Shadow Of The Nightshade

Being Old and Empty Books.

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I left Carter behind and walked out the room and down the hall, my eyes trained on my feet as I avoided the eyes of the many assassins I passed. A wrong look can get me dead. I forced myself to face the fact. I was weak, they were strong. It was as simple as that.

Now, because of that weakness I was being handed over to someone else, an associate of Ra's. It somehow comforted me to know that whoever it was couldn't be as bad as the people that had trained me before. When it comes to tormenting people, no one compares to the Joker. The thought almost made me proud, but the bone deep aches in my body that may never fade told me otherwise.

Everyone thought I was a nuisance, I suppose. I didn't speak or cry out in pain when they hurt me. I was no fun.

They had no pleasure breaking me and I had all intentions of keeping it that way. The League of Shadows was tired of me and I was tired of their beatings.

I was useless to them and too stubborn to be anything but uncooperative. I refused to kill and took their punishments gladly.

Wow, maybe they are giving you a promotion for you exemplary work! A quiet voice teased me and I winced. I honestly doubted that.

Maybe they are sending me away to get killed. I clicked my tongue and tapped my fingers against my thigh as I glanced up at the stretch of doors in front of me and took a left. No... They won't.

If I was going to get tortured then it would be for training. Or just to have me far far away. But I doubt they'd send me to the Joker, not right now anyway. He'd probably kill me... And they won't want that.

In the midst of my thoughts I found myself in front of a pair of dark oak doors. Pushing against the silver handles, I took a careful step in, the scent of ancient parchment tickling my nose as I sucked in a breath and sighed.

As my eyes scanned the vast room of knowledge, the faint pain in my chest reminded me of the untreated state I was in. Later. I hissed quietly and closed the door, briefly disturbing the peaceful silence of the library.

Sighing in appreciation—in spite of my pain, I relished the quiet. No one was ever here, either too busy doing errands, or finishing up a kill.

Counting the passing time in my mind, I walked soundlessly to the historical literature section, quelling the burning urge to go to the infirmary as my fingers brushed over titles until I eventually stopped at one.

I pulled out a book—The Nightshade—and turned it over to stare at the summary only to find it blank.

Weird. I flipped it open and stared at the empty first page. Really weird.

Obviously the reason I thought something was strange was because I knew what was supposed to be in the book. It might have been difficult to read but it wasn't blank. After all I wrote it myself.

Trying not to frown I kept turning pages over and finally got to the end. It was all blank, where there were once scribbles a painful whiteness had replaced the inked.

I was frowning now.

I didn't know what was wrong but I felt like I was missing something. Strangely enough it was the fact that I was experiencing memory loss at the age of nine that worried me.

Nine. The word felt so foreign as I rolled it over on my tongue, it just didn't sit well with me. I felt older.

Twenty-something. Yes, that sounded right. I felt like I had gone through decades of existing to finally arrive here. A journey of a million years to arrive at this nine.

I dropped the book on the floor.

I watched it slip out of my hands, like water escaping my fingers. I don't know why I let it fall or why I didn't catch it.

Assassins didn't accidentally drop things.

I don't accidentally drop things.

But this book made me feel old, so I dropped it.

I let it fall because I didn't remember writing it, but I was supposed to and it was supposed to contain my memories.

The book made me feel old.

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I think I thought about this too much.

After five minutes of glaring at it the book didn't seem to change. Not at all.

I shortly concluded that I was losing my mind.

There was no way a book was sucking out my soul and harvesting my youth, it was just the stress of training and being forced to take lives that was straining my mind and stretching it to the limit.

My fingers grazed the spine of the book as I bent down to pick it up. I can be so silly sometimes. Tucking the bundle of blank pages under my arm I headed out of the library, after all the Nightshade was what I came for.

The pages were just blank because I hid the message. And I couldn't remember doing it because someone wiped away my memories.

You'd think I'd be more clever by now. But no, I still freak out about things sometimes.

I was an old person on the inside and tomorrow was my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

I tried to smile, I tried and failed.

Keeping my head down I shuffled out of the library hoping "The Light" didn't plan on killing me tomorrow.

Despite everything, I still wanted to leave past then. I wanted to enjoy being ten.

Twenty-something. The same quiet voice reminded me.

I tried to smile.

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Chapter two
Edited
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Thank you for Reading!
After writing about 100 chapters of Sotn
I finally think I've gotten the timeline down!
Haha, things are going to get interesting!
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