The shadow of the past
Pt. 2 - Step into the light | Previous part
I had so much pain drawing this one illustration at the end. Anyway, this is already the second part, and the main characters still don't know each other's names, huh. I think I'll need to make a masterlist soon. Also I'm not a native speaker and don't have a beta reader, sorry for any mistakes here!
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He wasn't late.
The working day went the same way as before, so there is no need to describe anything here. Soon Nervill was already standing at the threshold of his apartment, looking for the keys.
All day long his thoughts didn't leave this shadow creature - doubts and hope were connected in his head, and he didn't know what to grab onto, there were too many contradictions, and he could find out everything only when he returned (which is what he, in fact, was trying to do now, just need to find the damn keys)
His thoughts repeatedly boiled down to one, most realistic outcome - he is actually out of his mind and is hallucinating. But why exactly like this? Some strange shadow that appeared out of nowhere? On the other hand, wouldn’t Nervill know what the human mind is good for, so just a shadow against the background of his perverted mind couldn't look so surprising.
Meanwhile, the key finally appeared in his hand, jingling, and soon in the lock slot. With every turn, his impatience grew more and more to find out if he was imagining all this, if he had gone crazy from loneliness - or gone so crazy that he got himself an eternal roommate, and more and more he reproached himself for leaving without even trying to touch the shadow, just to somehow check...
The door swung open.
He hurriedly walked inside, looking around, as if expecting at any moment that the shadow would come out with a cheerful greeting, like a small dog.
But everything remained quiet.
He patiently closed the door behind him and took off his shoes - but there was no movement or rustle indicating the approach of the shadow boy.
Could all this really be his sick fantasy? Just hallucinations of his sleepy mind, so eager to fill the emptiness of his apartment, and for this purpose inventing an imaginary friend for him?
Determination flowed down from Nervill as his quiet steps walked into the bedroom, where his unmade bed, left in this state in the morning, and the book on the table, filled the room with their presence.
No shadows and no whispers.
Nervill frowned, and his face twisted in something similar to sadness. He didn’t know why he could feel this way at all - his acquaintance with the shadow-guy was hardly long, much less fruitful. However... he developed some kind of attachment to this creature, this feeling of safety that he felt next to it... it was just cold without it.
He stood there for a few more seconds until the last drops of hope melted into silence, and again there was emptiness.
With a tired sigh, he threw his backpack on the bed and sat down on it himself. It will soon be evening, in a good way, he should make dinner... but he just can’t. This single grain of hope led him along the path of the crossroads, and now that it was gone, he felt that he was left without a buoy, without a safe boat. Alone.
It could have been so, but, as if hearing his dark thoughts, a chill touched Nervill’s neck, and the room no longer seemed so empty.
The guy raised his head, and his gaze darted around in search of a dark figure with eyes like two moons.
The rustling caught his attention again, and he quickly turned around. A smile spread across his face as a shadow floated towards him, creeping along the wall.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" — it asked confusedly when it appeared on the wall in front of Nervill, blind to how happy he really was... without knowing why. Although no, he knew for sure.
Without further ado, Nervill stood up and walked over to the wall, already holding out his hand. The shadow didn’t even have time to blink when the guy’s hand was already on its chest - touching and stroking the wall in the place where the shadow was, trying to just understand, to feel.
There was a coldness emanating from the wall where the shadow was, as if there was an open fridge there. He experimentally placed his other hand nearby on the bare wall. There was no cold.
This means that the cold came precisely from the shadow, which means it could have been real, he couldn’t have gone so crazy, no, it wasn’t his imagination. The shadow was real.
Meanwhile, it was still looking in confusion at him and at the hand with which he was trying to touch it. This probably looked strange to those who didn't know Nervill's intentions.
He pulled away with a sigh, unable to stop the smile on his lips. It was real. There was a living shadow in his apartment. He probably shouldn't be so happy about it, but... he just couldn't hold himself.
Nervill cleared his throat and spoke after a while.
"Oh, yeah, sorry, I just... wanted to check on something," — he took a deep breath. "I checked... And you are, um, really real. Which means you have something to explain to me." — Nervill crossed his arms over his chest, now looking demandingly at the shadow.
The shadow blinked in confusion, although it was clear from the resignation in its eyes that it understood exactly what he required. It sighed and spread its hands.
"Okay. But this... will take time."
Nervill nodded, softening his gaze slightly, and sat down on the floor in front of the shadow in order to be closer to it, ready to catch its every word. He was silent. Shadow too. It was like waiting for a magician to come on - sitting in front of a stage with red curtains before they finally parted. Except he thought it wouldn't be that much fun.
The shadow sighed and raised its white eyes to meet his. It had no pupils, but for some reason Nervill knew for sure that it was looking at him.
"Well... I guess we should start over. I see they didn't tell you about me, right?" — it chuckled quietly. “There were many people here before you, but... they didn’t hear. Didn’t notice. Or just ignored.”
