“One two… cabinet,” I mumbled, jumping into the shadow.
I stepped back out, finding myself on my knees on someone’s bed. Not the right place. I grit my teeth and plunged into shadows again, only to reappear at the edge of the room, facing the rows of tidy cots. “How does Caedmon direct himself?” I mumbled, concentrating really hard on that shadow by the cabinet on the far end of the room.
I’m pretty sure a vein was going to be permanently sticking out of my forehead as I concentrated before stepping into the shadow. The world whirled around me for a second before I yelled in a sudden fall, plopping hard on my back onto a bed, my head bumping against the headboard. “Ouch,” I mumbled, going limp as I rubbed my tender head. Splotches of black wandered across my vision. Either my mind was really on going back to sleep or I just plain sucked at this.
“Fairy goddragon.. tell me how to do this,” I mumbled and lazily reached back, looking at the wall behind me as I stretched. My fingers slid into the wall.
What?
I fought the urge to snatch them out. I’ve never had this happen! I reached inside and it felt like I wasn’t touching anything at all. Just.. blank space..
I was about to wave my hand before I felt something warm wrap and smooth wrap around my hand. And bite my thumb.
“Ahh!” I scream before tugging my hand out. Slowly something black emerged. It was hugging my hand, nomming on my thumb with playful growls. Like a creature emerging from a gushing oil spill, the tiny fat dragon slowly took shape as the shadows dripped off him. “Woah.” Was all I could say as my fairy goddragon grinned at me and drooled on my nose.
I pulled him to my chest. “That was a cool trick buddy, no lie,” I said, scooping my hand under his hindquarters, making him curl into a ball. “I know you don’t know much words yet.. but could you perhaps tell me how to get places on my own?”
He sat in my hands like the warm tub of lard that he was and chewed on my thumb, gazing up at me with bright purple eyes. “Meep.”
“Okay. What next?” I asked dryly, poking at his wings.
“Meep.” He said seriously, shaking slightly.
Wait, was he laughing at me? I narrowed my eyes. “You’re going to be a downright troll when you grow up,” I poked his belly this time. “Just tell me you little bugger.”
He rolled his big purple eyes. Then he jumped into the shadows, melting into the wall. I twisted around in bed, watching the shadows closely.
Suddenly a Caedmon sized shadow popped up right by the bed. The fat little dragon picked up his paws to try and pretend he was regal but he just looked like a fat pony waddling along, dragging his wings behind him like a cape. He trotted down to the floor, the incline looking steep from the bed to the ground but it seemed like it was even ground for him. He walked along the slim line of the shadow of the headboard before walking up the shadow again. He continued walking on shadows before his shadow paused at the top of the cabinet and he stepped out before sitting down on his butt.
I could swear he winked at me.
“Okay mister smarty pants,” I swung my long legs over the side of the bed. “So.. you’re saying I walk the shadows right?”
He nodded.
I inhaled slowly and put my hand back into the shadow. Or tried to. My finger almost bent back and I cursed under my breath as I pulled it back. How was I supposed to do this without Caedmon’s help? I was starting to think it wasn’t even possible…
I tried again. And again. Bending and poking my fingers at the wall so many times I must have looked like Thor trying to fly a dark elf ship. Caedmon got impatient and popped up beside me, chattering and patting the shadow. He jumped in and out of the oily shadow, trying to show my how to do it. He even scared the heck out of me by pulling his paw only out of the wall and waving it about.
Finally I groaned and sat back. “I can’t do this, Caed,” I sighed and folded my legs.
He launched out of the shadow onto my chest like an angry flying squirrel. His little talons dug into my shirt as he glared up at me and chattered angrily.
“I know I shouldn’t give up,” I said, scooping him up like a little bunny. “But what if only the dragons can do those tricks, not the Riders?”
Suddenly I had the feeling you have when taking off on an airplane and your ears just pop. You not tryin hard nuff! Caedmon’s little voice poured into my head as he made angry baby dragon noises. Shadow is ladder! Climb through! Follow shadow! He yelled.
“Jeez!” I pathetically put my hands over my ears. “But how do I get inside like you do without zipping around into the distance?”
Climb! Think!
“You are officially the worst coach ever.” I grumbled but I thought of the ladder like he told my to. I concentrated on the grainy, whitewashed wall and imagined it a rung. My eyes widened as my fingers sunk inside, the oily shadow crawling up my arms. As it raced up my chest, I barely bit back a scream before my eyes were rushed with black shadow and I was pulled inside.
I would have gasped for breath but my shadow body didn’t really have the lungs to do that. I could hear the hum of conversation as second years trotted down the hallway behind this room on their way to training. I could see everything around me in a light bluish tint. And that light on the ceiling… dang I wished I had turned it off. It was a bit harsh to me as I stood there in bold defiance to the natural shadow. I felt a brush against my leg and somehow I could sense it was Caedmon dancing around my legs.
