Darkness, for the second time today I was surrounded by complete, utter darkness. But unlike the first time that this had happened, this time I knew exactly where I was.
"MOTHERFUCKER!!!" I shouted in rage, kneeling and punching what I assumed was the floor. There was a satisfying crack as my gloved fist had made contact with the solid shadow I was standing on, but even me possibly breaking my hand didn't distract me from the boiling rage that rested in my chest. This was the second time that I was here and if the first time I arrived here means anything, that can only mean one thing. "I FUCKING DIED IN MY SLEEP!"
"How could this have happened?" Was the only question that I could think of past all of the anger. The last thing that I remembered was falling asleep under the bridge. It couldn't have been the weather, it wasn't nearly cold enough to kill anyone sleeping outside. "someone must have killed me." I thought, now calming down enough to think logically. There weren't many people that would want to kill me. There were only two that had come to mind. One of them being that girl that was talking to spike, Twilight.
"It can't be her," I mumbled to myself, she had no reason to even think of killing me. She was only suspicious of me when I heard them talking about me, it didn't seem like they were ready to kill me based on that alone. That meant that there was only one other option for who did this.
"THOSE FUCKING DOGS!" I yelled into the void, I then proceeded to let loose a string of curses that would shock a veteran. The cursing continued for another five minutes, in those five minutes the rage that I felt had increased tenfolds. This was my second chance, the second chance that I had a life, and it had ended because some wannabe gangsters killed me in my sleep like the bitches they were.
Though I was surrounded by nothing but darkness I could feel the darkness respond to my anger. The shadows that I was standing on had slowly begun to rise as my anger did, alongside the heat in my body. But I paid them no mind all I could think of was how I was now going to be left in this dark void for the rest of my time alone with nothing but my thoughts for the rest of my time. It was a thought that had only added to my anger, but there was another feeling that I felt as I continued to think of me being left alone in this void forever. It was a feeling that I wasn't familiar with, but it continued to rise along with my anger the more I thought. As both of the emotions had begun to reach the breaking point I had realized what this emotion was.
....It was fear
With that thought, there was a sound of a breaking chain somewhere and then the shadows that had shot out and had begun to cover my leg.
I immediately tried to pull my leg out of the shadow, remembering the pain that I felt the last time that I was caught in it. Unlike the last time though, I was not being consumed by all of the shadows around me, but the shadow on my leg had begun to make its way up my leg, past my torso, and into my mouth. I had tried to stop it by closing my mouth and covering it with my hand. But that did nothing but inconvenience the living shade as it made its way through any opening it could. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to come. After five seconds it had arrived, and the pain that I felt was nothing like the last time.
Unlike the pain of breaking bone and tearing muscles that I felt last time, this time it felt like someone was pushing an ice-cold spike next to all my veins. Though there was still pain, it wasn't anything that I hadn't felt before. For ten minutes I laid there, biting down on my cloak as I waited for whatever was happening inside of me to finish. When the pain stopped I just laid there, panting for breath. My mind was hazy after feeling that and my entire body just felt sore.
I groaned as I rolled over and tried to stand up, but it seems that whatever that thing did to me focused on the head as my vision was swimming. So once again I laid there on the cold floor, waiting for the pain in my head to go away. As I waited, I had heard footsteps behind me, along with the sound of clanking metal. Forcing myself to turn to the other side I saw a large, muscular, man.
The man was tall, maybe around 6'6, and his body was covered in a beautiful, light silver armor. Over his shoulder was a red cape that looked like it was made with the most expensive material that money could buy. The fur had run along the edges of the cape that had been so white that it looked like it had been made of fresh snow.
The armor that the man wore had been a sharp contrast to the man's dark skin. He had sharp facial features, as well as a thin, well-kept beard running along his jawline. His lips were curved into a sinister grin that was full of white teeth. On his head, he wore a crown with five cracked horns, and two running on either side of it. The cracked horn in the middle brought the most attention as it was silver at the base, but it was leaking a black mist where it broke. The hair that ran through it looked like it was made of shadows rather than hair and it seemed to wave in a nonexistent breeze. His eyes had my attention the most, the sclera of both of his eyes was a wicked green instead of the natural white. The irises were a dark red if his eyes didn't have the green they would have looked exactly like mine.
He stopped walking when he finally reached me and he looked down at me. His eyes didn't change at all, but I could tell that he was examining me.
"W-who-" I chocked out before my head started to pound against my skull. Whatever the man was doing, he seemed to have finished as his smile seemed to grow just a fraction.
