Shadow parasite

Nora continued to furiously climb the tree even after noticing that no monsters were on her trail anymore. Her skirt was fluttering in the wind alongside her long black hair. There were now various holes in her outfit, exposing a large amount of her fair skin.

She didn’t want to take any risks, so she stopped only very close to the tree top, which was hundreds of meters up into the air.

“Did we really escape?” she looked back to double-check that nothing was coming after her anymore. Only after carefully analyzing every direction that was in her line of sight did she finally let out a deep breath of relief. “We did it!”

Her happy moment was, however, very short-lived. Glancing at Gorn she shuddered. His body was full of bruises, and blood was constantly dripping off his leather armor, which, just as her clothes, had various holes in it. The skin on his face was also almost half gone. That, coupled with his still blank, unfocused eyes, made for quite the dreadful sight.

To make things even more spine-chilling, his shadow was slowly moving around his body, elongating and shrinking in very unnatural ways. There wasn’t even sunlight at their current position, at that time. Her shadow wasn’t visible in the slightest, as it should have normally been for Gorn as well.

A deep sense of fear seeped into Nora’s bones. Remembering the fact that the shadow helped them escape a few life-threatening situations, she swallowed her saliva, and gathered some courage to inspect Gorn’s current condition more thoroughly.

Even though some bruises were rather gruesome, there weren’t any life menacing wounds. The smaller cuts were even giving off signs of healing.

“Gorn! Can you hear me?” Nora tried again to attract his attention, alas, nothing happened, not even the slightest bits of reactions. The shadow didn’t seem to want to attack her in any way, it just kept wriggling around ominously.

Taking Gorn, she went and leaned over the thick tree trunk. Embracing him tightly, she thought: ‘Just what is wrong with you?’ Nora’s eyes became watery, and she started to cry.

With the current situation, it was almost impossible for her to return to the others in one piece. Not knowing what was going to happen next started to slowly suffocate her.

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‘Where am I?! What happened?!’ thought Gorn, feeling a deep sense of uneasiness. It didn’t take him long to realize he was yet again trapped in that peculiar place.

‘Shit…’ remembering what happened before he arrived here brought forward a deep sense of crisis. ‘Will Nora be able to escape that predicament?’ the more he thought about the situation, the more questions he had. ‘What is this situation? What will happen to me if I get eaten by that snake?’ Gorn could still feel his body, and his mind told him that he was in a totally different place. However, when he lost consciousness, Sara clearly told him that his body just collapsed, and remained there.

‘I need to get out from here…’ wriggling like a worm, Gorn tried to break free from his current situation. It was hard, but unlike the few last times, his current ability to move appeared to be better.

‘I can do this…’ after assessing the situation, hope flickered in his mind, after all, this time, his ability to move his body greatly increased. On top of it all, he was also extremely curious about what was going on exactly.

Nevertheless, Gorn’s great enthusiasm soon came to an abrupt end. ‘What is this?!’ he could only move a few meters, no matter the direction he chose. This time, it wasn’t his body’s inability to move that was stopping him, but something else entirely.

A wall, or some kind of barrier, was now blocking his path. It was slightly elastic, and despite the fact that he could push a little into it, it showed no signs of breaking or loosening. ‘What?!’ after a few more moments, it became crystal clear that he was trapped in some kind of limited space.

A mix of rage and fear washed over him. ‘Calm down, I need to calm down…’ while Gorn was trying his best to compose himself, a wisp of his peculiar shadow appeared below him. It was faint, and he wasn’t able to detect it, or see anything, after all, everything was pitch black anyway.

After some time, Gorn finally calmed down. ‘Let’s check again, maybe I missed something.’ He took the decision to carefully examine his surroundings yet again. Relying only on his sense of touch made it very hard. On the other hand, while he could now move more freely, it was still difficult, and required a substantial amount of mental power.

After an unknown amount of time, Gorn started to feel sleepy. His body started to slowly relax, and he fell into a deep sleep. He was aware of what was happening, but couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Gorn suddenly opened his eyes. In his line of sight were now the similar branches that he was used to, as well as the sight of the wilderness that could be seen only from a high place.

He came back.

It took him only a few short moments to ascertain the situation. “Hey, are you alright?” he was still in her arms, and could feel that Nora’s pulse was normal, and no major injuries could be seen on her body.

Even though it was around midday, Nora was currently sleeping. The whole ordeal was a huge strain on her mental power. She slowly opened her eyes. “Gorn?! Thank God you are alright!” a wave of huge relief inundated her while embracing him even tighter.

Seeing her in that state made Gorn feel bad. ‘Maybe I should have warned her about this kind of development…’

Gorn embraced her back, and gently caressed her hair. He wanted to say that everything will be fine, but could not muster the power to do that. There were just too many unknown things that were still outside his grasp.

A few minutes later, Nora lifted her head from his chest, looked into his eyes, and asked: “What happened?”

Gorn let out a sigh. “Thank you for taking care of me.” Taking a deep breath, he continued: “I have this peculiar ability to control my shadow. While I don’t feel any danger coming from it, my emotions seem to fluctuate intensely at certain times because of it. To make things even worse, this is the third time I lost my consciousness out of the blue…”

After making a short pause, Gorn resumed: “While I can’t say for sure, I highly suspect that it is related to my shadow as well. Honestly, I have too little information to know exactly what is happening, and how to deal with it…”

A lot of things happened out of the blue, with little to no explanation at all. Without having sufficient knowledge, certain, appropriate measures could not be taken.

“As a second note, each time I get involved in these peculiar situations, I find some new information. It is still little, but I get the feeling that some answers are not that far away. In short, this is the current situation…”

Nora listened to him attentively. Taking into consideration what she saw, his words appeared to be logical, and the truth. “Why didn’t you tell me all this?” she asked with a visible hint of anger.

“I didn’t want to involve you in such matters. On the second hand, I secretly counted on you to keep me safe in case such a situation happened on this trip…”

Nora’s anger increased, culminating with her giving him a good slap on the face.

“Well, I guess I deserve that.” Gorn wasn’t ready for such an outcome, but at the same time, he could not complain about it. After all, what he deed was at the least a little selfish.

Nora hugged him again. Even a fool could tell that the girl considered him as an important person to her.