"Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived this?"
- Brenna Twohy

∞

My feet touched the ground of the freezer softly and silently, my shadows allowing me to float for a moment before gently placing me down. One foot landed, then the other, and I was standing suddenly still, the cold fog rolling around the small room.

The freezer was industrial and silver, and could also only conveniently be opened from the outside. If someone got stuck in here, they would remain stuck. I doubt they would die before someone would discover them, but it still would not be a pleasant experience. The thought made me smile.

Shelves upon shelves scaled the metal walls, covered in all kinds of products and foods. My eyes scanned the rows of produce, before finally landing on a pathetic heap in the corner, an open bucket of ice cream in front of him.

My father was passed out on the floor, his suit rumpled and jacket discarded. His brown hair had fallen into his face, and the grey whiskers on his jaw aged him exponentially. He looked young, approximately in his mid forties, but I knew he was well over one hundred years old. The same was with my mother, though she looked much younger, still in her early thirties, due to the healing elixirs she downed by the pail full. 

Storming up to my father, I gave a heaving kick to his groin, hoping to solve his infidelity problems once and for all, guaranteeing that there would be no more bastard children. Then, for good measures, I kicked his stomach, so he would be too confused by the pain to realize where the source of it was. I wished I had my metal toed wyvern-hyde  boots, with the retractable blades under the soles, so I could forever inhibit his ability to make any more messes like these. 

My father groaned In pain. When he did not rise still, I grabbed a pitcher filled with ice water from one of the metal shelves, and dumped it all over him. This time he yelped up, his breath puffing in the air around him. When he was up, I threw the rest of the water at him, the glass pitcher included, and watched in satisfaction as the good-for-nothing, adulterous, moron I was unfortunate enough to call father, flinched away from it. The pitcher shattered on the floor, spraying glass and water everywhere.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" I demanded, shouting at him. His eyes were blurry when he had first risen, but now they were sharp with alarm, knowing I would do far more than simply throw a water pitcher at him if he did not wake up. He grumbled out a sobriety spell, rubbing his bleary eyes and trying to locate himself as he rose.

"What are you talking about?" He demanded suspiciously, confused as to what I accusing him of. His beady eyes darted about the room, sharpening with each moment.  

"Wonderful! I see the dementias kicking in early!" I seethed, baring my teeth at him, before getting back to the problem at hand, "How could you?! This is mothers party!  Everyone we know is here! Everyone in magical high society! Bloody council members! And you decide this is the perfect time to introduce your tramp and your bastard daughter to the world?!" I berated him without pausing to take a single breath, "I always knew you were a worthless, good for nothing deadbeat, but I never thought you were this pathetic!"

I neared him, and he scrambled up, afraid I would throw something at him again. His eyes sharpened further, as if finally recognizing me as one of his many daughters.

"How could you do this to her? What the seven Hells is wrong with you? Bringing the fruits of your infidelity here. At her event-"

"Oh for Araw's sake-" He grumbled out at me, rubbing his hands down his face, almost  in disbelief, "This is what you've waken me up for?"

"Mother-" I began again, but he cut me off.

"Oh will you stop with this nonsense? Wilhemine doesn't need you to stand up for her. She's hardly the innocent martyr you're making her out to be" He rubbed his eyes, grumpily slumping back to the floor, as if it was too much effort to rise. He pulled the ice cream pail back out, digging his wooden ladle into it, seemingly unconcerned by my anger now. I wondered what chef he stole the oversized ladle from. He also pulled out a nearly-empty bottle of absinthe, agitated that he wasted a sobriety spell for this conversation.

"She knows" He continued while chewing, washing the ice cream down with a mouthful of alcohol,  "She's known for years, you stupid girl. It's hardly something to make such a panic about . She's known about all the affair children. Why else do you think you got to spend so much time with that boy?" He pondered for a moment, as if trying to remember which boy he was talking about, before snapping in realization, "Why else do you think you got to spend so much time with Carmella's son? The one that was always starting fires"

The temperature dropped in the room, despite it already being freezing. I stilled in place, my expression falling. I stopped breathing altogether.

