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The Origin of Shadow

Chapter 4

(Shadow-Heart)

I was surrounded by a calm feeling as my body felt cool. My eyes were still closed as I did not have the effort to open them, it felt like waking up too early and still feeling tired. You could easily open your eyes, get out of bed and shake it off, but you choose to sleep some more. This feeling was like that, the calm embrace of sleep, but for some reason it felt wrong, like I had to move to a new location fast. That's when I opened my eyes and saw where I was. I was at the bottom of some sort of lake, a deep one at that. I couldn't see anyting except a small circle of light just barely penetrating this deep into the water. And then something else hit me. I needed to breath. I quickly tried to get up off the bed of the lake, but half of my body was submerged in the mud that covered the floor of the lake. I kept slipping as I scurried, but I eventually got onto my feet and managed to launch myself upwards towards the surface, I swam as hard and as fast as I could hoping to reach the surface. I felt my lungs run out of air, it was like they were collapsing in on themselves, the pain was harsh and near unbearable, but I soon reached the surface and gasped for air when I suddenly noticed something. My lungs were full of water, yet I had not drowned. The pain, the feeling of suffocation must have all been in my head. If you believe something enough then your mind will also believe it's real. It appeared that I no longer needed air or oxygen for that matter. I have to admit it was kind of awesome, but it was also a little unnerving. I just kept wondering what else had changed about me. I looked around to see I was in a very unfamiliar location, but from the foliage I had to say this was Nomad territory. I swam towards the shore thinking of how I was going to get back to Aerix's palace, that's if Jericho hadn't already burnt it down to the ground. I reached the shore and dragged myself up out of the water and onto the muddy shore. I coughed the water out of my lungs and looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone around and my armour was rusted, useless and would only slow me down, only the cloth underneath remained intact. So after ditching the excess weight I ventured forward into the forest that surrounded the lake. My tail dragged along the floor as my wet fur weighed it down. I lost track of how many hours I walked for, it was no use, I was lost and I was close to giving up. I even tried climbing to the top of a tree to see if I could see anything, but all I saw was an endless forest and mist on the horizon. Canids had an amazing sense of smell, but if there was anything around here it was out of my smell range. I started yelling in my head:

'THAT FUCKING DEMON TRICKED ME, THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE, THIS PROBABLY ISN'T EVEN MY REALM!! IN A FEW FUCKING MINUTES I BET SOME TENTACLE MONSTER IS GONNA RAPE ME OR SOME CRAP'

But then suddenly I felt a pain in my stomach as it felt like something was growing inside me. This pain was unlike anything you could imagine, the closest thing I could descirbe it as would probably be like being disected whilst you're still alive. I collapsed onto my knees, holding my stomach as I suddenly saw someone's feet infront of me. Who was that? Was I in danger? I was in too much pain to look up or even defend myself.

??????: "Having fun? Don't worry, you'll get use to it after the next 3 or 4 times the Demon Seed grows"

What the hell was he talking about? I fell onto my side as I struggled to look up and saw it was a Husky like me, infact he looked alot like me, except he was taller and looked more vicious.

Shadow: "Who.....w-who are you?.......AHHHHHHHH........*Grunt*....."

The stranger softly laughed and crouched down next to me.

??????: "Relax, if you struggle it'll only hurt more, let it flow through you........embrace it"

I tried to follow his advice.......and it actually worked, after the 10 minutes I spent in crippling agony. The Demon Seed seemed to stop as I softly panted and got up onto my knees.

??????: "There we go.....all better?"

Shadow: "Y-yeah......who are you?"

??????: "Well.....let me see.........hmmmm.........how can I explain this to you?.......Oh I know. I am part of you, I am an entity that now shares your body and mind. Or if that's not enough then I'm one of the halfs used to create your Demon Seed"

Shadow: "Wait what?"

??????: "Some Demon Seeds are created out of the souls of other Demons to pass on their powers, strength and knowledge. Your Demon Seed was created from 2 of the most powerful Demons in the entire Night-Claw family. I am one of those souls, but for you to get such an important and powerful Demon Seed you must be a descendant of Royal Blood"

Shadow: "Whoa hold on.......I'm so confused right now can you start at the beggining?"

The Demon just smiled.

