Shadow

Chapter 2

"Why is it that I don't have as many friends as other people?" the little girl asked in a small voice, kicking her legs out as the swing swayed forward. "Is... is there something wrong with me?"

A soft voice chuckled. "Define wrong."

"D-define?"

The tall figure that stood beside the swings nodded, looking at the girl with serious golden-silver eyes. "One's meaning of 'what is wrong' is different to that of another person. There's nothing necessarily wrong with you," he responded.

She blinked, looking down for a moment. "Then why don't the like me? Why are they mean?"

"Easy. They can't deal with differences."

"Is that why you don't have many friends?"

For a moment, as if stunned by the retort, the taller figure stood there motionless. Around them, everything else seemed to stop moving. Even the wind seemed to completely cease with its activity and asides from the rusty chains that connected the swings creaking as the swing beneath the girl swung, there wasn't much sound either. For a moment, a deadly kind of silence surrounded them, like an invisible coil. It took some time for her friend to respond.

"I don't need friends."

Shaking, Amity took a step back.

"W-what are you doing here?" a stammer found its way out of her system. There was no reason for him to show up after two years, uninvited.

A toothy smirk appeared on his face. "Oh, you know. Spreading fear, meeting old acquaintances... the usual," he drawled out lazily. There seemed to be that disrespectful nonchalance on his face too, the one she could swear she'd seen somewhere before. "Enough about me, do tell, how were those years without my presence?"

"Puh-perfect."

He stepped closer, tilting his head to the side as he observed the female human in front of him. "Really? Holly and Molly turned out to be true to you after all? Well, colour me impressed!"

Averting her gaze, she muttered, "no. They left."

There was a hum of acknowledgement coming from the other end, as he encircled her, the height of his figure intimidating her. Though, if she were to be completely honest with herself, she likely was always a little scared by that. Along with his grey skin, golden-silver eyes, raven hair and black robe...

"You've grown," the male noted, ending the previous conversation thread there. "Would I be wrong in assuming that a lot else has changed since we've last met?"

Part of her wanted to say "oh, yeah, I got signed up to the psychologist and my mother officially gave up on me," but she didn't have the voice to do so. Besides, sassy retorts probably wouldn't enable her to escape from this tight spot. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she ran now, her mother would arrange another meeting sooner and if she didn't... wait, did the two ever talk about Shadow's diet? She definitely hoped that his diet did not consist of children and adolescents.

So instead, she only uttered a small "hmm".

"Though, I did believe you'd overcome some of the more ridiculous fears by now," he added. A gaunt hand of his slipped over her shoulder, causing her to shiver inwardly. He smirks cruelly. "I'm rather disappointed."

She silently looks at him with a pleading look.

Go away, please. Not now. Not today. Just go away.

Still, he ignores her. "Now what to do with you?" he asks, more himself than her. The glint in his eyes was no friendlier than it had been seconds ago. As for Amity herself, she begged her legs to listen to her and her hands to push him away. Though her heart and mind said something else. This wasn't right.

Running away?

From your only friend?

Are you really so cruel?

What will your mother think of her cowardly daughter?

She can only stare straight ahead though, not quite peering into his eyes. It continues too, for several seconds. Almost a minute. Before the slyly jovial light in the spirit's pupils dies down slowly but surely and his gaze sinks to the ground. He frowns, breaks off the grasp and takes a step back, much to her surprise. It was never like him to back away from a fight, and why should he?

Whilst it may shock some people, Pitch wasn't entirely used to coming into another person's home uninvited. Not to a home of someone he knew. But he had to see her. If only she felt that same feeling.

He'd foreseen it though. Why else wear so many masks in front of her if it were otherwise? Heck! She hadn't even believed in him at the start. It had taken him this long, so many days to force the belief out of her. Now she saw him. Yet it wasn't a smile she greeted him with. It was fear. Of course, how else respond to such a reaction if one were the spirit of fear than to welcome it? It wasn't enough though. That sort of welcome was hollow and undesirable, in his mind.

Two years!

It had taken two years, out of which the majority was filled with humiliation, hatred and pain. If it hadn't been for the Guardians, then perhaps it would have been less. Though if it weren't for how weak his own creations were without his assistance, he would have never gotten out of that mess. Only to wind up in an even greater one. It wasn't a pleasant find, to realise that Amity had stopped believing in him. Along with any other entities – for which he was partly glad for (those included his enemies, the Guardians after all), but it didn't make his time stuck in his lair any better.

"After all, you aren't really supposed to see me, are you?" he added after a while.

She shook her head, her hair swishing a little as she did so. When she was younger, she had a way of exaggerating every reaction, including this one, making it appear almost comical. It would have convinced him to let go of his anger in the past. Would have. Back then. Past tense.

"After all, I'm not like the humans around you."

Another shake. Though there didn't seem to be any knowledge behind this. He clearly wasn't human but he was certain that she knew nothing about him. Even then she knew so little. He would have to teach her. Trouble was: how do you teach a mortal about the matters of the immortal world? Especially one so young. Her reluctance didn't help and people surrounding her would only make this a very long, slow process since they wouldn't help ease the doubt. They'd only confuse her, give her false information and lead her off the path. Wouldn't be the first time they had. They're all a bunch of thieves. Liars. Cheaters. The lot of them.