"What?" I asked slowly, my voice quiet. My father scoffed, the shift of his body language making the lines in his face more defined under the light fixtures. He took another bite of ice cream, seemingly unaware of what he had just said to me.

"Your mother has known for years about my affairs. She doesn't care. She's been in on it since the beginning of our marriage. You really think I can hide anything from her? She always knows about everything. She controls everything. I can't get anything past her and her claws!" He shuddered, mimicking claws with his fingers.

"She doesn't even care about the affairs, as long as I keep it out of the press. No matter what I do, she doesn't care!" He shouted once more, downing a drink aggressively. Some of the vile liquid dribbled down his stubble-covered chin.

"What did you say?" I repeated, my voice low as I stared at him with a blank expression. I could not breathe, waiting for his answer. He sharply glanced at me, as if annoyed I was interrupting his self-pitying rant.

"Your mother, that you are trying so hard to defend right now? Yeah, she's known since the very first one! She only ever stops it when it interferes with her work! She doesn't care about anything but herself and her job!" He continued, sloppily downing drinks. He tried to loosen his collar, his fingers clawing the air at his neck, before realizing that his shirt was already unbuttoned.

"What did you say about Carmella?" I asked again, my voice low, attempting to keep calm, "I don't care about your failed marriage. Considering the pathetic nature of your existence, failure is expected. I'm asking about Carmella. What did you say about her?" I grit out each word through clenched teeth, my mouth leaden.

He scrutinized me sharply. And then his face did something horrendous; it softened. The harsh edges faded, sagging downwards into a more placid expression. He suddenly looked older. Tired. No. Not tired. He looked pitiful. He was pitiful towards me. Him, in his disgusting state, was pitying me.

"Nobody told you?" He asked me, partially shocked, partially sympathetic, his tone retrospective of our entire conversation. A look of understanding passed onto his face, as though my reaction made sense to him now. I wanted to claw his throat out. I wanted to sink my nails into the tender flesh beneath his neck, and rip out his larynx. I wanted him to stop talking to me in that tone. To stop looking at me like that.

"Told me what?" I grit out. His face only sunk further into his pity. Gone was the father that I recognized, his sharp face always jagged and defined with indifference. In his place stood a shapeless, unrecognizable blob of a man who's face was melting right before my eyes. He was melting, and I didn't know how to make it stop.

"You're smart. I know that much, at least. Don't tell me you haven't figured it out yet"—When I remained silent, he looked at me with absolute shock— "Carmella's kid isn't your cousin, or whatever lies the imbeciles in the company told you. He's your brother. Half-brother, at least. This got out years ago. Everybody's known for ages. I can't believe nobody told you" He whistled, as if surprised.

My legs buckled, and it was my shadows under my arms that were keeping me upright. They were the only thing supporting me as the world fell onto my shoulders, the unbearable pressure pushing down on me from all directions.

It seemed as though my father caught sight of my expression, by his tone change. I wasn't looking at him, my eyes locked on the floor as I stared off into space. The entire world shifted, and it took everything in me not to collapse where I stood.

"Hey, don't take it personally, kid. They probably just forgot to tell you. You always were so quiet. It's not their fault if they overlooked you. Heaven knows they had enough children to inform. You probably just slipped in unnoticed between one or the other" he tried to comfort me, the first fatherly thing I remember him doing in his entire life.

I didn't know if he was calling me 'kid' to comfort me, or because he forgot my name. I don't ever remember him calling me it. I knew he always mixed up Bronwyn's and Deundre's name, despite them being the oldest and their names sounding nowhere the same. It wouldn't be a reach that he forgot mine. I had always just been thankful that he recognized me as one of his children. I had always been thankful that I had been important enough for at least that. But now I was not thankful. Now I was angry. So unimaginably angry.