??????: "I'm sorry, I thought Atrun would have told you everything, I guess I'll have to tell you in small chunks so you don't get confused. But at the moment all I should tell you is this; You're on the way to becoming a full fledged Demon so I'm going to train you and show you how to use your powers and abilities"

I stood up only to feel light-headed and dizzy so I quickly sat down on a tree stump.

??????: "Careful, you need rest after an aggressive conversion-phase like that"

Shadow: "OK, answer me this, what's your name?"

??????: "Now that is difficult, I don't think you could pronounce it in your tongue"

Shadow: "Spell it in the dirt"

The Demon sighed as he began to write in the dirt with his claw. I read it and he was right, I couldn't make sense of it. It said:

'Azcrifgh'jor'

Shadow: "What the hell kind of name is that?"

??????: "Better than yours, Shadow"

Shadow: "My name is not Shadow, it's Nathaniel"

??????: "Yeah, before your death, but you're being reborn as a Demon, you are now named Shadow. I'm sorry, but Nathaniel is dead"

I needed a minute to let this sink in, but then again I didn't really care who I was. My mission was still the same. I had to find and protect Resdayn

Shadow: "Ok......so I'm Shadow now"

??????: "I know it sucks huh? But you know, my name translates to Shadow-Heart in you Mortal language, so that's pretty cool"

Shadow: "Why are our names so similar?"

Shadow-Heart: "Well we're both Shadow-Demons, so that explains the shadow bit, but as for my second part well I got that from my bad habit. You see I was a Demon general that faught for the Night-Claw family I had a bad habit of eating Angel's hearts to scare the enemy"

Shadow: "So how did you get into the Demon Seed?"

Shadow-Heart: "Well, I was killed by an Arcangel General, one of Atrun's ancestors preserved my soul along with another and forged it into the Demon Seed. Once Atrun got the Seed, he took the soul of another Demon equally as powerful as me and put that into the Demon Seed too. Now you posses both our strengths"

Shadow: "I see, now let's talk more about this 'Conversion' thing......what's happening to me?"

Shadow-Heart: "Well the Demon Seed is starting to spread inside you, moving and burying it's tentacles into your organs, muscles etc, and injecting a special chemical that improves your sense, strength, stamina and is esentially making your body perfect and free of flaws. It will also alter some of your organs aswell as giving you a few new ones that will allow you to conjure Black Fire and manipulate Darkness and shadows"

Shadow: "But that kind of thing would kill me, it's impossible to do all that"

Shadow-Heart: "Oh really? Try smelling something, or listening, because that first conversion was to improve your sense. Go on, give it a try"

I decided to humour him and try it, so I closed my eyes and focused on my sense of smell and hearing. I had to admit I had little expectations but I was amazed at how strong my sense had become. I could hear the lake over 4 miles away that I had come from, I could smell every flower and every tree within a 6 mile radius. When I opened my eyes, my eyesight had changed dramatically, I could see bodyheat, I could see thermal emitions, and I could see the aura furries let off. I looked at Shadow-Heart, I could not see his body heat and he didn't let off any thermal emitions, but his aura was dark and Demonic. I was scared of this at first, but then Shadow-Heart told me how to control it. He said I had to be realxed and the special eyesight would appear if I felt threatened. Also that I would be able to see in the dark, but that would happen later. I was impressed so far and if these were just the tip of my powers, I couldn't wait to see what else I could do.

Shadow-Heart: "Ok, so now that you've gotten the hang of things, let's see if you can lead us outta here"

I closed my eyes and focused on my surroundings, everything was silent except for the rustle of the trees and the sound of the lake, I then heard an extension of the lake going around us, it must have been the river that was conencted to teh waterfall I fell down. So that way would lead me to Jericho and the Canid Empire, but I needed to find Resdayn and Aerix, so I would have to go around Jericho's castle and through the Empire. I opened my eyes as I had now gotten my route.

Shadow: "Got it, let's go"

Shadow-Heart: "You lead the way"

I knew I had to be quick so I decided to run and I found out something else, as my leg muscles had increased so had my running speed as I was able to run faster than a horse. I had to take a few moments to get stable, but then I was able to run at top speed. I headed towards the direction I needed to go hoping that I was right and that I wasn't too late.

To Be Continued.......