He sighed. "Why do you deny me?" Tiredness ebbed from that voice, sincere and untainted. He had right to feel exasperated, he had reason to give up. This wasn't getting anywhere. She was still scared and nothing else.

He could see that she would flee if given the chance. He could feel her discomfort, smell and taste the fear. He could hear it in advance, the high pitch shrill that she'd give out if he tried to chase her.

Maybe it was better this way. He was the spirit of fear after all.

However, if he'd been one all along then how had he ever become friends with a child when that went against everything he'd ever learned from his occupation? She should have feared him then, not now. If anything, she should have feared him less now. She could have hit him or fought against him. Blaming it on assault, or something along those lines. She could have just ignored the strange happenings too.

"Alright, have it your way, then," he surrendered, turning around.

For a moment, just for a second or two, he was sure he could sense something else in the air. Only for a moment, he could have sworn she took a step closer. But then she stopped, letting him walk off. He didn't turn around to look back at her.

The brat didn't deserve it.

With a flick of his hand and a few grains of sand, he vanished from the room, leaving the girl stand on her own in the basement. Every illusion, every creature and nightmare had gone too, leaving the area almost completely empty and silent.

Amity had never really stopped to think that night. Got out as soon as possible in fact, avoiding telling her mother anything. Despite this, her mother quickly seemed to sense something was wrong with her daughters – as mothers do, much to the misfortune of any teenage girl that has ever tried to keep a secret from her parents – and immediately asked away. After that, she made the point of reminding said daughter about her next meeting with the psychologist, over a bowl of semi-cold noodle soup.

"B-but..."

"No buts," her mother cut her off shortly.

Their conversation wound up being unsurprisingly curt that night. Not that it mattered to the girl. There were other things on her mind. The possibility of some of those things actually happening would have seemed absurd to her just moments ago. And no matter how long she spent thinking, whilst trying to violently dissect the carrots that had been added into her meal with a spoon, she couldn't quite figure out how any of the past events could have happened.

In the end, all that was left was a mental breakdown, but even once dinner had ended and she had gotten away from her mother she could even bring herself to do that.

She didn't want to see her past.

She didn't want to go to the psychologist every now and then. No one wanted to do that. Still, she would have to. She would have to tell the unknown woman about every experience in her life and all those personal things for which she would rather have killed herself than spilt the beans. After all, she was a thirteen-year-old, who still had a small amount of dignity inside her.

All the more reason not to accept Him either.

Even once forced to turn off the lights and head off to bed, she still refused to sleep and surrender. By the time she would wake up, it would be a new day, a horrid day. A day she never wanted to come. So cradling her body, with her arms around her legs in a fetal position, she stayed awake, repeatedly wishing that this was all a lie. Never mind her age, she had a full right to act like a child when it was strictly necessary.

There's a boogeyman in the basement.

A black cat could understand me... and was probably a transformed boogeyman.

I have a psychiatrist.

The people in my school would laugh their pants off if they heard about any of this. Am I really a mentally impaired idiot?

No, this isn't real. This isn't real. This is fake. All lies. Illusions.

Those thoughts carried on until half-way through the night, whilst her eyes slowly closed and she gave in. Though unlike what she had expected, there were no nightmares, no bad dreams, or any sign of the male creature that came to visit her after all those years.

In fact, she dreamed of absolutely nothing that night. As if perhaps none of that had happened and not even her subconsciousness was willing to acknowledge it.

Now, Sanderson was a busy spirit. He couldn't just get away from his schedule for nothing. Which hadn't in itself explained why instead of giving dreams strictly to children, he stopped at a strange female's house, a teenager's home.

There was something off about her, something that lured him in. He was certain it wasn't belief, the energy was completely different. At least, not belief in him, per say. As she was sleeping, there didn't seem to be any dreams above her head, though he had created some for everyone, including the more grown-up children, even those that were nearly adults by human standards. This one, as far as he could, had no sand floating above her head, no visible dream. Perhaps something had gone wrong?

Then, as he turned around, he could see the person behind this, standing in the shadows, attempting to hide. At first, he glared at the shadows of the room. With a blink of an eye, it was gone, but then he found himself wondering more.

If it had been who he had thought it had been, why was the girl not having any nightmares? Unless of course that had just been an illusion and the monster who picked on little children wasn't really here. It would make sense, wouldn't it? The Guardians had defeated him years ago.

He sighed, taking a step back from the bed. He would ignore her for now. Wait until something did show up. Perhaps she was just a little different, that was all. Probably. Then, if Pitch was really behind this, he wouldn't hesitate to strike. Not only that, but he would make sure to get permanently rid of him. Better yet, this girl would. If he bothered to plague this girl with nightmares, he would suffer from her belief too. Even if it would be bending the rules a little to infuse belief in her. If Pitch, that Moon-forsaken mongrel showed up, trying to gain her belief, Sandy would ensure that she would believe in him and the Guardians too and would eventually be the end of him.

They say that the light is brighter in the dark, but this world didn't need more darkness or more of Pitch.

'I need to go,' Sandy reasoned, stopping the trail of thought there, before exiting the girl's room. His next destination led him to the Bennett house. Conjuring up a few ribbons of golden sand, before tying them up into an origami plane, he levitated it up, leaping onto it, before flying off.