Shadow in a Dream

Prologue

"Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations.
The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight.
The camera obscura.
Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down."
― Chuck Palahnik

We could see them there, going about their lives as though no one were watching, oblivious to the fact that we were always there over their shoulders and in the shadows. Our world is a perpetual world of twilight. Most of us are envious of the bright light that consumes their world, touching everything with almost radiant, ethereal glow. We were envious of their blue skies and green grass, their ...fresh air. We mourned them, mourned them immensely. Everything we craved, they had, and they took it all for granted, going down the very same path of destruction we did those hundreds of years ago.

They did not have to wear a mask. They could let the sun touch their skin, let its rays warm them. They could swim in their beautiful oceans, feel the tide wash on their bare feet. They could revel in the mystery of night, see our beautiful universe in the starry sky. The rain could touch their skin. They could walk on the surface of their Earth.

I pulled my feet under me, trying to gather some warmth. I closed my eyes, letting myself enter her world. If I died here the last thing I wanted to see was that beautiful, beautiful planet. Over the years I had followed her shadow. I saw so many things. Her caretakers were writers. They traveled that Earth, and they are the reason I chose her. In my dreams I could enter her world, stay in her shadow, pretend I was there with her under the blue sky, my toes curling in the sand, feeling the crisp wind toss about my hair. My Chosen loved the beach, and she made me love it as well. I wish I could physically be there with her to experience it all.

My head lulled to the side, I was fading. I was brought out of my trance by the clinking of chains as cold water was poured over me.

"Please," I whispered. I would beg them if I had to. I just wanted to die here in peace with the memories of a world I would never enter and a girl I would never meet. I was thrown against the grimy wall of my cell. The sharp crack of a whip and my own scream filled my ears.

"Traitor!" The guard spat. His boot was on my bare back, digging in. I just wanted to die, but they would not let me. They never would let me have that peace, not for the crimes I have committed, the secrets I betrayed.

"Please!" I screamed, as the whip made contact with the back of my legs. His maniacal laugh echoed in my ears, playing over and over. Tears fell down my face, my legs giving out, too weak to support me.

The guard yanked me up by my hair into a sitting position. His was face inches from mine, his breath was like fire fanning out across my face. I clenched my eyes shut, not wanting to look into his; they would betray me as they did so many times before.

"Open them." His voice was low, evil. It made my heart clench in fear.

"Please," I begged.

"Open them!" He yelled, banging my head into the wall. I saw stars, and had no choice but to open my eyes. His free hand roamed to my chin, tilting my head up to peer into his piercing ice blue eyes. They became a violent swirl of blue and black and he copied my memories, more proof of my crimes, of my treason. I saw everything he took. My Chosen's sun-kissed face crossed my vision, and I wailed. Her smiling parents holding both her hands as they walked her along the beach at sunse. Their home, the planes they used to travel that beautiful earth, everything I saw through her eyes was being copied into his memory. Him; nothing but a mere guard, a torturer, someone who did not deserve to see such amazing things.

He threw me against the wall. I let out a piercing wail as he left my cell with a disgusted laugh, closing the barred door and locking it.

"You're so weak. More innocent people will die now because of you!" He yelled, clanging his keys across the bars. I just wailed, begged. I pleaded until I could no longer make a sound.

I had doomed her. I had failed her. I had betrayed her, my Chosen.

"I am so, so sorry," I cried. It came out as nothing more than a weak puff of air. I closed my eyes and as I did the last thing I saw before everything became black was her smiling face, flush from laughing so hard at something I would never know.

Note: Should I continue? How was it? What do you think will happen and what it's about? Please leave a review and let me know if this idea should be continued on! :)

-Dominoss xx