A/N: For Caesar's Palace's Monthly Oneshot Challenge.
Prompt: I spend my night dancing with my shadow; and it holds me and it never lets me go. - From Slow and Steady by Of Monsters And Men
Darker, Emptier, Simpler
The moon shines bright, white and wild tonight, casting long, reaching shadows of the snow-covered trees from its place in the sky of glowing graph-paper lines.
It is night two in this beautiful hell hole. My allies lie dreaming at my feet, parallel to my sprawling shadow. Sweet dreams? Probably not. We've seen so much morbidity it's a wonder we aren't utterly mad.
Or are we? Who knows?
Not me, that's for sure.
The boy and the girl lie like infants in a cradle, blissfully unconscious and unaware.
They think I am trustworthy.
My long, thin fingers roll an arrow between their tips, knock it to the bowstring, take it off and then roll it again. Just passing the time before my watch is over.
The muscles in my back tense as I pull the bowstring back to my ear, an arrow loaded. In total, the motion must take a mere second before I relax, lowering the bow, the cause for concern totally forgotten.
My female ally twitches in her sleep and the noise of it makes me jump, my bow loaded and aimed in an instant.
Adrenalin-laced blood pumping hard and fast in my ears as the arrow flies.
As its aim is true.
My male ally jumps at the wordless announcement of his friend's death, his eyes alert, his ears pricked, his veins pulsing at the same time as mine.
In a heartbeat, I am pinning him down, a dagger drawn and pressed against his throat. The moon shines down on my back and my shadow is pulled close to him, but also towering over him. His mouth moves but I can't hear through the continuous pounding in my ears, driving me on, pushing the knife down.
My shadow lurches
I watch as it raises the knife and brings it down.
Oh, the contrast of the red and the white. It drives me mad but it keeps me sane.
A deep, dark tendril of cloud snatches away the moon's bright white light for a second, making the shadows dance across the snow.
My shadow and me. Two sides of the same coin.
Always connected; never under control of the other.
You can't catch a shadow.
You can't keep a shadow as your prisoner.
Shadows are untamable, just like my instincts and reactions.
The red and white such a lovely contrast, but the red is eating up all the white, bite by bite. The white is shrinking down until the red controls it, leads it, takes it over, spreading and spreading.
Unstoppable.
Like me.
Like my shadow.
The shadow of a killer dances over the bodies of those I used to know. And I laugh and cry and scream.
But the shadow just dances on through the night.