"with....his...ody...is... com..ete." Was all I heard before he took his hand and held his palm towards me. I had then slowly started to sink into the darkness. I started up at him, not even fighting back as I slowly sunk down. It wasn't until I looked at his wrist that I finally realized what had made that breaking noise earlier. Around his gauntleted wrist was a large, heavy cuff that looked like it could hold back a bear. A chain was hanging off of the cuff, runes had been covering it up until where the chain had been torn off in one of the links. I looked at his other arm and saw that his other arm and both of his legs had similar cuffs on them, but instead of the chains being broken they had seemed to sink into the darkness. Those were the last things that I had seen before I had full sunk in the darkness.
Ponyvile
My eyes shot open and my body shot up as I woke up from my dream. As I shot up, my head impacted something hard and sent me sprawling back on to the ground. I laid there for a minute and let my head spin, as I waited for my head to finally clear from the impact I had realized something. I shot up again, this time getting into a kneeling position. I looked around and saw that I was still under the bridge, the only difference is that my cloak was next to me instead of wrapped around my body.
"I'm alive?" I said, unsure if I was, I then started to feel my body all around. Only when I got to the back of my head and felt the large lump that was starting to for where I hit my head was I sure that I was indeed. I almost wanted to cry, I wasn't dead, I wasn't going to be left in that dark void until I lost my sanity. Instead of crying, I laughed. It was more hysterical than it was genuine. If anyone had seen me right now, they would probably grab the nearest guard and have to explain the hysterical teen that was under the bridge. But right now, I didn't care, I was alive.
I didn't understand where all of these emotions were coming from about me dying. I had been in so many near-death situations that I thought that actually dying wouldn't be such a big deal. I wasn't a big deal to me the first time I had been in the void.
"Maybe it's because of this new body." I thought, finally calming down and rubbing the tears from my eyes. When I finally calmed down, I had finally noticed the new feeling that was in my body. It was a cold, yet welcome feeling like there was cold water running alongside my blood. It was only then that I remembered where I had been only ten minutes ago, and then my anger had begun to rise once again. I had been here for only two days, and in those two days, I had been pulled into the void and had been put in some kind of painful experience. But unlike the first time, I had been in the void, where I had thought that it was some sort of divine punishment for all that I have done, but now I'm starting to think that I was brought here for completely different reasons. Those reasons were probably going to be connected to that man I saw in the void.
"The Shadow Mage." I said slowly, not sure if I had the name right, "I'll have to go to the library and see if I can find anything on that name." with the name still in my mind I slowly crawled to get out from under the bridge, remembering to grab my cloak. As I got out from underneath the bridge I wrapped my cloak around my waist to hide my mask and most of the gear that was in my small utility belt which was still somehow clipped to my pants.
"I'm going to have to find a better way to hide all of this gear." I thought, finishing the knot in front of my waist. Most of the stuff that I had in my belt wouldn't raise any suspicions, like my lighter, some ruined cigarettes (those were getting thrown out), a compass, some pain killers, a small medkit, and my lock pick and a little more. The other things that I had definitely would raise suspicion, I might be able to pass off my gun as something else if this world wasn't advanced enough to know what it was, as well as the extra rounds that I had for it. but there was no chance I could convince anyone that my knives weren't what they actually were. My phone is also a maybe, it was a simple android that my clients would call me on and that I was able to throw away if I was ever found out. It worked, as it had a waterproof case, but it was pretty much useless as this world had no signal of any kind. It was the first thing that I had checked before I had found out that I was in a different world.
"I'll hold on to it." I shrugged, something that I had been taught was that nothing was ever truly useless. I looked up to the sky and saw that the sun was barely over the horizon, showing a beautiful shade of orange, along with some more of those flying people moving dark looking clouds into place.
"So I guess that they're in charge of the weather," I said to myself, still somewhat baffled that the people in this world were able to do stuff like this, and if what the girl I meet in the forest was anything to go by, there was more that these people can do.
"Sombra?" I turned around as I heard my name and saw a familiar face that I had doubted I would see so soon.
"Mrs. Cake?" I said in return, and watch as she walked up to me with a large stroller grasped in her hands and an umbrella hanging off her arm. She smiled brightly as she walked up to me, as soon as she got within reach of me, she reached out and pulled me into a hug again. My eyes had widened as the shorter woman wrapped her arms around my waist and her head to my chest. I had to physically restrain myself to not push her away from me. I never received this kind of affection growing up, so her doing this to me was something new, and I could really tell if I liked it or not. I knew that she was no harm to me, but the only time anyone would wrap their hand around me was to take me to the ground.