For a split second, I imagined killing him. I imagined slitting his throat while we were down here.  Crimson red spilling over the tan skin under his jaw. The soft tissue splitting open, like a broken seam. First there would be pale nerves, white and puckered. And then the blood would rise, spilling over. Flooding. So much of that red, rising past the pristine white tissue, pale and pure from the shock of being opened to the light, opened to the world for the first time.

Then I thought of simply lunging forward and clawing out his throat with my bare hands. Big fleshy chunks under my fingers. Hot blood. My heart was beating fast, my palms clammy as my pulse reverberated through my body. As I considered it, my fists were tightly clenched, white from the aggressive press. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to slit his throat ear to ear and beat him into a bloody pulp, so disfigured that he would be unrecognizable.  I needed to leave before I acted on my thoughts.

Without another word, I silently walked out of the room, towards where I knew I could find Luca. I couldn't be in my fathers proximity for much longer before actually killing him, especially since he was telling me not to blame the company. It did not even occur to him that he, as my father, was the one who was supposed to apologize for failing to inform me that I had a brother my whole life. He did not even find himself slightly at blame.

I stormed through a shadow and left the freezer, leaving him locked within it. Just as I nearly disappeared, I jerked all the metal shelves forward with my shadows. I heard a garbled shout come from my father, before a great big crash resounded in the room, all the shelves falling on him at once. The clangs of pans and breaking of glass was the last thing I heard before I closed the shadow portal behind me. Let someone else help him out. I hoped he would freeze in there. I hoped he would rot.

I reappeared on the main level of the house, pushing past people and through crowds, looking for Luca. His presence here tonight had not been given even a second thought by me, but now I wondered how many other sibling I had hidden in the crowd. Did they all know? Did everyone know besides me, like some big inside joke that I was excluded from? Did the entire mage community know, and it was only me that was unaware?

Finally, I spotted Luca from the crowd. He was dressed in a tux, his chocolate brown hair gelled up nicely and neatly, a stark contrast from the forever disheveled mess he usually adorned on his head. He was standing next to his older sister, and I wondered for a moment if she also was my sister.

"Eulalia" Someone called out from besides me, a voice I hazily recognized as Clair's, but I did not stop, continuing to storm towards Luca. I pushed someone out of my way, and at the sound of their garbled shout, Luca finally looked up. He met my eyes. He saw my murderous expression, and for a split second, he stared at me. He then did the only rational thing to do; he ran.

Luca turned his back on me, leaving his sister and speeding away from me. I sped up, weaving between people as we exited the banquet hall and into a corridor once more. It seemed I would be spending the entirety of the ball outside of the ballroom. Luca sped up, now outright running, and I sprinted after him. When we reached a turn, I tightened my shadows and threw them out at Luca, like a net. One hooked his leg and dragged him back.

Luca let out a terrified shout, as my shadows tightened around his throat like a noose, and I slammed him up against the wall. He clawed at them, attempting to get them off him, but his fingers went straight through the apparitions, yet they held him in place as thick as black vines.

"You knew" I snarled at him, nearing. Luca's face dropped, going from nervous to absolutely terrified in a matter of seconds. Upon his guilty expression, I knew instantly that he was aware of the topic. It only furthered my rage. My nostrils flared, my lips twitching. He had been waiting for this to happen. He had been waiting, holding the knowledge above me, besides simply telling me.

"How could you?" I demanded again, my voice shaking with rage. Luca gasped frantically, his mouth opening and closing, choking on his words. His eyes were bulging from his head.

He knew, and he didn't tell me, all this time. He didn't tell me when I was alone and being sedated every night, being experimented on like an animal and screaming to be let out of that damn house. He didn't tell me when I was completely left in the care of Cypress, left behind by all my siblings, abandoned by my parents, locked in a house with a monster. A house that was simultaneously both too big, and too small, with nowhere to hide.

