Disclaimer: I own neither the Chronicles of Narnia, nor the song 'Shadows', by Red.

A/N: And here we have yet another depressing fic! I wrote it while I was on vacation...dreading the end of summer hols, most likely. ;) The song is 'Shadows' by Red, and after writing out the lyrics and staring at them for a while I saw the perfect fanfic idea. Hence....yeah. We would be grateful for a review. (Notice the royal 'we'...I've got to start living up to my name. ;D)

Shadows

The sun sets. I close my eyes. I pretend everything's all right.

Drowning in anger from all these lies,

I can't pretend everything's all right.

When he had followed the lady into the darkness, he had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know it would be the last time that he would see—really see—the sun, or a sunset ever again. Or real light, for that matter. Because once he was in the darkness, there was no going back. She had smiled so enticingly, telling him that accompanying her was the only way to save…what was it he was trying to save?

He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember a lot of things. That was the spell she had cast on him. He only remembered for one hour each night, and even that was a vague, disconcerting sort of remembering where everything flooded back so suddenly that he could scarcely think straight.

For that one hour, though, he knew what it was to despair. He knew what it was to be alone, to be helpless, to hate. Some nights his hatred found words, and he shouted at her, screaming that she lied, Lied, LIED to him! The blackness was suffocating, but the anger was worse. He had trusted her so naively, trusted that she was trying to help him, help his mother, help…that place where he'd lived before. Where his father was a king. That's right. A king. And he was a prince.

Prince Rilian, he thought over and over again as she laughed mockingly at his attempts to break free of the cords that bound him to the accursed chair. I am Prince Rilian of Narnia. Son of Caspian, tenth of that name, who some call Caspian the Seafarer.

But even of that he was not sure.

Please don't let me fall forever.

Can you tell me it's over now?

He knew it was his own fault that he was a prisoner; hadn't he followed her willingly to this dark place of hellish torment? But surely Aslan was forgiving. Surely he had not sunk far enough into the darkness to be beyond the grasp of the Emperor's Son. Surely it was not in vain that he screamed the name of the Great Lion over and over and over again until his voice was hoarse and throat absolutely raw with the effort.

Please, he would think as tears streamed down his face. Please, Aslan. Send help. I cannot bear this much longer. The darkness has consumed me. I am utterly alone—falling in the blackness further and further away from anything that can help me—further from the light!

And yet night after night there was no response.

Caught in the darkness I go blind.

Can you help me find my way out?

It was horrible. The darkness blinded him, not only in a physical sense, but in other ways too. He sometimes couldn't remember the name of the Lion, couldn't remember what name he'd screamed over and over again. The blindness was horrifying; almost worse than not remembering at all.

Mostly, as he struggled in his bonds, strapped to the Silver Chair, he begged to be set free, to have someone let him out. The darkness was killing him, killing the part that remembered he was Prince Rilian of Narnia, a follower of Aslan, and making stronger the part of him that served the lady and cared naught for anything else. The hardest part of this process was that he knew, in his real self, that he was slipping, falling away. That part of him was fading.

"Let me out!" he would rail at the lady as she watched him with a demure, partly amused smile. "Let me go back! Let me out of this black pit of a kingdom of yours which is become my dungeon!"

"How now, my lord?" she would reply with a mocking smile. (She never called him by his real name or title; only 'my lord'.) "There is no other place but this. There never was any other place but this."

And he believed her, because there didn't seem to be any point in believing otherwise.

Nobody hears me I suffer the silence

Can you tell me it's over now?

Sometimes the lady left him alone during his one hour of knowing, alone in the blackness of the night. It was almost worse than having her there—knowing that not even she cared to listen to his pitiful pleas for help. But even though there was no one to scream to in the silence, he continued with his helpless prayers. Perhaps someone would hear him. Perhaps Aslan would answer this time.

Or perhaps he was really and truly alone in the darkness, and the lady was telling the truth after all.

There's a hate inside of me like some kind of monster.

I try to save you but I can't find the answer.

He would never believe her, though. Not if he knew she was telling the truth would he listen. For he hated her endlessly, everlastingly. His despair and hopelessness only fueled the anger and hatred that he directed toward her in his hour of truth.

Occasionally, in the blackness, a face would surface in his mind. His mother. It was strange—ironic even—to think that she was the very reason he had ended up in such a living death. The lady had promised to bring her back, to save her. But the lady had lied. He had loved his mother. When she died, it was like part of him had died with her, and he swore over her grave, upon his sword, in the Lion's name, that he would find her murderer and take vengeance for her death.

"My lord," the lady had told him in her smooth, meandering voice, "your mother is in a place that I know well. I can arrange that you visit there her, someday."

And he had believed her, fool that he was. Death was all that could join him with his mother, and death was what he wished for in those long, cold nights of darkness when hope itself seemed to have died. He despaired often, yet his unanswered prayers lingered on.

I'm holding onto you. I'll never let go.

He knew it was true when he saw the Red Lion on his shield. Knew he had been right all along; that he had not been alone in the darkness of the night after all. Somehow, as he had struggled with his cords before being freed of the enchantment, as he shouted the name of Aslan for the last time into the darkness of the room to the three strangers who then stood gaping at him, he understood that his prayers had been answered after all.

I need you with me as I enter the shadow.

Then as he turned to face the Witch who stood in the doorway, eyes flashing and a forked tongue flicking out from between her lips for the briefest of seconds, he closed his eyes again.

Aslan, hear my prayer once more…

And when the serpent fell, head severed by the swords of him and his new companions, the shadows fell behind until he saw them no more, having flown when he faced the light of the Son.

finis