The Shape Of Shadows Novels & Stories

“Are you sure?” The advisor rose to his feet and approached Willow from behind, his hand running down her silky hair. As Willow remained motionless, his hand landed on her shoulder, his fingers kneading through the thin fabric of her blouse. Willow closed her eyes and murmured, “What do you like about me, professor?” The advisor laughed. “There’s just something about you that appeals to men. You’re a fascinating contraction between fragility and stubbornness, purity and promiscuity…” His hand slid further down as he spoke.

I’m now standing face to face with the figure. Up close, the shape is larger than a human being. It’s at least seven feet tall and has no perceptible features other than the red orbs it has for eyes. It’s just a black mass formed like a man. It has a large head and bulging arms and legs. Kind of like an extreme steroid-using body builder’s body or a large wrestler. I wipe at my blood-soaked tears and clear my throat. “Who…who are you?” I ask with a visible tremble in my voice. However, the shadow person doesn’t answer. Instead, it reaches for something and pulls it over its head. I cry out in horror to see it holding a large black ax. He moves closer, and though I cannot see its face, I know

They were both afraid for what's to come, out of nowhere. It would be a hungry animal in search of food or a deadly monster who's waiting for its prey. Both of them hope it was just an assumption. “Suppleret nos lumen tuum.” Falla cast a spell as she waved a piece of stick on thin air and a blinding ball of light appeared up above them. It brightens the area close to them. There, a dark hooded figure stepped out of darkness to reveal itself. Its eyes were as red as blood and its presence gives a chilling and horrifying feel.

She saw the shift again. “Do you see something?” Ichiro asked. “There,” she pointed at the spot she was watching. “I thought I saw—” Her eyes widened when a shape broke away from the darkest section of the cloud. More followed. “Shadows. It’s starting.”

The shadow fell short and the girl drew a line in the ground with her fan to mark the extent of the male’s magic. “Looks like there’s a limit to how much you can stretch, shrink and change the shape of your shadow, isn’t there?” she asked, smirking. “No matter how much you change and stretch the shape of your shadow, you still can’t stretch it any further than the surface area of your normal shadow, is that right?” “That’s right,” Caiden chuckled, crouching and putting his fingertips together, arms bent at the elbows and thumb on top. After half a minute of thinking he opened his eyes, reaching his left arm back into his weapons pouch.

In an instant, he appeared before the uncanny star. A shadow appeared before the star. The shadow continued to change forms. It seemed that it did not have a fixed shape. It was constantly changing. Landry stared at the shadow that was changing endlessly and frowned. His expression also turned serious. He sensed that the aura of this shadow was more powerful than his.

"Magic is about connection. You can't manipulate something if you don't understand it first. So understand shadow. What is it? What does it feel like? How does it move?" This felt like the kind of philosophical nonsense that would've gotten her smacked by Griselda for wasting time. But Winter tried anyway, watching the shadows the way she might watch clouds or water. They weren't static, she realized. The torch flickered, and every shadow adjusted in response. Growing longer, shorter, darker, lighter. An endless subtle dance. "shadow is just absence of light," Winter said slowly. "It's not a thing itself. It's the space where light isn't."

Like someone was reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart with frozen fingers. Collapsed to my knees. Gasping. Vision blurring at the edges. The shadows in the room moved. Not from flickering candlelight. Moving on their own. Gathering. Pooling. Growing darker. Thicker. More solid. "Not this time," I growled. Forcing myself to stand. "Not happening." The shadow creature formed faster than before. Bigger than before. More defined. Could see actual features now instead of just a void of darkness. Face like a skull. Arms too long. Fingers ending in claws that looked sharp as razors.

Like all the others who got too close to the truth. A video loaded. Security footage from the hospital, but from an angle that should not exist. Someone had planted a camera in Ethan's room. The footage showed the same shadowy figure from before, standing by Ethan's bed. But this time, they leaned down, whispering something directly into his ear while he slept. Then the figure turned toward the hidden camera, and though the face was obscured, I saw enough. Enough to know this was not Camilla. Enough to recognize the expensive watch. The custom suit. The ring that caught the low light.

But as I walked away visibly emotionless, I couldn’t shake the image of the woman in the scarf, sitting in the shadows, watching me like she already knew me. And I had no idea that she was about to change everything.