He knew he could have provided me some reprieve, simply by telling me. Some hope that the horror I endured was not all that my family could offer me. He could have gave me something to look forward to. He could have let me claim him as my family.  But he didn't. He waited years. He waited years. He wasted all this time. He had wasted all this time besides telling me.

"You knew" I uttered, my tone begging him to deny it. Begging him to tell me he didn't betray me like this. Not again. Not again.

"Eulalia" He begged me, his voice rasping, his face turning red. He clawed at the vines around his neck, and I waited for him to turn purple, before finally slamming him to the floor. He collapsed, gasping and coughing profusely.

"You knew" I repeated, this time as a confirmation, the betrayal evident in my voice. I closed my eyes, attempting to shove down the liquid brimming my lash line. Attempting to rebuild my resolve. Attempting to restore the sense of stability and safety that he completely ripped from me, solely in the last few minutes. The part of me that I had spent my whole life building up.

I had spent my whole life convincing myself that I didn't need family. That I didn't need them. I spent my whole life doing everything I could to keep them from hurting me again. Out of desperation from having no one to rely on. And he does this to me. He does this to me now. He knew all this time.

He knew he was my brother. Everyone knew this but me. Everyone had known this for years. Everyone but me. My lip quivered, unwillingly turning my mouth down into a frown. I bit down on it to stop it from trembling so obviously.

He knew what kind of family I was raised in. He knew it. He knew how desperate I was to have someone—to have anyone on my side—in my corner. He knew how alone I was, how isolated. He experienced it first hand. And yet, he was my brother all along, and he never told me. 

He knew how much I needed someone, and he never told me. He never told me till I became what I am today. Till I had spent years making sure that I didn't need anyone anymore. Till I spent years hardening up my resolve, building up walls brick by brick, isolating myself till I could no longer find solace in anything but the darkness. Till I was broken. I mourned what I could have been. I mourned what we could have been. He could have been my brother.

The thought bore down on me, an unfathomable grief settling on my shoulders, pushing me down. I could not help but cave into myself as my shoulders hunched in, making myself smaller and smaller. So much time wasted. So much of it.

"You waited all this time to tell me. You held this from me all this time" I told him, my voice breaking nearly on every syllable. I swallowed, my jaw tense from frowning. I breathed in through my nose, ignoring the stinging in my eyes. I couldn't look at him, my eyes screwed shut. My fists were clenched, with my nails digging painfully into the flesh of my palms.

"Eulalia- I tried to! I tried to tell you!" He said desperately. His voice wavered, unsteady and hoarse from the choking. I finally looked up at him, my lips pursed in an attempt to keep myself from sobbing. My eyebrows were turned up, as I stared at Luca miserably, salty tears gathering at my lash line.

"Did you tell me?" I asked genuinely, feeling as though I was sinking into the ground, back into the form of the child that hadn't escaped this house. The walls grew taller, looming over me, and I shrunk back into myself. Maybe he did tell me. Maybe he tried. Maybe during the trial, they stole that memory from me too. I took a deep breath, and looked up at him with wide, glistening eyes, hoping that this was the truth.

"Did you tell me before the trial? Did you tell me before they broke open my mind and rearranged my memories? Was is one of the memories that they stole?" I asked in a frantic, hushed whisper, unable to raise my voice any louder, knowing my terror would not let the utter the words any louder.

I knew my mind was not reliable. I knew it well. I could often not differentiate memories from before and after the trial. Those years in my mind would forever remain muddled. Whatever they did to me during that trial—whatever they did to my mind, had left it broken. This could have easily been one of the memories they damaged. One of the memories my mind chose to let go, knowing it could not be salvaged.

"Did you?" I asked again, hopefully, but my heart dropped at the guilt ridden expression of Luca.