I stood still, just admiring what I had just did. Never before was I able to stand still on my own. All I did was whiz around like some crazy top, popping up in random places. With good control like this.. there’s no end to the mischief I could manage. Hehe.
“Who needs a invisibility cloak. I am Justin.. the living shadow!” I whispered dramatically… to my audience of a few bobbleheads who just nodded at me from Dustin’s bed.
Wait, was one of those bobbleheads Nikki Minaj? Before I could stare, I took a step towards my destination and lost control. Lights, visions of the ceiling and furniture drifted in my vision and I wondered where the heck I was going. Where was the brakes on this baby? I clawed at the wall, trying to find something to cling onto as I twisted and turned, racing across the shadows in the whole facility.
That’s when I felt something grab my hand. Warm, soft, a hand squeezed my hand and steadied me. My vision cleared to find I was just outside the mess hall. I sighed in relief and turned to my savior only to find I was holding hands with my own shadow!
I gasped and let its hand go. The shadow quickly resumed its normal pose- imitating my pose of hands on hips and head tilted to one side.
Just to make sure, I waved a hand. It waved a hand. I dropped it low. It dropped it low. I did my signature move- the sprinkler and it followed me to the T.
“Justin you really take that saying- ‘dance like no one’s watching’ to the extreme,” I heard Song giggle as she watched me do the Macarena.
I felt my face turn hot and jumped to the side. “I was just uh..” I pointed to my shadow but realized the truth was weirder than a lie would be. “Well.. practicing my dance moves..” I rubbed the back of my neck.
“I’m sure, Justin Timberlake,” she laughed and pushed her jet black hair behind her ear. “I’ve got to run- see you later.” She waved before walking fast down the hall giggling.
Well that was embarrassing.
I checked my watch which unfortunately wasn’t deadly. I had fifty more minutes until roll call. Usually I would use this time to play Call of Duty Ghost with Merman, but today I wanted to train.
This was the weekend after the incident with Avery and the cake. Weekends were a bit boring. After the chores were done, we were basically free to do whatever we want. And what I wanted was to get a hang of this shadow walking.
I touched my shadow and stepped back into the tumultuous world of darkness.
I’m pretty sure I was improving fast. Within the next few days, if I concentrated really hard I wouldn’t be sucked into what I called ‘the shadow vacuum’ and I could just walk the shadows like Caedmon taught me to. Of course that wasn’t as incognito as zooming around in the shadows because my outline could actually be seen on the wall, just walking around and scaring the crap out of anyone passing by. But this was as far as I was going to get by myself.
I found that if I was shadow walking down the hallway and slid into someone else’s shadow I could literally hitch a ride. They’d unknowingly tow me along as they walked and talked with their friends. But it was admittedly a bit hard to detach myself from a person’s shadow than an object’s shadow. Why? I had no clue.
The first time I had stalked someone as their shadow I did it to a cute girl in my rank. Her name was Amanda and she had a small fire drake that would always randomly screech in the middle of training. As she hugged her books to her chest, her red curls bouncing off her freckled shoulders, talking about Tom Hiddleston’s adorableness to her giggly friend, I casually slipped into her shadow. It was the craziest feeling, like you are on a tube in the lake and someone is pulling you along. My body moved like hers, my shape matched hers. I became her shadow.
Now this would be a great tool in spying on people.
But my plan backfired when I saw where she was heading. The bathroom. Shoot. Quickly I tried to detach myself but there was no shadow in sight! The bright lights of the bathroom didn’t help either as she walked in, towing me behind her.
“And oh my gosh- have you seen Tom do the snake hips?” Amanda giggled, setting her books on the table.
“No- but did you know he auditioned to be Thor first?” her friend laughed and pulled her small electric dragon off her shoulder to coil around the ‘dragon rest’ beside the sink.
“Oh my gawsh really?” Amanda’s eyes widened.
As they spoke, I struggled to reach the small shadow under the sink. I would rather be vacuumed through the shadow world than end up here.
“Yeah, I have pictures. You want to see?” her friend asked, swiping out her iPod.
“Yeah just a second. Got to go,” Amanda said, walking for the bathroom stall.
CODE RED CODE RED!
I was going to be in huge trouble but I’d rather be in trouble than.. that. I popped out of her shadow. I was laying on the floor, my heels to the back of her feet, my hands lowered, and my head on the bathroom floor. Yuck. But what’s worse was the screams that followed when they saw a boy lying on the floor of the girl’s bathroom.
The problem was these girls weren’t the run-of-the-mill Hiddlestoners.
They were second rank in a military boot camp.
