Thousands of whispers poured into her ears as Faine once again felt the earth spin. They skittered off the walls and pooled along the floor, drowning the room in a cacophony of static.
Her mind was drawn to the quietest voice, nothing more than a static echo.
Alive.
Alive, alive, alive.
One word, grounding her.
"Faine."
Another word, some deep kernel of her soul stirred at the sound.
She swallowed mechanically, unsure of how to use her body. Her arms no longer answered to her, her lungs ragged and sore. Each breath laboring under a forgotten pretense.
Slowly, one finger moved, skin hissing in protest.
"Faine?"
The word was a question now, yet her heart thudded to life.
Desperation leaked into the voice, male and tired. At last her eyes cracked open, whirls of marbled gray mist clouding one eye. They gave way to a world of gray contrasting the other of subtle color.
Had the world always contrasted itself?
One half gray, the other vibrant and saturated.
Though the voice sounded near, she could not see a body. It carried more weight than the whispers raging around them. More emotion.
She coughed, chunks of ash and rubble spitting onto the floor beside her.
The pavement beneath Faine's hands radiated warmth and left her skin feeling chalky. Soot stained her palms black and gray.
"Please, Faine, I don't-"
"You're not one of the voices..." she said, eyes scanning the room.
He is the Shadow Wraith.
The Shadow Wraith of Mithlis.
There was no one else in the room, nothing solid or tangible. The more Faine looked, the more her eyes burned and stung, her mind pulsing with pain.
The voice laughed incredulously. "What are you talking about?"
"The Shadow Wraith..."
Existence stopped.
She felt the air leave the room, blurry eyes focusing on the strange shadow beneath her. The silhouette was much longer than her small frame, with wider shoulders and more slender hips. The only thing she couldn't decipher was if it was the source of her whispers or the voice echoing off the walls.
"What did you just say to me...?"
Faine pushed herself into a sitting position, careful not to strain her head even more. Now it was her muscles that ached, her bones groaning to life with movement. Her teeth gritted as pain ripped across the surface of her skin.
Glancing down, she was horrified to see the red whirls of skin, scabs wrapping around her arms and legs. Healing just enough to keep from falling apart completely.
Her flesh had all but become one massive scar.
"How do you feel?" The voice asked.
"Are you the Shadow Wraith?" she asked instead, focusing on the moving shadow.
He sighed. "No one has called me that in a very long time, least of all you."
"We know each other?"
"Yes, of course," he said. "Faine, do you not remember me?"
She didn't. Not even as the chords of his voice struck home for her in some other way. She didn't recognize anything apart from her own body and even those were fleeting with the burnt truth in front of her.
She shook her head. "What is that you keep calling me? Faine? Is that my name?"
"It's the only name you ever gave me," they said, their voice fading in and out. Then, suddenly, his shadow appeared across the beam in front of her. "Though I had no reason to question you."
Faine couldn't make out his features, they were still obscured by cloudy magic and rubble. His two dimensional form didn't even breathe the same, only a subtle expanding at the waist.
"I was friends with a shadow..." she muttered to herself. "Were you always like this...?"
The darkness answered before he did, different voices colliding in the air. Their voices sent fracturing pain through her head.
"No," he laughed. A sad, half hearted laugh. "The explosion... The building collapsed, somehow I got stuck..."
"Stuck?"
Faine could feel his frustration radiating through the room despite the absence of expression.
His voice flickered in and out, the sound static like a bad signal. "Do you know what we are?"
"We?"
He snorted, shaking his head visibly. She couldn't tell if it was incredulous or ironic. "I can't believe this..."
Faine frowned, small waves of sympathy rising up her chest and settling at the base of her throat.
No matter how hard she looked around at the demolished walls, charred floors, and molten beams, she couldn't place the sight. Faine's eyes narrowed in on the chains everywhere - what remained of them - noting the shackles lining the floor by her own feet.
Imprisoned then.
She swallowed past the ash again, spitting out a few more chunks.
"What do you know...?" he asked suddenly.
"This looks like a dungeon..." She muttered, sliding to the edge of her makeshift bed. "This looks like hell..."
The Shadow scoffed again. "You've got that much right..."
Creeping to her feet, Faine swayed with the earth as it spun, buckling to her knees.
Her unfamiliar friend winced. "In any other circumstance, I would've caught you..."