"You didn't" I whispered out to the air, conforming it to myself,  backing away from him in horror, "You didn't"

"I tried to tell you!" He exclaimed frantically, reaching forward. Before his tan hand grabbed me, I instinctively slammed him back to the wall.

"Do not touch me!" I seethed at him, pure hatred laced in my shrill voice, "You're no different from the rest of my family! You kept this from me. I would have forgave you for the stunt you pulled when we were kids. For the information you leaked. We could have moved past it if you had just told me" I wailed at him, rivers of hot tears sliding down my cheeks. I was angry. So incredibly angry, the rage burning through my hot blood, making my body shake.

"I tried to tell you! I tried to show you! I did show you!" Luca cried out desperately.

"Do not lie to me!" I hissed at him, and the shadows flickered on the wall. Luca's eyes traced them nervously, but did not lower his voice. He did not stop crying out to me.

"I tried to tell you! I tried to show you! You were smart! I thought if I leaked your records, you could have pieced it together. You could have seen that your father and mine shared the same magical signature. I thought the media would focus on our shared father, not Cypresses death! I didn't know that it would happen! I tried to show it to you and make you understand the same way it was revealed to me! Through your medical records! "

My heart stilled at the realization, but then the anger took over once more. The shadows began thrashing on the walls, desperate to get out, wailing to get near me. The wide-eyed look of Luca betrayed his fear. I neared him, not caring. My grief was completely overridden by my fresh anger.

"I never knew your motives for leaking my information Luca, but I knew sure as Hell that they weren't with my best interest in mind. You were angry. You were an angry, impulsive little boy who was only thinking of how to best act out his anger. You were not thinking of me. You revealed that information to hurt me. There is no way around it" I seethed, my body sparking with energy. I could feel the shadows in my grey eyes swirl, moving as they began glowing. Luca backed away from me.

"Yes, I was angry" He admitted desperate, knowing there was no use to lying to me, "I was angry when I learned who my father was, and I was angry that I was kept a secret, while you got to be his daughter. I was hurt that you got to be his daughter and go home to him every night, despite being a Dark Practitioner. They still claimed you, despite it. I was angry, and I wanted you to hurt too, but that's not why I did it! I wanted you to know!"

"You wanted me to know, and yet you never told me!" I laughed hysterically, my voice hoarse and ravaged, "All these years you never told me that you were my brother! But what you did do with that knowledge, was reveal to the entire world that I was a Dark Practitioner! That I was responsible for Cypresses death! That I murdered him! When you knew what they did to me on trial! They destroyed my mind! They fucking killed me" I screamed hysterically at him.

"That's not-"

"They ruined me! They broke my soul! They broke my mind! They ruined every memory I had. I started speaking to shadows! I started hearing things. I started seeing things. I could not tell real from fake. I could not tell what happened and what did not. And worst of all, they took my proof! I trusted my mind! I knew what happened! I knew it happened to me" My voice broke, the tears starting anew, this time running down my face in streams.

"I knew it happened" I repeated to myself, sobbing, "I knew it did, even if nobody believed me. I trusted myself! And then they took that from me too. They took it, and I no longer knew. I could not tell anymore, If it truly happened. If he truly deserved to die. If I was truly the victim, and not he" I gasped out, my face crumpling up, my chest caving in with each shudder. Luca did not say anything as I sunk to my knees, my entire body shaking. I was unraveling, the misery of these past weeks—of my entire life finally catching up to me.

"And then, when I was finally getting better, when my shadows were finally helping me be okay again, you started it all over again" I seethed at him, snapping my eyes up at him. "That closure. You took it from me by releasing those documents, and making everyone believe I was the monster. I was in a state where I no longer knew the truth, and you had the entire world turn against me, and convince me of a lie! You had them convince me that I had deserved it! You released those documents, and had them destroy what I had left of my already fragile state"

"I didn't know what I was doing" His voice broke, and I could feel him trying to reach forward to me again, my shadows having loosened in my grief, "All I wanted was for you to know who I was to you. Who I really was" He whimpered at me, trying to get close to me again.

