//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: The Shadow // Story: By the Borders // by Rakoom //------------------------------// The shadow "So let me get something straight here. I'm going to face an entity of darkness that shouldn't have a shape or a weakness. No face, nor body, no voice or mind? But in order to twist me for whatever reason it has, it'll give itself all of the above? Great," I said to myself. I was so tired I could've slept sitting again, but I feared my dreams. Last time I dreamt, I dreamt of losing control and going on a rampage. Who knows what I could dream of next time? But if the shadow would try to take over me, why make it easy? I looked up at the moon again, absorbing its awesomeness/beauty (can't decide) before going back towards the house. I wondered if I should really sleep inside, but outside wouldn't be such a good idea either. So I went inside, Breeze slept on a really comfy-looking chair. Dice had leaned back on a sofa with his handybag™ next to him. The door into that brewing-room or whatever was open, and I could see Acorn quietly sleeping on her desk. The d'awww in that room was almost too much to for me to handle. The room was pretty big for an underground house, not what you would've expected considering the massive weight the soil on top added to the structure. There were planks covering every corner, so it was really clean as well. So I guess whoever built it must've been a pretty good carpenter. Maybe it was one of Acorn's parents? Next to Dice, there was a small table with a single burning candle shedding light around. There was also another in Acorn's room. I stepped inside and blew out the candle, easing her sleep. Then I walked back into the living room and blew out the last candle, putting out all the light in the house. I made sure to find myself the most secluded spot in the house before lying down and closing my eyes. "Bring it on shadow," I said to myself. Dice would have made a grin if he had heard me. Dreaming is so strange. At times I have realized that I was dreaming while running from something terrible, allowing me to force myself awake. At other times the dreams are like a reality, but I have less to no control. This dream was like neither; I had full control over all senses and I felt perfectly awake. I stood in a dusty dark middle-age hallway. Torches burned, but only on the path ahead. Behind me was only darkness, and it chilled my spine to look at it. I started walking forward and the hallway turned right. Just as I passed the corner I saw a door. Big and old, with rusty metal and rotting wood. I felt an urge to knock on the door, and so I did. The loud sound echoed into the hallway. And to my unlucky surprise it was answered by distant noises; I couldn't stay there. There was not response, and no sounds from within. So I opened the heavy door with an INSANE cracking-noise before going in. Inside was dark as well, but two torches hung above the door. I grabbed one of them, and going further in (YES I grabbed it with my mouth... shaddap). My hooves echoed a lot on the few steps I took, but I reacted quickly when sounds of movement came from the hallway. I head-butted the door (which was not as painful as you would've expected). As the door closed completely a sound of heavy clicking sounded in the walls, and into the door. Without touching the door, I knew it was completely locked. I walked about a hundred meters into the room, listening for any sounds. But the echo of my hooves on the moist and cold stone floor was everything I heard. But then I saw a stone table; square and huge. I walked straight to it and held my torch over it, revealing old carving that looked almost like something ancient Nordic. "Interesting, isn't it," something said. The sudden voice startled me a lot, and my heart raced inside me chest. "Relax, I'm over here," it said with its dry male voice (sounded a little grumpy actually) before hoof-steps revealed his location at the table's other end. I turned to him and dropped the torch on the table in surprise. It was me. Not that I had looked at myself at all, but the ripped ear, the wings and the hair was enough. I stood there for a couple of seconds with my mouth hanging and my eyes open in shock. "What, I know that you knew this would happen. Or at least that Dice told you so," he said with a smug grin on his face. His mane was almost pitch-black, and so were his eyes. No wonder I didn't see him. "You may have entered YOUR dreams in YOUR mind, but make no mistake; this is my domain. I am in charge here," he said with rising anger in his voice. He was clearly more than just a little upset about my presence there. "If you think that I'll just let you take everything from me while I just sit idly by and do nothing, you are a sorry little foal," I responded. And saying that I was angry was an understatement; I was 'this' close to catching fire. "Heh, not the little wimp are you. Looks like I have to do this the hard way, even with most of your memory locked away here," he said tapping his hoof on the stone table. "Tell you what. You break the seal and I'll let you have your memories. No time pressure, no catch. Just don't use an eternity," he said. He took a step back, but still looking at me with a pretty de-motivational grin. I looked at the table; it was filled to the edge with carvings of high quality. I could make out five ring-like formations of symbols, but it still didn't make any sense. I slid my hoof over the carvings, feeling on all of the symbols. To my surprise, I felt differently as my hoof slid over the circle formations. I knocked a little on the symbols, but with no reply. But the symbols did definitely emit some sort of aura. I couldn't think of anything more, but then I noticed my torch. A tiny flinch of burning fire shot from the rest of the wood and onto the closest circle, with HUGE effect! A couple of the symbols lit up and the burning little piece of wood ignited anew, just with a fire ten times as big as it actually should burn! I threw the entire torch upon the circle-formation (afraid to get burned), and watched as the torch turned to ash in a second as the circle-formation spat out a ball of fire. The torch was gone, but the table was still burning brightly at the exact place the symbols formed a circle. I felt