Supressing the Shadow Within

by TheGingaNinja

Prologue

~Prologue~

"Man, I sure do love days like today." I said to my friends sitting across the table from me, looking up at the scattered clouds in the midday sky. A small gust of cool wind blew by us, my shoulder length hair flying to and fro in response.

"I don't know, Charlie," countered Mark, shivering a bit and putting his arms over his chest to preserve body heat. "This kind of weather is a little too cold for me."

"It is a bit chilly, honestly." Celine chimed in, pulling her hood up and scooting closer to Mark to lean on his shoulder.

"Pssh, it's what, 21 degrees Celsius outside? It's not even that cold!" I retorted playfully, chuckling at seeing them huddled together like penguins in a blizzard.

"Whatever dude, at least we got some good food and got to hang out. That's all I really care about." Mark said, picking up a short wooden stick and stabbing another piece of fried chicken to pop into his mouth.

"True that man, true that." I agreed, tossing back a piece of chicken myself, savoring how it practically melted into my mouth.

I let out a small sigh and got lost in thought a little, thinking of how times like these were becoming a much less frequent occurrence. Ever since we all graduated high school and got into college it seemed like there was just less time to take things slow and enjoy the small moments in life. Sure, we would game together pretty often and get a lot of good quality time in online, but it just isn't the same as it used to be.

Still, it's not like I'm dissatisfied with how things are at the moment. I was able to find a great interest of mine down the road of things like big data and machine learning, all of which as a whole is pretty wild to me, so I'm excited to go down that path. I'm also really grateful for the great friends I have right now, despite the several instances of disbanding and having to reform the group in the past. Mark, for instance, I've known him since high school, but only recently have we really been able to connect on a deeper level. And Celine, she's fairly new to the group, having only been hanging out with us for some 6 months or so, but it feels like she's been here forever.

I turned back to the couple, smiling to myself at how adorable they are together, but quickly became distracted by some inkling of anxiety that began to swell within me. I wasn't quite sure what there was to be anxious about, so I tried my best to ignore it as my friends and I wrapped up our meals and started walking about. We conversed idly while walking through a nearby park, but the feeling inside me continued to nag at my consciousness, pulling my attention away from the conversation.

It didn't take too long for them to notice a change in my normally cheery demeanor, my focus being brought back to my friends by Celine asking, "You alright, Charlie? You're looking a little pale over there." She looked with concern at me, stepping a little bit closer.

"Ah n-nah nah I'm fine, it's nothing really." I assured, only to become aware of how much my anxiety had grown in the last few minutes. I realized now where this feeling was coming from, as my anxiety quickly became fear. I felt like something dark was approaching me, but no matter where I looked there was nothing perceptible in sight. My mentality transitioned yet again, going from fear to near full-blown panic as my vision blurred and my head began to spin. I could hear the faint, worried voices of Mark and Celine, and I attempted to cry out and say, "It's coming for me, help!" but the words never made it out.

A moment more and everything snapped into order, my body settling to a perfect calm, and my vision stabilizing just in time to see an ominous rift directly in front of me. Mark and Celine were frozen off to the side, and I could only watch as a dark haze seeped out from the rift, slowly making it's way around me and pulling me forward. My mind reverted to panic mode, merely flailing my arms and sloppily backpedaling as much as basic muscle memory would allow.

Despite my best efforts, the haze was unrelenting and unaffected, pulling me further in as I whimper screamed to no avail. Before I knew it, I was through the rift and veiled entirely in the dark haze. Now, my thoughts and senses being all consumed by darkness ceased to give me any useful information, and so I shut down, my consciousness quickly fading to black and passing out.

~~~~~~~~

"Ugh," I groaned, slowly regaining consciousness. I dug my head into whatever I was lying down on, my body thinking it was waking up and as such, taking the appropriate action. I immediately felt a barrage of what felt like pins on the side of my face, and after giving my eyes a bit to focus, realized that I was lying on grass. Remembering briefly what had just happened I jolted upwards, supporting my upper body with my arms in a half lying position.

I looked around and saw that I was in some sort of clearing, but that I was surrounded by a lush forest that looked to go on for miles. I blinked and brought a hand up to rub my eyes, hoping that familiar scenery would greet me as I removed my hand. To my disappointment, the same view came into sight as my hand dropped, and my head sank in despair.

Bruh, what am I even supposed to make of this. What just happened? My mind failed to make sense of the current situation, going into hyperdrive then slowing back down as the realization that there was no way to rationalize this set in. I moved to bring my legs in front of me, feeling a tremendously sharp pain in my left leg as I did so. Halting my movement and switching to a regular sitting position I rolled up my pants to inspect my leg, seeing some grotesque discoloration and an odd placement of bone at the knee.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I muttered to myself, guessing that whatever brought me through whatever I traveled through didn't do it gently. I hoisted myself up on my good leg, putting all of my weight into it as I surveyed the area. There was literally nothing helpful in sight, as everything was just straight woods as far as the eye could see.

"I'm not really the outdoorsy type, but I guess I don't really have a choice." I began hobbling towards the foliage, praying that if anything that I at least don't run into a wild bear out here in the middle of who knows where.

