CHAPTER FIVE- THE DARKNESS THAT EATS OUT THE WORLD

Shadowdramon faded into being in a large room. The walls were weeping rust and ripped remains of carpet covered the floor, just enough to hide the worst bloodstains. On the far wall designs were worked in something that looked like tarnished silver, except that it flowed and moved and formed huge wings and eyes and claws and spilled blood.

"Ho, Darkie!" she called, and glanced around the huge dark room. "Oh, this figures. I bring him something and it's the one time that he's not here." Shadowdramon folded her wings and landed on the floor, still holding Yamato and Gabumon, both limp in her clutches.

"I am here, Ysa." The room hissed and wept around them, dark trails of blood.

The walls were bleeding.

Something filled the room, something huge and dark, gathering the shadows of the dark room to itself and forming a shape of them. The room faded, blotted out by the darkness of the shadows coming into being, and the air filled with the smell of rot, the smell of fresh blood, the stench of corruption that ate out the world. An ever darker shadow was, coiled and looped around the room in insane circles. Dark wings encircled the room, and two crimson eyes lit the chamber in bloody hues. His huge claws rested by his side.

"What is it that you desire?" Darkdramon said, and the room echoed and amplified his dark voice.

"I brought you something, Darkie." Shadowdramon said, and dropped Yamato and Gabumon onto the only place on the floor unoccupied by Darkdramon's coils. Matt stood up first, wiping blood from his mouth. Gabumon only rolled onto his side, groaning like a wounded dog.

Darkdramon moved his gaze, searching Matt with his bright piercing eyes.

"Let me go." Matt said.

Darkdramon laughed, terribly, like grating bones and rumbling thunder, and it echoed and never seemed to stop. Matt covered his ears and cowered, curling up on the floor. "I will find my brother." he whispered to himself.

"Your brother." Darkdramon said. His voice grated uncomfortably in the small room.

Shadowdramon grinned and laughed, and even she looked tiny, a little black ant, next to Darkdramon. "I'll be going now." she said, and vanished.

Darkdramon's coils closed around Matt and Gabumon, a snare snapping shut on its prey. "You swore revenge, Yamato?"

" . . . yes." Matt said, curled into a little ball on the ground.

Darkdramon hissed, and the room shuddered. "Look at me, Yamato." Matt opened his eyes, and Darkdramon caught his gaze. "You will have your revenge, Yamato . . . but under my terms." Darkdramon reached down and touched Matt with one claw. Matt screamed and scurried away from Darkdramon's claw. Darkdramon laughed again. "Understand?"

"Yes . . ." Matt said, eyes squeezed shut. His face was wet with tears. "Just . . . don't touch me . . . don't look at me . . ."

Darkdramon's coils rasped as he shifted, bringing his massive horned head down lower. "Yamato . . . it hurts, doesn't it?"

" . . . yes."

"That's too bad." Darkdramon blinked, and the room went black for a second. "If it's any comfort at all to you, it won't hurt when I'm done."

Yamato shook his head and backed up more, until he touched Darkdramon's coiled tail behind him and jerked forward.

Darkdramon laughed. "I do not need another Shadowdramon . . . it won't be as bad for you as it was for her. You need not worry about it."

Gabumon woke, in time to see Darkdramon reach down and caress Yamato with one long ebony claw. Yamato went rigid, and fainted, collapsing onto the filthy ground.

"Now your turn, my little pet. . ."

Gabumon thought the pain would never end.

* * *

It was night. The sky was overcast, unusually so, clouds heavy in the sky, stifling the air and making it thick.

Tai sat in his hospital bed, looking at his wrist, sealed in a cast. The lights were off in his room, and the door to the hallway was closed.

He tried to move his hand, idly, but it was stuck in the cast, frozen into place. It wouldn't move, not at all, not one bit, and it hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it was stone-still, never heal, he would never be able to move his wrist again. The air suddenly closed in around him, smothering, and the room seemed to shrink.

Tai bit his lip to keep from screaming. Blood trickled down his chin, cool in the recycled hospital air.

He lay back down, and thought about his ruined wrist, and the person who had done that to him, and had made it so difficult to breathe with these restricting bandages around his chest.

"Shadowdramon?" he said, aloud.

The only sound was the rasp of the air conditioner in his window.

"Shadowdramon!" Tai said, louder.

Nothing. No coal-red eyes, no shadowy figure wavering into being at his bedside.

The door into his room opened, light blinded him, and a girl walked in, no more than twelve.

Or, by her silhouette, Tai assumed it was a girl.

Tai sat up, startled, so quickly that the room closed in on him again.

"Do you mind if I come in?" the girl said, and shut the door silently behind her. She was deathly pale, with long black hair of no specific type.

"Who are you?" Tai snapped.

The girl's eyes glinted strangely, almost like coals in a dying fire. "That's a stupid question." She sat down next to him, on the hospital bed. "You called me, and I came. What do you want?"

"You're not Shadowdramon. She's a dragon . . . you're a stupid little girl."

"Do you know what a dragon is and isn't? I am Shadowdramon." The girl's from wavered, no longer solid, suddenly a huge red-eyed dragon, wings extended.

