Lost in Shadows

Prologue

"See you tomorrow," said Jake as he and Mike parted that evening after soccer practice.

Jake began the brief walk home, thinking ahead about tomorrow’s big game.

Replaying images of him scoring the winning goal, Jake was suddenly jerked away from his fantasies. The lively summer evening had become deathly quiet. The soft music of the crickets and the laughter of nearby children had come to an abrupt halt, and Jake was only aware of his quiet breathing.

He continued on, at a brisker pace, but a white, eerie mist began to settle across the road, slowly leaving Jake able to see only several feet in front of him.

Breathing harshly, Jake broke into a run; heading for where he hoped was home. The air was growing thicker by the second, and the mist began closing about Jake’s neck. Desperately struggling for breath, Jake heard swift footsteps behind him, growing closer and closer.

Frantic, Jake whipped around, coming face to face with a terrifying, lifeless being; a face as white as the mist around it, black eyes. Jake, drenched in cold sweat, felt his strength wrenched from him, and the swirling white mist turned to black.

Chapter 1

"Hey Deb, listen to this," exclaimed Patrick, sitting in his office with the newspaper.

" ‘ TEEN BOY GONE MISSING
Jake Rodgers, 13, was confirmed to be missing when
he did not return home from soccer practice last night.
Extensive searches are being conducted. Presumed to
have gotten lost walking home. If anyone has any
information, please contact the police immediately.’ "

"Hm, that’s interesting. Things like that never happen around here," said Deb.

"I think there’s more to the story," Patrick muttered, "I don’t think Jake just wandered off and got lost. I think he was taken."

"Taken? By kidnappers?" Deb inquired.

"No, taken by the supernatural."

"Patrick, don’t be ridiculous, there’s no such thing as ‘supernatural’ beings."

"You don’t know that," said Patrick somewhat huffily.

"I’m a scientist, I work with facts, not fantasy," Deb shot back.

"Well, I’m going to investigate this case, and I’ll prove to you that I’m right," Patrick said.

"Okay," Deb said, rolling her eyes, "you do that, and come back when you’ve found Jake and the supernatural things that have taken him."

Chapter 2

Patrick was walking down Center Street; the Jake would have walked on to get home after soccer practice. He was looking for any indication that foul play went on last night. So far, he wasn’t finding anything helpful, and he was beginning to believe that Deb had been right.

Disappointed and tired, Patrick decided to head back to his office, where he would have to face defeat. However, as he turned around, he caught a glimpse of a strange silvery, glowing substance underneath a tree.

Curious, Patrick went over to investigate, but as soon as he reached the tree, the substance disappeared. It almost instantly reappeared a few feet away. Patrick began following the trail of silver liquid, eventually finding himself in the midst of a clearing.

There were no more traces of the strange substance, and instead, an eerie quiet settled over the clearing. Patrick nervously began backing his way out of the woods, the silence pounding in his ears. After what seems like hours, but was only several minutes, Patrick found himself back on the main road again.

He turned and headed towards his office, feeling shaky and unsettled after his strange experience.

"There is definitely something strange going on around here," Patrick thought to himself.

Chapter 3

"Deb!" said Patrick, out of breath from running back to the office. "You’re not going to believe what I found today."

"What?" said Deb, somewhat skeptically.

"Well, I was walking down the street that Jake probably walked down last night to get home and, suddenly, I saw this strange silver liquid on the side of the road. So I went over to check it out, and it disappeared, and then reappeared under another tree.

"Disappeared and reappeared?" Deb said.

"I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out," responded Patrick. "So, I kept following this stuff until I found myself in a strange clearing, where everything was silent. It was so quiet and I suddenly became sort of scared. It seemed like something was wrong, so I left and ran back here."

"Patrick, you don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?"

"What? It’s true, I swear," Patrick said defensively.

"I don’t know what’s going on here," Deb said, "but I find it extremely hard to believe that this strange silver substance disappeared and reappeared magically and then it led you to a creepy wooded area."

"Fine, if you don’t believe me, I’ll prove to you that it’s true," Patrick stated, "Tomorrow morning we’ll go to the place I was today, and I’ll show you."

Exasperated and too tired to argue, Deb said, "Okay, Patrick, I’ll go."

Chapter 4

The next morning, Deb met Patrick on Center Street, irritated and tired from waking up early.

"Hi, Deb!" Patrick said enthusiastically.

"Hi," muttered Deb.

"So, are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Okay then, let’s get going!"

Patrick and Deb started walking down the road, keeping their eyes peeled for any sight of the strange silver stuff Patrick had spotted the day before. About three hours later, there was still no indication of anything silver that Patrick had told Deb about the day before, and both were starting to lose their patience with one another.

"See, Patrick, I told you," Deb said angrily, "there’s nothing here. You just imagined everything."

"How could I imagine things like that?" Patrick said incredulously.

"I don’t know what you were doing, but there is definitely nothing here," Deb shouted, "I’m going home."

Patrick said nothing, and only stared off into the woods.

"Did you hear me Patrick? I’m going home"

"Deb, come look at this, quickly." Patrick whispered.

About twenty feet further into the woods, there lay on the ground a puddle of silvery liquid.

"Oh, wow," Deb muttered, "that’s amazing."

Deb slowly walked forward, approaching the substance on the ground cautiously. Bending down, she reached out an unsteady hand to touch it. However, just as she was about to touch the liquid, wind began whipping fiercely through the trees.

