Shadows… What are they? A simple cease in light? Or something more sinister, like a monster, a living, waiting creature?
(Hiding creature)
(Killing creature)
No -
They can't hurt me.
They are just shadows.-
A patch of darkness.
(Darkness where anything could be hiding.)
No-
They can't hide anything.
A shadow is merely something that follows you.
(Mimics you.)
(Copies you.)
(Stalks you.)
They are not big enough to hide anything.
All shadows are the same.
Except these ones.
The darkness that lined the street could not be described as simple shadows.
They were more than that.
They seemed to watch her every move.
Watching…
Waiting.
Nya shook her head.
She was being silly-
Shadows could not watch. They could not wait.
They were not alive.
They were no human being, no person.
They were merely shadows,
And she was a Samurai.
A fighter.
(A person that could not- would not- be scared of darkness)
She relied on darkness to hide herself.
To let her approach without being spotted.
Why would that all change now?
(Because they were not shadows. They were living creatures, watching…
Waiting.
No-
There had to be another way back to the Bounty.
But there was none.
This was the only way back.
Her only way home.
She swallowed, touching the hilt of her dagger. The cold metal seemed to reassure her. Shadows that seemed to be alive were one matter.
The razor-sharp dagger was another altogether.
More practical.
More real.
More compelling.
And altogether more dangerous.
It was strange, she thought, how a store was barely twenty meters away, yet the sounds of the town had died away.
(Blocked by the shadows…)
(The darkness…)
(Her enemy.)