It looked to the side.
"I lived here. Well, I mean..."
It sighed, its gaze tracing the furniture of Nervill's bedroom as he waited patiently for the shadow to speak again, gathering its thoughts.
"I was once a human. I lived here alone, studied, met with friends and everything that people do, and then... I just opened my eyes, and found myself glued to the wall as if i was part of it. I don't know... how, I don’t remember much, just one time I fell asleep in my bed, and the next time I couldn’t even walk around my apartment, just look from the side.”
It ran its hand over its face and again looked with a sad smile at Nervill, who was trying to make his face as friendly and open as possible. He didn't want to scare away the shadow, especially now, never.
"I saw people coming, there were police, there were my friends. They reported me missing, and I just... I just looked at it, unable to do anything. I tried, tried to somehow get their attention, to say I was here, but I couldn’t, they didn’t hear.”
Nervill hummed sympathetically. He wanted to provide some comfort to the shadow, to show how sorry he was... but the story wasn't over. And he didn't know if the shadow would be able to sense him at all if he provided some kind of physical contact. So he just kept listening.
"Then they started renting out this apartment. When there were no people here, I was just alone. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't do anything. I just existed, I couldn't even... I couldn't even disappear." — He frowned. “Well, I couldn’t before. Over time, I learned to just... merge with surroundings, you know? With other shadows. Then it was good, I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t see, it was like I was sleeping.”
At least something good, thought Nervill. He didn't know how he would behave if he found himself in this situation.
"Then people started coming to the apartment. I woke up every time someone was in the house. I tried to attract their attention so that someone would notice me... and I succeeded! You see, people notice something... something minor - if I just show up to people, they won't see me, they need preparation and they have to get used to the energy that always surrounds me in order to see me."
The shadow seemed more animated now, no matter how absurd it may sound. In general, the whole situation did not even remotely resemble normal, but Nervill had already come to terms with it. And it was true - those times when he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, it could have been a shadow that was watching him, seeking his attention. This may be creepy to some extent, but to Nervill, on the contrary, it even seemed comforting.
This meant that he wasn't alone, despite his thoughts.
"So you're saying that people need to get used to you before you can show yourself to them, right?" — Nervill clarified. Shadow nodded with a smile. Nerville bit his lip. "How long have you been here?"
Nervill didn't know if they already had limits on what questions they could ask and what they couldn't. He didn’t even fully know the attitude of the shadow itself towards its position - it looked resigned, I mean, as much as possible. He didn't want to cross the line or anything like that, though thinking about it now, the shadow could hardly be offended by him and disappear altogether - they were stuck here together. But even with this, Nervill didn't want to offend it, he wasn't raised that way.
The shadow's eyes softened and dropped to the floor as it pondered something.
“I... I don’t remember. At the moment when I became like this-” it vaguely pointed to its shadow form. "-It was 2018."
"2018?" — Nervill could not contain the drop of disbelief on his face. It’s not that he doesn’t believe the shadow, but... “It’s 2023 now. You’ve been in this state... for five years..?”
"It looks like this." — The shadow lowered its gaze timidly.
Nervill snorted, now looking at the shadow with confusion.
Five years? Five years of wandering around an empty apartment, five years when you can’t do anything, you can’t even tell anyone about your presence... but...
"Couldn't you just leave?" — Nerville suspected the answer. The shadow couldn’t have lived in this apartment all this time - five years - without once trying to leave.
Even Nerville would go crazy here.
Shadow sighed and shrugged slightly.
“No, but I tried. I just... couldn’t get out, it was like I was glued to this apartment, I was being pushed away from going out,” — the shadow shook its head, and perhaps it was Nervill’s imagination, but it faded a little - which was not very good. Nerville didn’t want it to just up and disappear.
It was instinctive, he wanted to comfort the shadow, he wanted to hold it, keep it with him - and his hand itself reached out to lie on the shadow’s shoulder, but instead of cold, instead of a smooth wall, he felt... woolen fabric. He felt the clothes. He didn't even have time to realize it when his fingers tightened on the fabric and pulled...
More brown fabric appeared from the wall, somewhere with patterned seams, Nervill pulled further - he belatedly realized that it was a shoulder, shadow's shoulder, he just pulled further until a head appeared from the wall, black hair, brown sweater...
His heart was pounding, his eyes were wide open, he had no control over himself, but somehow knew what he was doing, what exactly was going on - he grabbed the man from the wall by the shoulders and pulled until his whole body was outside - and the shadow was no longer there.
He rushed back, leaning against the bed, which was just nearby to provide him with support.
Nervill stared with wide eyes at where the shadow had just been, and now only the bare wall, which seemed too empty without the shadow presence, looked back at him.
The body in his arms was motionless. Only quiet wheezing announced that the shadow... who was now a man, alive.