Savior of the Shadows

Prologue

𝓐 ʏᴏᴜɴɢ ɢɪʀʟ, no more than five, cuddled up near her mother on the couch. The living room was illuminated by the dying light of a single kerosene lamp. The child claimed she wasn't tired, but her eyes drooped with heavy exhaustion. The girl asked for a story to stall the advances of sleep. Her mother watched the shadows cast onto the walls of their small home, animated by the flickering oil lamp. Although it was not the best bedtime story, she decided to tell her the story of "the Dark Shadows" that every mother told their children. Usually, it was told to scare kids into doing as they were bid. They were told that if they did not do their chores, the Dark Shadows would come snatch them in the night. However this mother knew there were things that lurked in the dark. Things that were pure evil—that gave you goosebumps to merely think about. The mother did not tell her child these stories to scare her, but to warn her.

That night, she talked of the Dark Shadows. They were said to be tall, distorted silhouettes of a human being, though they were far from human. The Shadows prowled the earth, searching for their next victim. It is said that a Shadow can see a weak spot in your soul, like a crack in porcelain, and they can rip the weakened soul right out of someone's body. No one knows where the souls are taken, only that without a soul, that person is trapped in an eternal slumber, plagued with nightmares.

The girl shook with fright. Her mother comforted her and said that they were not real. The Shadows were only a myth. A fable. Still, the little girl couldn't stop searching every dark corner of the room for the soul-sucking monsters. She didn't see anything.

Little did she know, the Dark Shadows saw her. They watched her intently, waiting for the day when she could see them. Then, she would uncover the truth of what lay hidden in the dark.

✦ ✦ Ｓａｖｉｏｒ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　Ｓｈａｄｏｗｓ ✦ ✦

[See notes about underlined text on the last page]

        𝓑ʀɪɴɢᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ʟɪɢʜᴛ. Savior of the Damned. That's what they call me. I'm not sure why I was selected to have these gifts. I did not choose this life. I would have been perfectly happy sitting on my couch with the new 1948 Billboard magazine, reading all about celebrity luxuries and new musicians rising to stardom. But that life is reserved for someone who is ordinary, and I am far from ordinary. I have tried to fit in, but it is a wasted effort. I've had these special abilities from the time I could talk. At first, I just knew things I wasn't supposed to know—like someone's favorite color or where they misplaced their pocket watch. As I got older, other oddities, as my mother called them, became apparent.

        Nearing my third year of schooling, I learned that I could see a person's emotions if I touched them. A connection, such as holding hands or hugging, forms a bridge between me and another. Anger, sadness, joy, and other moods alike travel across the bridge; then, I feel the emotions as strongly as if they were my own. However, since my first year of high school, my abilities have extended beyond simply sensing emotions. Within a person, at their core, lies the soul. It glows a beautiful white-blue hue. The more love or compassion a person shows to others in their life, the more radiant the soul. This is what I see. Most people have fairly bright souls, give or take a few troubled individuals. But once in a Blue Moon, there is a faded soul which dwells in someone lacking compassion toward others. Those who usually inhabit asylums and prisons, the ones who have done terrible, dreadful things, are the faded souls that have no bright glow to see inside—only darkness. I steer clear of them.