The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 37 🔻 Once More, with Feeling

The smaller shadows tore at the giant monster's limbs and ripped at its underbelly with their claws. The beast lumbered after its assailants, jaws slobbering and snapping. It used its weight to its advantage as it tossed smaller shadows aside with its dribbling jaws. It chomped down on one of its smaller kin, severing it into many pieces in a spray of blood.

The rest of the shadows yiped in fear. Their many limbs slid in the sand as they scrambled to scurry away. The monster huffed, watching them leave. Its breath sent clouds of dust flying.

I remained paralyzed against the wall, praying that the shadow—the largest shadow I had ever seen!—wouldn't turn around and notice the measly little morsel in its cave. I could see the shape of it, outlined against the light from the chamber's mouth—my escape. If I could just sneak around it, maybe I could creep back out the way I came...

Something crunched under my boot. My heart stopped. My breath hitched. When I looked down at what I'd stepped on, my body went ice-cold. A human femur lay cracked underfoot. And scattered around the femur was a dusty rib-cage, more long-bones, and other bits and pieces. Just a few short feet away, the empty eye sockets of a human skull stared at me accusingly, looking as shocked as I felt.

The shadow maneuvered its limbs with a growl that made the cavern shake, turning itself around almost deliberately slow. Blood bubbled from its wounds and boiled in the sand as the creature heaved, clearly in immeasurable pain. Its black hide was cracked and seeping and duller than all the others. This shadow was old. Probably older than all the rest.

Blood caked the matted mane around its neck, giving it the appearance of an old battle-scarred lion. Where a nose should be, only two vertical slits existed, and scattered round those slits that expanded and contracted with every breath, its many milky-white eyes lacked the animal hunger that gave all the shadows their feral appearance.

The creature heaved another shuddering growl as we locked eyes. Trembling, I had to turn away from its horrid human face that was disfigured with white scars. It raised a twisted arm, as if about to strike. There was another crunch beneath my boot.

The beast roared again, but it wasn't looking at me. It sniffed at the skeleton I stepped on. Gingerly, I stepped away from the old bones. The shadow's hackles lowered.

We both stared at the remains.

Hier schläft es.

That was what Blackburne had scrawled on his wall.

The beast let out a mournful keen and lowered its body into the sand. It reached out with arms as thick as tree trunks and shoveled the bones toward itself. I watched in sick fascination as the monster shut its eyes and nuzzled into the bones.

This creature was grieving.

I touched a hand to my heart. This monster was not the many-eyed behemoth that haunted both Crow's and Blackburne's memories. It was big, but not big enough to annihilate a city. And, unlike other shadows, it seemed almost...tame.

I didn't know what I was thinking. I slunk away from the wall, but I didn't break for the cavern's mouth as I should. I crept toward the keening beast and laid a hand on its seeping flesh, and we both mourned together.

It turned its head to me, the branching white scars on its face, like burns, matching those on my arm.

I clapped a hand over my mouth at a realization. Those scars on this shadow's face were identical to Blackburne's. I fell to my knees before the ailing creature who didn't appear to want to hurt me, this time not averting my gaze from its pupilless eyes.

While the wind stirred clouds of sand around the two of us, I stared into Blackburne's face.

Mad world beats
Outside our hearts
Times of need
We are apart
Under stars
We are alone