And believe me, I was not expecting it when one of the girls jumped on top of me, her bony elbow lashing at my midsection. Amanda had me in a strangle hold in a count of three. Another girl appeared out of nowhere to kick me in the spot where no man should be kicked.
I just made squeaky noises as they dragged me out of there and shoved me in the dumpster.
Before I could manage to struggle out of the dumpster, a certain dragon was standing outside. Golden eyes narrowed on me as his human hands were clasped behind his back, his severe eyebrows arching low over his glowing eyes. “Justin what were you doing in the women’s restroom?” He asked coldly.
I opened my mouth to try and explain myself but all that came out was- “How did you know so fast?”
Mardu let out a low growl, one side of his lips pulling up to reveal small fangs. Kind of a Elvis move if I say so myself. He pulled me out by my collar and I winced as his glowing skin burned the skin of my neck. “You perv-“
“I- I swear I didn’t mean that! I was just trying out my powers and I didn’t mean to end up there!” I whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t fry me! I’m too young!” a banana fell off my shoulder.
Mardu leaned close until I thought he would bite my nose or something. And he sniffed me, long and slow. Finally he let me go. “You’re telling the truth. But next time you pull a stunt like that.. I’m going to have your hide.”
“Y-yes sir,” I mumbled, rubbing my burning neck.
I may not have tried to do that again but I did something else.
As we were panting and wiping our brows from an intense session of Suicide races, Mrs. Geier was doing the usual. Yelling and waving her arms around, she wandered through our exhausted mass and proclaimed what a pathetic bunch of Riders we were.
Then she paused in front of the wall, preaching from there. Her angry words went in one ear and out the other as I panted and stared as she put her hands on her hips. Now I’m pretty sure she was talking about stone age Riders but nobody really cared. Everyone watched her though, knowing that if they took their eyes off her then we’d all be accused of not listening and have to run ten laps.
“Meep meep,” Caedmon whispered in my ear, his ears perking forwards as he gave a tiny fanged grin.
“Exactly what I was thinking buddy.” I grinned devilishly. This time I let him lead me along, not wanting to waste any time slowly shadow walking towards her. Within a second, I found my shadow form relaxing into the hands-on-hip sassy-grandma style shadow that she had cast. I pushed against the mold of her shadow and started slowly moving my hands behind her. First I made a ‘yadda yadda’ fox with one hand before I had a brilliant idea.
I turned my shadow self to look like Mrs. Geier’s shadow was standing sideways and I stuck my butt out only to start wiggling it up and down.
Some girls gasped while I could tell Merman wasn’t sure whether to freak out or to laugh his head off. Slowly, the crowd started to snort, covering their mouths as they fought laughter.
“What?” She demanded, staring at them before whirling around to see what they were staring at.
I relaxed back into my natural state, her shadow.
She raised a brow and I was a bit freaked out as I felt her staring at me. I had to remind myself that I am invisible, and not to move.
She slowly turned back around. “Attention!” she called to the snickering group.
I started to do the disco, swaying my hips and making hilariously exaggerated moves. This time a few all out hyena laughs burst from a few of the girls.
“Stop… laughing!” Mrs. Geier looked red as a tomato. She stomped her foot as if that would help. I stomped my foot too, but put my hands on my hips to make it more sassy.
They only laughed harder.
“I’m going to call General Landin on all you little punks!” Spittle flew from her mouth as her fingers tightened until they looked like claws, her knuckles as white as the bone underneath. Woah, this lady was a little scary when she was mad. Frost crawled up her fingers and I knew it was time to beat feet. I grabbed onto Caedmon and he whisked me across the room, where I was crouching and pretending to tie my shoes.
“What’s the matter, Mrs. Geier?” I could hear General Landin’s booming voice fill the whole gym as his boots clomped against the ground.
I decided now would be the good time to tie my shoes for a very long time.
I could see him scanning over all of us, passing over me, before settling on Mrs. Geier. His mouth was set in a slim line, his Wolverine look even more pronounced with his angry eyebrows dipping so low I could hardly see them under his sunglasses. Rifts wrinkled his foreheads from the force of the two eyebrows clashing together to create a very angry unibrow.
“They are laughing at me!” Mrs. Geier sputtered, pointing at us. “The disrespect! I cannot believe it!”
“And here I was thinking some kid got frozen to a weight.” General grumbled. “Mrs. Geier, I know you can handle it.” And he stalked right out.
Mrs. Geier looked so furious she couldn’t say anything for a moment. “Just-just go- time’s up anyway.” She said finally.
We rushed off, grinning to ourselves. Justin-1 Mrs. Geier- 0.
“That was awesome…” Merman whispered in my ear as we trotted out, head lowered.
“Yeah it was,” I agreed, laughing as I thought of Mrs. Geier’s face. It’s going to be uphill from here…