Shadow Breeds

Chapter 5

Ashe

"I'm gonna grab the rest of my stuff out of your room real quick and then I'll be ready," August said sheepishly. "Is there anything you want me to grab for you?"

I shook my head and packed up the rest of the food I'd cooked, while making sure the wood stove's door was shut properly. "Pretty sure anything else I need is in the living room," I said as I headed there to check. Oakley and Savanna followed me in as I picked my phone up off the coffee table, put it in my back pocket and grabbed my back pack. It carried what I consider to be my quick essentials for traveling or staying away from home. I definitely wasn't comfortable sleeping here for a while.

August walked into the small hallway at the same time we did, as if on cue the lights began flickering again and everyone froze. We all shared a look before running to the door however as we tried to open it, the damned thing wouldn't budge.

"You have got to be kidding right now," I practically spat out as my breathing became heavy and hard to manage. "Don't let yourself panic too much yet Ashe, there's still no smoke, we're all together and we can figure this out. Check all the possible exits and yell as soon as any of you find one that works," August immediately turned back to the door and tried to kick it in as the rest of us followed through on what he told us to do.

Nothing. Nothing would open and the black smoke was back. Except now that I look at it, it seems like it's just...shadow? That's not possible. Panic was taking over my body and it was nearly impossible to breath now. I needed to find my friends and get us out of here somehow. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled into the hallway, "where are you guys?" I called out, but no response came back. I started calling out their names in the hopes that they'd hear me, sound almost seemed muffled now, but still there's no way they couldn't hear my yells if they were in the cottage.

***

August

The smoke had come back, only I knew it wasn't smoke. It was shadow. I welcomed it's silky touch, one that those who were overcome with fear wouldn't feel.  The air was thicker, but my lungs could manage it. The Shadow had always fascinated me, I guess that is probably because of my families history with it.

I heard the call of my name in the distance, Ashe's voice. I needed to get to her without giving myself away. She couldn't know about my relations to the Shadow just yet, soon though.

I dropped to the ground and crawled in the direction of Ashe's voice, although I could see fine in the darkness I knew Ashe wouldn't be completely able to. She's smart though so I had to go about this carefully. I knew by now that we weren't in Wolf Creek anymore so I wasted no time lifting her up, while pretending to need the wall to be stable.

Oakley and Savanna would still be in town unharmed, I just needed to talk to Ashe about this alone first. I especially needed to speak to my teacher about who might've been trying to take her the night before, because that definitely wasn't me, but I'd focus on that later.

I had kicked the door open right after the girls split up, so we went straight through and onto the moss covered ground in front of the Gateway Island's cabin. The shadows dissolved away, back to where they belonged. I started to let out a sigh of relief, but quickly stopped when I noticed Ashe was unconscious now. Shadow travel can take a huge amount of energy from a human, but this was in her blood too. Her passing out doesn't make sense.