"How charming," Faine grimaced, shoving herself up with so much force the ground cracked beneath her. Despite herself, despite the shock she managed to turn to him. "I don't even... I don't know what's going on here, we need to get out of here..."
"Excellent observation," he grumbled. "How exactly do you suppose we do that?"
Faine whirled towards the door, expecting to see an exit. Instead a memory seared through her mind of wicked laughter, a figure standing in the doorway. Shorter, with bulky shoulders and some cloak covering their face. The scraps of food thrown at her feet and rolling through dirt. The wretched smell of piss.
Her eyes started watering, a growl tearing straight from her throat as she gripped at her mind.
Trace, the darkness answered her unspoken question.
Find Trace.
End Trace.
The words made no sense to her.
Faine choked on the air around them, scrambling toward the fallen beam in front of their exit. In a frenzy she reached out, digging her fingers into the metal. It dented under her grasp.
No matter how hard she yanked and pulled, her shoulders and the thousand pounds of iron wouldn't cooperate.
"We have to get out," she started whispering. Over and over until it became a chant and the mania threatened to rip her soul from the body. The sensations inside her felt like torture incarnate. "We have to get out of here, we have to get out!"
A sigh whispered along the walls around her. "Faine, it's iron. Everything is made from iron and silver on purpose."
"Help me!" she snapped.
"Don't you think I want to?" he yelled back. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I can't."
The rage shook her, stirring something far more cold along her spine.
"This place was built to keep things like us in."
Unbearable heat washed over her flesh, sweat freezing her nerves. Faine watched through the flames of her mind, saw him breaking through the door to save her as the fire ate her alive.
"How... How am I alive...?" Faine stammered.
His silence seemed to say enough, yet nothing at all.
"Is that why you're like this?"
Still, he abstained.
Dead. She should be dead.
Faine didn't know why tears spilled over her cheeks at the thought, her mind spinning. Everything ached, her body and mind protesting each decision she made.
"We need to get out of here," she said, her voice so much steadier than her heart. She decided to ignore the tears, the inconvenience of emotion.
Emotion wouldn't free them.
Eyes scanning the room around them, she noticed a thin gap between the door and the beam.
Faine took a deep breath and looked to the shadow in the corner, standing with arms crossed. Watching.
Then an idea nestled inside her thoughts. "Can you travel through every shadow?"
"Yes," he answered. "Not that it will help us any."
"It does if I can wedge myself through that door."
Images of a face, structured yet soft flashed past her eyes. His brow raised.
She took a step back. "Did you do that?"
He chuckled darkly. "Do what? Breathe?"
Faine shook her head, certain it was another memory then. Perhaps the memory was him, perhaps someone else. Neither were relevant, not until they escaped.
With shaky hands, she climbed onto the pillar and balanced her way to the top. Prying the door open, Faine felt how compromised the hinges were.
She tore at it with all her might, busting the door into a makeshift slide. The gap was small, but manageable.
"Innovative..." he mused from behind her.
"Thanks..."
Propping one leg against the broken hinge long enough to swing her weight over, she found herself tumbling more than sliding out of the room. Her skin stretched and pulled from the burns, dirt clinging to the last few shreds of her shift.
Yet when Faine pushed up onto her knees to look for him, the shadow was gone from the floor. He wasn't lining the surrounding walls.
Her heart started racing again.
The thought of seeing the hellscape alone felt maddening. Poisonous.
"Hey!" she called out. "Hey, where did you go?"
No response.
Gritting her teeth Faine went back to the door but there was no sign of him. The darkness had abandoned her too as silence fell.
Her heart raced again, vision blurring with panic and fear. "Where did you go!" she yelled. The question echoed through a labyrinth of iron chambers and stone, different hallways crumbling around her. "Where did you go..."
A beam groaned and caved in down the hall, rock filling the hallway beyond her. Debris filled the air, stirring Faine's lungs until the coughing turned into hyperventilating.
"Where did you go!" she screamed, sobs ripping through her entire body now.
Still, no one answered.
The Shadow gone, possibly nothing more than a fragment of past lodged within fractured memories.
Quiet. Everything was too quiet.
Before she knew it her back had slid down the nearest wall, her body convulsing. Her head snapped back once, slamming into the hall. She couldn't breathe, couldn't care.
Even as searing pain gripped for her head, working to sink cold claws deeper into her mind. Thoughts and feelings warped into demons aiming to swallow her whole.
Faine didn't know where reality ended and her nightmares began.
Only that she'd likely die here.
Alone.
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