My stomach was twisting into knots. I hadn't eaten in over a day, and shadow-walking took more from me than I'd expected. I needed to find somewhere to each some food, real food, not scraps.
I started making my way out of the forest, fumbling through my pockets as I walked. My fingers brushed across the few things I'd grabbed from the merchant's room — a 3 of the silver coins and that strange dagger with the warped metal. I cursed under my breath.
"Should've taken more," I muttered. "Damn it."
The road to the city outskirts was quiet. By the time I reached the lower districts, the smell of hot bread and grease thickened the air. I found a worn-down tavern with a crooked sign swaying above the door. Inside, it was dim and packed with the usual crowd of dusty travelers, loud workers, and the few who didn't look like they belonged anywhere.
I slid into a corner seat and ordered something cheap but hot. I was so excited at the prospect to be eating real food. I don't think I remember a time when I had eaten hot food on a plate. The moment the plate hit the table, I dropped my coins, scrambling to pay with the few silver pieces clattered to the ground.
As I bent to grab them off the ground, I caught it in the corner of my eye, a table of rough-looking men a few paces away. Dirty leathers, jagged knives, hollow stares. One of them paused mid-sentence when the coins hit the floor. Just for a second. Then back to their drinks and murmured talk.
I thought nothing of it and sat enjoying every bit of my meal.
By the time I stepped outside, it had looked to be around mid-afternoon. I ducked into a nearby alley, one foot still in shadow, and pulled out the dagger.
The blade shimmered faintly, as if refusing to reflect the sunlight. I turned it in my hand, letting it slip into the dark shadows of the buildings around me.
Then I heard footsteps where the entrance of the alley lay.
Three figures blocked the alley entrance.
"Well, well," one said, voice like gravel. "Silver coins from a boy wearing rags. That doesn't quite match, does it?"
"Looks like someone got lucky," another added, smirking. "Luck like that can be shared, yeah?"
I backed deeper into the alley, slipping my hand behind me into the shadow of a barrel. "You're making a mistake."
"No, kid. You are," the tallest one growled. "Hand 'em over. All of it."
I hesitated. I couldn't give away my only money. I needed it to eat. And part of me… part of me saw this as an opportunity to test out a few theories I've had for my new ability.
My fingers slid deeper into the shadow.
And I vanished.
The alley blinked around me, warping like a tunnel of ink. I stepped from the dark behind one of them and kicked his leg out hard. He grunted, fell, and spun with a blade, but I was already gone again, swallowed by the wall.
I emerged behind another, slashing low, not to kill — just enough to cut through the leather jacket and draw blood. He shouted and turned, and I was gone once more.
Lets see, what do voices carry in the dark. I whisper something and I can feel the shadows carrying my voice elsewhere.
~"Over here."
The man turned toward it, only to feel steel press against his back.
Then I pulled away again just as the tip of the blade barely scrapes him. I darted in and out, I feel like a ghost playing with its prey. But I tried swinging the dagger into them in the dark but it didn't want to be used in the shadow. Every time I slashed from within, the force felt dull. I had to step out, expose myself to strike.
Still, it was working. I was winning.
But then something shifted.
I told myself I should leave. I'd proved enough.
Yet my hands wouldn't pull away from the shadows.
My body felt out of sync, like it belonged to someone else now. Like something beneath my skin was rising, pushing outward.
A voice in my mind, quiet but overwhelming, repeatedly surged forward.
"Hurt them."
My vision blurred. I felt like I was watching myself from behind a glass wall. The darkness wouldn't respond to my will, but to the desire forming beneath it, the part of me that lusted for blood, the part that I currently can't control.
The shadows erupted.
One man screamed as the darkness wrapped around his mouth and nose. He convulsed, blood spilling from his eyes. Another tried to run but was caught by an invisible spike of shadow driven through his leg. His chest was crushed next.
I couldn't stop it.
I wasn't stopping it.
The third man, the one who'd first spoken fell back, crawling through piss-soaked trousers. His eyes met mine, wide with terror as just my head poked out, my body still melded to the dark.
It hesitated for a moment, the thing that was using my body loosened for a moment, and I took advantage of it.
I stepped out of the shadow, panting, my breath fogging in the now chilly air.
He ran. Didn't even look back.
The alley was quiet again.
The bodies lay twisted, broken.
I looked down at my hands.
"What the hell… was that?" I whispered.