"Do you doubt me now?" Shadowdramon said, grinning, tail twisting behind her, laughing at her own little joke. "Don't call me a stupid little girl, Taichi dear."

"No. . ." Tai was silent for a while. He jerked suddenly, eyes wide and glaring, and then held his arm out to Shadowdramon. "Get this thing off me!"

"What, you mean the cast?" Shadowdramon said.

Tai nodded. His other hand twitched impatiently.

Shadowdramon laughed. "But if the cast is off, your arm won't set correctly."

"You said you could fix it!"

"Relax . . . of course I can fix it." Shadowdramon reached out and took Tai's arm gingerly in her claws. "Do you really want this off?"

"Yes! Yes, get it off. I can't move my arm. I can't move it."

"It's not such a big deal, Taichi." Shadowdramon laughed, and dug her claws into the cast and wrenched it off, snapping the cast in half. She discarded it onto the floor. Tai yanked his arm out of her grasp with a yelp and cradled it to his chest.

"Anything else I can do for you?" Shadowdramon said, her voice laced with sarcasm.

"A . . . sling . . . for my arm . . ." Tai looked up at her. Shadowdramon scowled, and beat her wings.

"No. Get it yourself." She began to fade, until only her eyes and her grin were left. "Flippant things like that are hardly worth my time."

"Wait!" Tai said, staring at her with desperation in his eyes.

"What?" Shadowdramon said, annoyed. She started to appear again, her shadowy body filling in the room.

"I decided." Tai said. His voice was shaky.

"Really?" Shadowdramon looked interested. Her wings fluttered.

"I . . . I want to come with you."

Shadowdramon grinned. "Good . . . but if you come, you may have to fight the other Digi- Destined."

Tai was silent for a moment.

"Let's go." he said, his voice quietly cold, like a spike of ice.

"Oh, very good." Shadowdramon said, pleased, and snatched Tai up in her ebony claws. Tai flinched and then relaxed, despite the sharp claw-tips digging into his skin. "I know exactly where I can put you . . ." she muttered, half talking to herself. "Darkie has been very busy, and he won't look for us in a place he's already been. . ."

Shadowdramon vanished, and the air in the room rushed to fill the place she had taken up, curtains flapping.

It wasn't until morning that they discovered that Tai was gone, the cast lying broken on the floor.

* * *

Karen sat perched on the guardrail of the balcony, watching the sun rise slowly. Ceamon waited behind her, occasionally flicking her antenna.

Ken stood, silently, in the open doorway, where Karen couldn't see him, hidden by her shadow. He was holding his whip, thinking.

"The sunrise is beautiful, isn't it?" Karen said. Ken froze, trying to make no sound, not even breathe, until he realized that she was talking to Ceamon.

Ceamon nodded mutely. The sky was dawning an odd shade of red, splattered across the sky darkly. It would take a while for the sky to truly light, to bloom into daytime, and right now it was dark, between stars and sun.

Ken struck, lashing out with the whip.

Karen barely moved, catching it without even turning around. The whip was stretched out taut between them. "My reflexes aren't that bad, Ken." She stood up, facing him, still holding the whip. "So . . . you're better." She yanked on the whip, almost pulling it out of Ken's hands, and then let go. It sprung back like a rubber band.

It hit him in the face.

"We'll see how long that lasts." Karen said, as she walked by him, into the doorway.

Ken touched his face. He was bleeding, where the whip had hit him. He turned, and yelled after Karen. "What do you want with me?!"

Karen stopped. "I don't know. Maybe I just got lonely, here in this tower all by myself." She laughed. Ceamon glanced at them both uneasily, then scurried over to Karen.

"You see, I don't like this tower." Karen said.

"Then why are you in it?" Ken snarled.

"Because it once belonged to an . . . old friend." Karen laughed again, and the laugh had a note of hysteria in it.

Ken looked uneasy. "What happened to him?"

"I killed him." Karen said, and laughed and laughed hysterically and twirled around, her cape swirling like black wings lifted by bloody winds. "And now, I'm free, like a hawk!"

Ken stepped backwards.

Ceamon swallowed. "She's like this sometimes . . . it's the sunrise . . . it makes her remember things."

Karen growled, deep in her throat, like an animal, and kicked Ceamon into the wall. "Shut up." she snarled, hate blazing in her eyes. She whirled around and stalked down the hallway, cape flaring behind her. "You weren't there, you filthy worm!"

"I was, Karen, I was there!" Ceamon said, tears in her eyes.

"Not enough!" Karen screamed, and spun around, releasing something from her hand.

The knife she had thrown flew past Ken's arm, a silver blur, skittered across the balcony and dropped off of the edge of the tower.

Ken stood very still.

Karen disappeared into the darkness of the corridor. Ceamon watched her stalk away. "I'm sorry that you had to see that, Ken . . ." she whispered. "She was okay before . . ." Ceamon shuddered, and then followed Karen into the tower.

"Before what?" Ken asked, but Ceamon was already gone. He coiled his whip carefully, and then walked into the tower.

The blood was drying on his face.