As the wind was shrieking through the woods, the only thing that was unmoving was the silver substance. Deb fell over from the force of the wind, and when it finally calmed, she sat up again, only to discover that the puddle had disappeared.

"Patrick," Deb said unsteadily, "what in the world was that?"

There was no response from behind her.

"Patrick?" Deb said, slowly turning around.

Patrick was gone.

"Oh no, where could he be? Patrick! Patrick, where are you?" Deb called frantically.

"Maybe he was knocked out by the wind," Deb thought.

She began to look around the woods for an unconscious Patrick.

After about an hour of anxious searching to no avail, Deb was exhausted and disheartened. "Maybe he left and went home," Deb said to herself, "I guess I should just head home and I’ll probably find him there, perfectly safe."

However, as Deb began looking around for the path that they had come in on, she saw nothing but trees. She began walking towards where she hoped the path was, but she could find nothing.

"Oh, no! I think I’m lost!" Deb said aloud.

She began walking quickly through the woods, looking for any way out of the crazy tangle of bushes and trees that never thinned. After roughly two hours of walking, Deb’s legs began to go numb, and her feet lost all feeling. Drained of all strength, hungry, and cold, Deb lay down under a tree and closed her eyes. She was asleep instantly.

Chapter 5

Deb awoke with a start, discovering that the woods were now dark and still.

"There’s no use trying to find my way out of here, now that it’s night time," Deb thought, "so I might as well just stay here until morning."

Trying to get comfortable on the damp, cold ground, Deb was suddenly wide-awake as a bright light burst out of the deep woods. Curious, and not at all tired anymore, Deb decided to follow the light.

"Who knows, it might lead me out of here," Deb said out loud.

She began to follow the strange, wavering light, but as soon as it appeared that she was almost there, the light jumped a few feet farther into the woods. Bewildered, Deb began to run, hoping to catch up to the light. However, the light suddenly went out, and Deb was left in the pitch black.

The light abruptly reappeared, directly in front of Deb and brighter than it had been before. She found herself, not in the midst of trees, as she expected, but in an empty clearing.

Deb was suddenly overcome with the strange sensation that she was being watched from all sides. She tried to back out of the clearing, but she was unable to move; her feet were stuck to the ground. All of a sudden, a figure seemed to melt out of the darkness and it appeared directly in front of Deb. The figure had a black body, and a startlingly white face, with deep, black pits for eyes.

It said to her in a strange, whispery voice, "Why have you come here?"

"I-I don’t know how I got here, I just followed a light and it led me here," Deb said nervously.

"Ah, so you are the one who has been roaming these woods, looking for us," the creature said.

"No, I wasn’t looking for you," Deb said haltingly, "I was looking for my friend, Patrick; he disappeared."

"I know where your friend is."

"Where? Where is he?"

"He is here, with me," the figure said in a calm, silent voice.

Suddenly, a whirlwind began around the creature, blocking him from Deb’s view. It stopped as soon as it had begun, and in place of the peculiar white face, Patrick's head appeared on the dark shoulders. Another creature stepped out of the shadows, and it too, had the face of a human, a child of about twelve or thirteen, Deb guessed. A final creature emerged as well, but this one did not have the face of a human, it was just blank and pale.

The faces said nothing and only stared blankly ahead, unchanging.

"Patrick, can you hear me?" Deb asked, alarmed.

There was no response from the lifeless face. Suddenly, Deb felt herself beginning to lose strength, and Patrick’s mouth began moving, but the voice of the strange creature came out.

"You see, we three are the only ones left of our species. The rest have died from a strange plague that has spread across our land. We cannot let our race die out, so we have taken the strength out of your friend here and it has gone into my dying body, making me almost whole again. The child’s strength was transported to him," the creature said, pointing to the figure with the child’s face.

"But you see, we still need one more person for her," it said, gesturing to the faceless, limp creature, "And you, are the perfect fit."

Deb, overcome with fear, felt her strength being pulled from her, quicker and with more intensity. Deb began to think to herself that she would not let these creatures take her life for one of their own. She knew that she couldn’t just give up and let them take her, Patrick, and the child.

Deb began fighting with every ounce of her remaining strength. She came back fighting so quickly that the creatures were surprised, and ceased pulling her strength for a matter of seconds. These few seconds gave Deb the opportunity she needed, and she pulled with everything she had.

Deb was growing faint from the exertion of using so much strength, but she kept on going. Just before she fainted, she heard a thump and a muffled cry of distress.

Chapter 6

"Deb, Deb, come one, wake up please," a soft voice said in the distance. Deb, slowly opened her eyes, and found herself looking into the distressed faces of Patrick and another person, the boy whose face had been on the strange creature.

Confused, sore, and exhausted, Deb muttered, "Where am I?"

Patrick helped her into a sitting position, and he began to explain, "You saved our lives, Deb. Those things were slowly killing us, and you as well, but you kept on fighting, and eventually your power became too much for them, and they disappeared."

Deb was slowly gaining back her strength, and she began to remember the events of what seemed like days, but were only several minutes ago.

"Yes, I remember, but who are you?" Deb asked the boy who was standing behind Patrick, looking at her anxiously.

"I’m Jake. They took me several days ago. I can never thank you enough for saving my life," he said.

"Well, we had better get home, Deb, you look exhausted," Patrick said. Deb stood up gradually, and the three turned and walked out of the trees, which had been so full of secrets and mysteries, but which were now nothing but empty woods.

The End