"Mum!" Nya tried to reach out, fought with every muscle to be in control of her body. Her mother did not lift her eyes.
"Mum, it's me! Nya?" Her voice cracked at the end. Finally, Nya's mother raised her head. Stringy, filthy hair framed her face, and her arms and legs were skinny and frail. They were not the strong ones that had embraced Nya so many times.
Even her eyes were no longer blue, but as dark as the blackest night. Somehow, the dark eyes seemed familiar to Nya, but she could not place them, and then her mother spoke, shocking the thought out of her head.
"I am the Master of the Umbra." It's voice echoed around the cavern, raspy and low. "I know no family but my fellow shadows. Your mother is gone, child. Do you not realise what happened when she tried to destroy us completely, 200 years ago?" Her mother's face moulded into a maniacal smile.
It's words hung the air like fog. Fear and anger collided in Nya's stomach. How could her mother have survived, hundred's of Lar years, with that thing stuck inside her? As the silence stretched onward, Nya thought maybe the shadow master expected her to make the connections, but her mind was too full of thoughts to even try.
When Nya did not say anything, the Umbra's master stretched her mother's smile even wider. "You don't know. You know nothing at all. Well, child, let me tell you a little story. Come closer," it ordered.
She stepped forward. Nya tried to fight it, and failed. She looked to Pat, standing behind her. He tried to give her a small, encouraging smile, but it didn't really work. They were both terrified. Why would the Master of shadows be offering story time instead of killing them? Maybe a little of her mother was left after all, fighting against the Umbra.
"200 years ago," said the Umbra's master, "your mother-"
"Her name was, is, Hester," said Nya.
"Your mother," continued the Shadow master, ignoring her. "came to Lar. We don't know how or why, but she came, and when she heard of us shadows, she came to destroy us. She got to the cave but her followers would go no further. So she forced them down the steps-"
"Hang on," said Nya angrily, "Mum wouldn't do that. She wouldn't force anyone to do anything."
"Well she did," sneered the Umbra. "She forced them down the stairs, and the shadows took them. We took them. I, of course, possessed your mother. And being possessed by a shadow for hundreds of years isn't good for the soul. Her followers became the umbra that led you in here today."
"You're a liar! You're lying!" But even as Nya shouted these words she saw the human shaped Umbra in the crowd around her. But it couldn't be true. Her mother would never, ever do that. Nya lunged at the Master ferociously, surprised when her body responded.
She went straight for the master of the Umbra, desperate to save her mother from this monster. As she reached for the chains that held her mother to the cave Nya heard Pat yell something.
"Nya! Stop! Something's wrong, I think it's a-" Nya's hands closed around one chain each which immediately crumbled in her fingers. "Trap." whispered Pat. The Master of the Umbra was free.
It rose slowly, breathing in it's new freedom with breaths of smoke. It didn't laugh manically. It didn't even chuckle at it's own cunning. It just said:
"Now, I will kill you."
Nya, who had backed away slowly at the sight of what she had done turned and ran at the speed of light back towards the maze, Pat right beside her, clutching his burnt arm but keeping up. Because Pat had been thinking while Nya had story time with Aunty Umbra. But right now he knew they had to get out of there.
YOU ARE READING
Lost and Found
FantasyNya is not a water ninja. She is not a witch. She is not a demigod. And there are no prophecies that she knows of in her part of town. To put it bluntly, compared to fictional people, her life is a little boring. But one sticky man will change all o...
