that lay randomly around the forest. Tufts of grass desperately tried to get a whiff of sunlight by growing as tall as possible. It looked cold and unwelcoming, which pretty much summed up my Swedish experience so far. I’d chosen the country because of how peaceful it supposedly was. Sure, Sweden had more AIC bases than most countries, and because of that no shifter had been spotted there for ages. It was the perfect place, the country no one expected a powerful shifter like myself to hide in. The large forest offered me a life away from the people, and a way of finding food. Don’t worry you’ll be introduced to hunting mode sooner or later.
I got to my feet, ready to pack up and keep going. I hadn’t seen another person for at least a solid day, which I took as a good sign. I didn’t need anyone looking suspiciously at me, my first year on Earth had offered me enough of that. Now the other two years pretty much consisted of me hiding, AIC finding me, me nearly getting killed just to escape once again. Like that the same process had been repeated numerous times over the past few years. It was getting boring.
I rolled up my blanket and shoved it down my backpack, careful not to squish the packed up slices of meat I kept in there. My temporary camp site didn’t offer many tracks to anyone who would ever think of following me. Just a mattress of thick wiry pine branches, and a circle of rocks to contain a small fire.
Out of habit I grabbed the branches and messily spread them out under the trees, kicked away the rocks and buried the ashes from my fire in dirt and pine needles. I knew I wasn’t followed, but I always felt better covering up my tracks.
After most traces seeable by human eyes were gone I left.
Despite the rugged coldness the forest offered, it was a nice day. The pale winter sun shone weakly in between the trees, and no biting winds whirled around to cool anyone that dared to move through the woods.
As I previously guessed, the raven showed up again around five minutes of me hiking through the forest. It flew right above the trees, opening its mouth to screech every now and then. I didn’t really know why it seemed to be so interested in me.
On Earth birds like ravens and crows were often seen as bad omens, or just viewed as generally creepy and scary by most people. There was a possibility they had some kind of connection to the shadow world, and to the souls of the Mehri. Maybe the raven sensed my powers, and was drawn to me somehow. It was mostly just a theory, I figured there was a better explanation to it.
In fact the first time I realized the bird was in fact following me, my mind went to AIC. Alien Invasion Control. They had lots of fucked up shit going on there, who’s to say they haven’t found a way to train ravens to track down shifters somehow. Still I figured it had to be armed with some kind of camera for that, and if AIC had been able to confirm visually that I was a shifter, they would’ve sent someone to kill me long ago. But, for three days the damn raven had been sticking around, and I hadn’t seen a single AIC soldier anywhere.
As much as I usually enjoyed being on my own, I started feeling a little too lonely. I hadn’t seen another shifter for a solid year, and not even the soldiers of AIC had been bothering me for an entire month. Humans generally avoided me, and the few shifters I had met during my years on Earth were nearly as unfriendly as the locals. Basically, everyone either hated my guts, feared me or strongly disliked me. It was like the world had joined together in a mass-bullying-Feyla association.
I kept walking for around forty minutes, accompanied by no one but the raven, who I was getting closer and closer to naming at this point. I was trying to decide between the two krio words Avai and Benvi, meaning stalker and demon. These two are, of course, great name suggestions for a possibly demonic stalker bird.
The forest started tapering off into large fields. They too stretched as far as I could see, making me wonder what kind of lonesome country I’d chosen to travel too. Tall grass grew from the bumpy and uneven ground, and I was relatively sure a roe deer was spying on me about fifty meters out in the fields. I could just about see its head poking above the grass, which looked strangely creepy. But it was in no way creepier than the house.
It stood at the base of a tall hill, a one story wooden building with white paint that was starting to chip off. Many of the windows were either cracked or completely broken, and I figured no one lived there.
At the front a quite big porch spread out, and as I got closer I noticed that it was nicely decorated with dead flowers and a broken blue pot. Two white plastic chairs were placed out next to the front door, but judging by the thick layer of dirt on them I figured they hadn’t been sat in for a long time. An old car stood parked outside, but it too looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. That or some idiot had managed to drive around without wheels and three broken windows. The old rusty pickup truck looked like it needed to spend a year at a mechanic’s, and I figured it hadn’t gone anywhere since its owner left it and the house there.