some adrenaline as this made perfect sense, but it lasted a second as I easily pointed out a cold truth: I didn't have water. I looked around to see for any moist areas, but none was nearby. Then I noticed the black pony on the other end of the table, with his head resting on his left hoof (the human way that is pretty impossible for ponies to actually do...) and the other hoof resting on a bucket. He tipped the bucket over and water flowed out, but all of the water quickly massed up on one the rings; forming a small tower of ice. Suddenly at the blink of an eye, the water froze to solid ice. Like a reversed icicle. I looked at the black pony, who just gave me a shrug (with a smug look on his face... smugshrug!). For earth I jagged loose one of the bricks on the floor and found it to have some dirt underneath it. For air I initially thought about just blowing of the table. But on second thought I jumped on the table and flapped my wings once, which was enough. A small tornado formed on the table, and I jumped down again. Nothing happened... I tilted my head in confusion. "Wait for it," the black pony said. Suddenly, a crackling sound came from the table. "I would take about ten steps back if I were you," he said while going off himself into the dark room. I looked down at the table and noticed the carvings changing. The carvings stretched around, forming a twisting web-like mass of paths. Liquid poured from some holes near the circles (which was perfect circles now), filling the paths towards the middle. I took the black pony's advice and hoofed it. And just in time too; the table let out a sound that gathered in strength, the sound that tells you something WILL. GO. BOOM! And so it did. A massive wave of air blew me almost off my hooves. I held my wings in front of my face (wings FTW!) to shield it from the dust. And as the dust settled, everything was as it was seconds before. I stepped closer to the table, and saw the black pony on the other end. "Not that hard was it? Go on! I'm sure you're eager to remember, right?" he said, something was wrong. Why would he say that? Why would he help me? Hesitantly, I walked up to the table's end. In the middle was a colorless orb. The kind of orb you can see into, but you can't really see anything. It's just... Nothing. I reached my hoof out to touch it, but before that I saw the black pony's grin. The moment my hoof touched the orb, all was gone. Then I felt another headache pulling me back into reality, and onto the cold stone floor. I stared on the floor for a couple of seconds, checking that all my manual functions were still fine. Then I sat up, rubbing my head to make the pain a little easier to bear. Then I noticed my ear, which made me remember waking up after the crash, which made me notice that I could remember! I immediately fired off some quotes from pure randomness (quotes from awesome games/animes mind you): "ALL YO YENS! YIP YIP YAP! Dosh!" Even though I nearly squeeled from the joy from being my old self again (with the new memories), it didn't take me long to realize how something wasn't right. I remembered my meeting with Acorn, I remembered Breeze saving her, I remember the hound-like things and I remembered everything I went through up to that point. But I was kinda surprised to remember something that wasn't there before at all! Somehow I had a memory about something else from the time when I crashed, BEFORE I woke up and saw Acorn. I had sat up, I had been confused, dazed and my ear bled. I even did the exact same thing when I realised my transformation the first time: Shouting out in joy, praising life and jumping a little around (which meant that I repeated myself later). But for a split second I saw something blurry that was even then nearly wiped away from my memory. It was the figurine of a pony I, that much was certain, but I blacked out the second I saw him. The thought itself is kinda scary; a pony that wipes your memory when you see it? I couldn't really do anything about that then, but I made a mental side note to ask somepony later. I had been in my own world to figure out that, because apparently a black pony performing black arts on a wall with lots of lights and bad stuff went unnoticed by me. The shadow (which we called him) was pretty damn busy in a world of his own. But this one consisted of a lot of bad magic and things I wouldn't like though; he was taking control of me. "And so the sleepyhead comes to join the party eh?" he said. "I think the access to your memory was an ok price, for a little time alone with only me and your control nerves," he said with a grin on his face. But his eyes were, eh, 'glowy-black' this time. And he didn't move his face eyes away from that wall for a second. I didn't really get it, but then I noticed a very thin stream of something (likely magic) between his forehead and the middle of the wall. He had painted the wall with something thick- and bright red. The paint formed a circle with a dot on the middle, and a lot of symbols and lines in between. But these symbols were different from those on the table; they had more edges and twisted through one another. It must've taken him a lot of time. I wondered how long I was away so that he could paint that thing, because he sure put a lot of effort into it due to all the details. "What are you doing," I asked. "Oh, nothing really. Nothing you need to worry about. I'll just take over that worthless mind of yours and make something out of it," he said cheerfully with a little smile painted over his twisted face. "But I guess you won't go cry in the corner in the meantime, so I'll just have to give you some motivation to change that," he said. The faint stream of energy streamed into the wall and the Shadow's eyes stopped 'glowing'. He turned his head and looked at me with a sickening smile, MY sickening smile. "Make no mistake, BOY. This is MY territory, and you're not welcome here," he continued. I wanted to take him on; I wanted to break that twisted face of his. Like HELL if I would let him just take over my mind! We were probably evenly matched, but then I understood what he meant. As he sat there and just looked at me, the shades of two ponies stepped forward (literally living SHADES). The odds had tipped into his favor. It would be a hell of a battle. But I was ready.