Shadow

Epilogue

One Last Dream

The shadows chased me as I raced along the shore, my sandals sinking into the sand. I stumbled out of one, then the other, the curl of a smoky claw scraping against the backs of my legs. The tide lapped against the bare soles of my feet, the spray of salt water burning like a demon’s tongue.

In the distance, the Torii rose like a great yawning mouth to swallow me whole.

I burst through, the shadows slamming against the gateway with flashes of golden lightning. Dust glittered downward and peppered the beach with volcanic ash.

“Why do you run from yourself?” said a familiar voice, and I twisted toward her in the sand. The girl, standing in her golden kimono, held a mirror the size of a shield.

Blond hair spilled over her shoulders and splayed over the silver-embroidered phoenixes on her sleeves.

“Who are you?” I said.

“You must bear the marks, Taira no Kiyomori,” she said.

 “I’m not Taira. And I saw you. In my school.”

 “It is what it means to be one of us.”

 “Answer me,” I said. “Why were you at my school?”

 She paused a moment, as she decided whether she’d tell me. “We are not the same.”

 “But she looks like you somehow. Why?”

 “Because the time is at hand,” she said. “Because she has a part to play. But there is only death ahead.”

 “You’re wrong,” I said. “You’re wrong about me.  And I think you’re wrong about her.”

 She pressed her lips together in a thin, grim line. And then she turned her shield with both hands, the sound of it grinding into the sand filling my ears.

It was me in the reflection, but different somehow. A darkness in the eyes, hollow and sleep deprived. Monstrous, alien pupils, scars bleeding ink down my wrists. I looked cold, uninterested. Somehow less than human.

This was the part where I would wake up, where Taira would see me and panic. But this time I was me, not Taira. I saw myself, and I was frightened.

I reached for the sword at my side, shouting and leaping forward as I swung.

I watched myself splinter into a thousand pieces as shards of glass sprayed across the sand. They cut into my bare feet as I dropped the broken sword with a thud.

The base of the mirror stood empty in her hands. No reflection, nothing but a frame of tarnished brass.

“I will fight until the end,” I said, heaving breath into my burning lungs.

She pulled her lips into a tight smile.

“And you will fail,” she said.

I woke to the sound of my clock ticking in the darkness. I woke to shadow, and silence, and the uncertainty of what was to come.