Out of curiosity I chose not to walk past the house, and instead went up the creaky steps of the porch to peek through one of the broken windows. All of the front windows were broken, leaving shards of glass on the ground in front of them. I frowned. Why would someone break the windows from the inside? I could imagine a few kids throwing stones at an abandoned house, but it didn’t really make sense that they would go inside to break the windows from there. Nevertheless, it sparked my curiosity.
I gently grabbed the curved golden handle and pressed it down, shuddering at the moaning sound it gave away as it opened.
The inside of the house didn’t look much better. The floor creaked as I stepped on it, and the furniture remaining inside were old and mostly broken. In the ceiling of the hall and old lamp hung, the glass cracked and the bulb burnt out. There was a painting on the wall with a carved wooden frame. The painting itself featured a messily draw vase with a green flower in it. Judging by the rough crayon lines I guessed there was a parent with just enough love for their child to frame it on a wall like a Da Vinci painting.
I stepped into the kitchen to the right, careful not to dramatically run my hand along the door frame. I’d seen people do that in movies, but I didn’t fancy splinters in my hands.
There was a furnace with the hatch left open, the inside covered in dust and cobwebs. The fridge had fallen over as one of the old floorboards had given in under its weight, revealing an inside that contained what looked like a ancient sandwich wrapped in plastic and a very questionable pack of milk. I didn’t even consider opening it.
The kitchen table had an assortment of four different chairs around it, all of them so old I figured they would snap if I as much as rested my hand on the back of one.
Walking through the rest of the house I settled on the fact that no one had been there for very long. It was abandoned, left to rot away without anyone around to give a fuck.
I didn’t really know why I wanted to stick around. The entire place looked like it was about to collapse, yet something about it kept my mind focused on exploring its lone rooms. I quite liked old places.
Back on Amortia I would often go venturing out to the old abandoned villages that lay outside of my city, Fortia. The old houses contained traces of their former owners, and it was a hobby of mine to imagine what kind of life the people living there had.
The owners of this house hadn’t left much behind, which made me wonder even more what had happened to them. Maybe they just packed up and left one day, which seemed like the most reasonable explanation due to the lack of photos on the fridge, old clothing on the floor and other various items that are usually found laying around even in the fanciest homes.
I found my way to the last room, the bedroom, which wasn’t very different from the rest of the house. There was a queen sized bed in there, its frame carved out of dark brown wood and polished until it shone. A thin layer of dust stole its beauty away, and made it blend in with the worn and dusty bedside tables next to it. The duvet had once been red, but after many years it had faded to a sloppy pink shade, just about the same color as a bloodstain on a white shirt (I’m lovely I know).
The bedroom didn’t seem to stand out in any way. Untouched, left alone to wither away. But something made a stark contrast against everything else around me, making it painfully obvious that it didn’t belong there.
A large scrapboard had been nailed to the wall opposite of the bed. It had a cracked wooden frame around it, like it was supposed to make the cork board look fancy somehow. Pinned to it were numerous amounts of pictures and slips of paper with small notes scribbled on them. I took a step closer to see what they said, and was thoroughly confused.
“Seen on June 5:th 2060, killed by AIC two days later” was the first one that attracted my full attention. Right above it was a picture, showing a man in his mid-thirties. At first glance he might look like any other middle-aged dude, but looking closer I could spot a few differences that made me wonder if he was like me. In the picture he stood at a bus stop, seemingly staring right into the camera of whoever took the photo. It was unsettling to even look at the photo, as I had a pretty good guess of how the cameraman must’ve felt when he snapped the picture. But, the fact that the man’s eyes were fixed on the camera also made it more obvious how different he was. They were white. Not entirely white of course, that would have been creepy, but still white. His irises resembled the color of milk, with a darker gray outer edge and specks of black right around the pupil. Those were a pair of eyes no normal man would have (unless he wore lenses, that’d be the exception). It also didn’t help that his hair was the exact same way, as white as snow with roots a few shades darker. The man wore a long black trench coat, which added to the mysteriousness his hair and eyes already emitted.
Going through the rest of the board I realized that the entire thing was covered in pictures of different shifters, with belonging notes to each shifter that described when, where and how the shifter had been encountered. Many of them also shared that they had been killed shortly after they had been seen, which really wasn’t encouraging. Not at all.