~~~~~~~~

The journey into the forest was majorly uneventful, only seeing some strange vegetation here and there, but nothing to cause immediate alarm. At least not till now, that is. I was surprised at how dark it had gotten deep within the forest considering how light it had been in the clearing. The real problem though, was this huge entanglement of thick vines and shrubbery that blocked what seemed to be the best path forward.

I had followed what I at least thought was a trail, having less plant on the ground by an almost insignificant degree, but still few enough for me to hobble through semi-comfortably. But alas, since these vines were blocking me there wasn't much I could do unless I found a way through. I carefully approached the vines, as some of the thinner ones appeared to be shifting around at a considerably slow pace, not enough to deter me from my way forward. Upon closer inspection I noticed that there was a somewhat narrow opening in the vines, but I would have to crawl through a couple feet or so till reaching the other side.

I shuddered a bit as I thought about what kind of bugs or spiders could make their way onto my person while crawling through, but I was kind of desperate to get out of here and back to civilization. So, having steeled my resolve I leaned my upper body to the opening at about waist height, and began to work my way into the hole. I could feel and hear some of the vines shift a bit as I made contact, but I did my best to ignore it and press on. Everything was solid till about three fourths of the way through when one of the smaller vines that had been shifting about jabbed a pointed edge into my right arm.

"AHG, MOTHER F-" I stopped myself from finishing, seething though as the vine dislodged itself from my arm, some odd-looking teal liquid dripping from the tip of the spike it stabbed me with. With the adrenaline boost from the pain and the fear that if I wasted a second more the vines would trap me in there, I hurried and shuffled my way out from the vines. Once free, I pulled up my sleeve and examined my arm, frowning at what I saw. The teal liquid seemed to be causing the blood it came into contact with to slowly turn teal as well, showing a little too well through my skin.

"C'mon man," I said in frustration to the vines, "first a broken leg, and now you go and inject me with who knows what? could this get any worse?" I thought aloud, and promptly cursed myself for doing so. A not too far-off screech could be heard reverberating through the forest, and it sent a chill down my spine. Whatever that screech belonged to, I certainly did not want to wait and meet it and risk an avoidable fatality. I shambled as fast as I could through the flora, trying my best to stick to the trail while not veering in the direction of the screech.

I was making fair progress till a pounding in my head and throbbing in my arm forced me to slow down for a moment. I looked back to the arm that had been injected and saw that nearly my whole arm had been infected with that liquid. The pounding in my head failed to let up despite my lack of movement, so I hastily began limping again while fighting the pain. I wasn't going to last long, as I could feel my breath getting shorter and shorter, and my vision beginning to cloud over once again. I felt like I was giving enough energy to be an Olympic runner and should be going pretty fast, but in reality, it was only a couple of seconds till-

THUMP

I collapsed to the ground, my body giving up on carrying me forward any further. I raised my face from the dirt and plant to stare blurrily into the thicket, seeing some plants rustle up ahead.

Welp, this is where I meet my end, I guess. I thought sullenly, tears welling up in my eyes. I could hardly make out what emerged from the brush ahead, only registering a gray blob as my head laid back on the ground and consciousness escaped me once again.

Author's Note:

Hey guys! After being a part of the fandom since the stone ages, I felt like I finally wanted to contribute in some way to the fandom. As such, here's my first ever fan fiction~ I'm kind of writing this on a whim, so apologies if updates take a while or if the plot gets a little wonky sometimes, but I'll do my best to keep everything in check and reasonably plausible. So just a bit of foreword, I don't completely know how I want the story to go or how it will end beyond a general idea, so bear with me as I try to figure it out. Anyways, thanks for checking this out, and I hope you liked it! And of course, constructive criticism and comments are welcome^^