" or if I was enjoying a night with a woman." I thought before I instantly shot it down. Mrs. Cake was a beautiful woman, but she seemed so motherly that to think any sexual thought of her almost made me sick. The hug ended a second later and she smiled up at me and took a step back.
"Good morning Mrs. Cake," I greeted dumbly, still getting over the hug. "What are you doing up so early in the morning?"
"Good morning Sombra, I was just going to take my children to go see their father in the hospital today before the rain started. So I woke up and got the kids ready, but then I saw you..um." She began to trail off as her smile was replaced with a look of concern.
"Is there a problem Mrs. Cake?" Her face scrunched in thought as she had tried to find the correct words. As she did, I took at what was inside her stroller. They were two babies, a boy, and a girl, that couldn't have been over a year old playing with each. When they had seen that I was looking at them, both had stopped and stared at me. The boy had brown wavy hair that seemed to curve up the farther out it got, and his eye were a somewhat greyish brown color that had stared deeply into mine. I was the first to break eye contact, letting him have this victory as I look over to his sister. This one, unlike her brother, had orange, curly hair on the top of her head that was tied at the top, and she had eyes that were a light blue color. Both of them were wearing a onesie, the boy had a goldish grey while the girl had a bright yellow.
The girl then slowly held out her hand, and then a blue aura the color of her eyes had surrounded her hand. I was mesmerized by it that I almost didn't notice some locks of my hair were being pulled down. Hard.
"Woah!" I cried as I put my hand on both sides of the stroller to stop me from headbutting the children.
"Oh my goodness!" Mrs. Cake cried out as she grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back with all her might. I pushed as hard as I could but all that did was make her pull harder. Mrs. Cake then let go, realizing that this wasn't working and went to grab the child herself and had tried to coax her to stop while grabbing her small hand. But even grabbing her didn't stop the pulling, only drag me in her direction. Mrs. Cake started to panic as she saw me grab onto my aura covered hair and keep my feet planted. She kept trying, but when she looked down at my feet, she saw that they were starting to leave trails in the dirt from being damaged. After giving me one more panicked look, she shoved the baby into my arms and waited for me to have a good hand on her. Only when her mother let go did her magical grasp on my hair left, by the end of the whole ordeal both Mrs. Cake and I were left panting to calm our racing hearts.
"telekinesis, babies can learn telekinesis" I thought, looking down at the kid with a wide-eyed look. She looked right back at me as if she did nothing wrong.
"I think that she wanted to get a better look at you." Mrs. Cake explained, walking to the stroller and grabbing her brother, who looked scared shitless about the entire situation.
"Geez, " I chuckled awkwardly, still not too sure how I should react. "Trying to get a guys attention before his name, now that's forward." I joked, trying to make light of the earlier situation. Mrs. Cake didn't laugh, in fact, she started to flush.
"I'm so sorry!" She said to me, she then went to explain how baby "mages" could have sudden outbursts of magic and that they didn't know any better or how to truly control it.
"Mrs. Cake you're fine, no one truly got hurt." I said, looking down in the baby in my arms. I then froze at the realization that there was a baby in my arms. The baby was still looking at me as is she was trying to see if I was just wearing a mask. "Umm, hi there, what's your name?" I said in an unsure tone like I was expecting her to talk back to me.
"That little one is named Pumpkin Cake," Mrs. Cake said, answering for the child as she had put the other one back into the stroller. IIn responds to her name, Pumpkin turned around and looked at her mother. "And her brother's name is Pound Cake." She said, walking over and grabbing her daughter, the baby's face scrunched, but she seemed satisfied at what she got out of looking at me.
"I swear, most of the people I met in this town are named after foods." I thought as I watched Mrs. Cake strap her children in the stroller.
"So what was it you were going to ask me, Mrs. Cake?" I said, trying to get my mind off of the babies as fast as I could, after this, I never wanted to see another baby mage again if that's what they are capable of. Once again Mrs. Cake's face wrinkled in thought. She then looked up at me and smiled.
"Can I make do something for me Sombra?" She asked, I raised an eye brow at her. Requests for me were nothing new, but I doubted that Mrs. Cake was the type of woman to make any dangerous request, or have any real need for them.
"Sure." I shrugged.
"Can you come with me to the hospital and meet my husband, Mr. Cake?"