From what I could tell, whoever put the board up was good at spotting an alien in a crowd, or it was a shifter who lay behind it. Then again, that didn’t really make sense. I had trouble coming up with a reason to why a shifter would walk around acting like a paparazzi when the wiser choice would be to team up with all the shifters seen, and not just stalk them. Because whoever it was had to have followed the shifters for at least a few days, how else would he or she know they had been killed days or weeks later? If it was me it would’ve been more understandable, since no one likes me I would probably often keep my distance even from shifters. But, there was that slight detail that only one shadowborn and one lightborn can exist. The shadowborn would be me.
When a shadowborn or lightborn dies, the Mehri and the Werins simply choose a new unborn child to bless. The old one is forgotten and left to rot, barely even thanked for their good deeds… Unless we’re talking lightborns, because those guys are generally praised by everyone.
Shadowborns really got the bad end of the deal on that one.
My gaze continued down the board, and at the very end, there was a face that I recognized. Two of them actually.
On the picture Azira and Trisha looked just as I remembered them to. Trisha had her straight black hair up in a high ponytail that stretched her skin out and made her almond shaped eyes look even more intense. Her yellow irises seemed to radiate hostility even from the distance the photo had been taken, which was one of the traits that marked her as a shifter in most people’s eyes. Dressed in a tan parka and skinny jeans she looked like she was ready to model for a fall magazine at any given moment. I remembered her to be the queen bee that always got her way, even on a flying ship full of soldiers.
Azira on the other hand looked more concerned than death-strikingly beautiful. Her wild red curls had been tamed into the shape of a braid that hung down her back. Her cheeks and nosebridge were both speckled with freckles, that in combination with the smile I remembered her to often use, made her look a tad childish. Her nose was small and slightly curved upwards, and her eyebrows strangely straight. Altogether, she did not look like someone who’d accompany a full-on bitch like Trisha on a daily basis.
Azira had her coat wrapped tightly around her, her gaze fixed on something that seemed to be right above the cameraman. There was a note attached to their photo as well. “spotted 2063 february 12:th. Assumed dead, AIC found them right as picture was taken”
I didn’t quite know what to feel at that. Both Trisha and Azira had always been horrible to me, making it very much obvious that they didn’t appreciate a shadowborn shifter in their room. I’d known them from the special squad back on Amortia founded by Marri. As long as she was there they would treat me like a sister, but the moment she left their true selves would be revealed.
When we were assigned roommates after being recruited to go with Khaaron as it traveled to Earth, I wanted to punch a wall.
Scratch that, I wanted to punch through three walls, and possibly burn down a house.
Still the fact that they were probably dead got to me. I knew them, very well in a way. As idiotic as they both were, they didn’t deserve to die. No shifter really deserved to die at the hands of an AIC soldier. I really deserve some kind of award for saying that, given the fact that very few shifters have ever treated me well.
I looked at the note again, and right about then realization hit me like a freight train.
It had been written this year, 2063, and on January 12:th… I did the math, and my jaw dropped. Exactly one week ago, Trisha and Azira were spotted somewhere in Sweden.
I tore the picture off the board and looked more closely at it. The two were standing at the top of a hill, waist high in grass. Somewhere behind and below them I could spot a roof, old mossy black tiles.
I could just about swear that some cheery golden voice cried “jackpot!” at that.
With the photo shoved down my pocket I quickly left the house, hurrying down the stairs so quickly I was sure the steps were going to snap under my weight. Rushing around the back of the house I already knew the answer. There was a hill, the house was placed at the foot of a hill.
I rushed up the side of the hill, breathing heavily as I reached the top.
I took a moment to position myself correctly, and could soon confirm that the photo had been taken right where I was standing. As I thought, the roof had the same black tiles as in the photo, covered in flecks of moss and dirt.
“You were here…” I muttered thoughtfully to myself, not quite sure what to do with that information. As it turned out, I ended up not having to worry about that at all.
“How nice to see you here Feyla. Of course you’ve already seen me for three days, but I guess some thing not even you can figure out.”
I didn’t really need to look to know who it was, but I preferred to address bullies face to face. Slowly turning around, I was met by her royal bitchface, a smug smile already planted on her lips; as if she was already planning her next insult.
“Trisha.” I said. “And here I was hoping you died.”
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