"You are nothing!" I screamed at him, snapping my eyes open and slamming him back, my anger restored at his words, "You are nothing to me! You broke me, for some selfish desire to be validated as my father's son"

I repeated again, my voice quieter now, gasping for air, "You broke me for your own selfish desire, and you didn't even bother to tell me why. All this time, you did not tell me. I would have forgave you for leaking the documents. I would have forgave you if you had just told me why"

I sobbed out, breathing heavily, wrapping my arms around myself.  My chest rose and fell as the walls caved in on me, the room getting smaller and smaller by the second. The entire hall was draped in shadow, and yet more and more black spots flooded my vision, pulling towards me.

"He broke me" I whispered to my shadows, my eyes twitching at the shifting walls. My shadows tried to comfort me brushing up against my shoulder and nuzzling against my cheek.

"Don't touch me!" I wailed out, shaking them off my arms, only to realize they were already gone. Instantly, I regretted it.

I reached out to them my brows furrowing, "No- I didn't mean it"

But they did not come back, scattering each time a reached forward, making my chest restrict even further. My asthmatic breathing became more aggressive as I wheezed for air. I grasped for my heart, my chest convulsing. Something was wrong. I was having a heart attack. Something was wrong.

"Come back. Don't go" I grasped for the air, trying to find them. They were gone. They left me.

"Eulalia-" Luca called out nervously, but I did not let him speak.

"I'm not talking to you" I screamed at him, my voice hysterical. His eyes widened, as he flinched, stepping back from me. I couldn't breath. Something was wrong. I couldn't breathe. The walls were closing in on me. I could not breathe. My shadows took all the oxygen in the room with them as they left. They were gone. They left me.

I couldn't jump into my shadows. I couldn't reach them. So I did the only rational thing I could think of; I ran. I pushed up on my shaking legs, and I ran out of the halls, stumbling and slamming into walls, desperate to escape the sinking rooms. Desperate to get out of this collapsing building. Everything was closing in on me. My shadows left. They left me. I could hear Luca calling out to me, but I did not stop. I somehow ended up in the banquet hall, slamming into people, trying to navigate my way out.

Everyone was pushing in on me. I could not longer tell who was who, everything blotted out in oil, all voices distant, as though I were under water. Champagne and golden ambrosia sloshed on me. There was too much noise, everyone talking simultaneously, laughing, shouting, dancing. The light from every chandelier in the room was stripping me raw. Burning down on me. Exposing me. I could feel peoples' skin on mine. I could feel them pushing up against me. I could feel dirty hands on me. I pushed my way through, stumbling and sobbing, begging my shadows to pull me out of this Hell. They did not come back.

I was lost. I could not find my way out. Someone grabbed me and began dragging me. I could feel their hands on me. I could feel his hands on me.

"No" I screamed, my vocal cords straining against my words, "Don't touch me!"

"Eulalia, stop" A familiar voice broke through, and some of the fog lifted. Some of the black haze cleared from my eyes. I somehow ended up out of the press of bodies. They were no longer suffocating me. I could see just enough of Paris' face staring at me in concern, but it was not enough to breath.

I tugged at my collar. I tugged at my dress. I clawed at my neck, as if it would somehow open up my airway. Long, stinging scratch marks were left on my skin.

"I can't breathe" I gasped out, clutching my throat. Paris instantly let me go.

"I need to get out. I cant breathe" I gasped out in my own helplessness, stumbling away from Paris, and out the double doors leading to the garden. I did not wait to see if he followed me.

The cold air hit me with a blinding dizziness. I could not see in the dark anymore. My shadows left me. They dissipated into the air, and now I was stumbling through the hedge garden, my dress hooking on thorns and my feet tripping on roots. I fell multiple times, each time scrambling back to my feet in a panicked frenzy. My hands were outstretched, trying and failing to keep invisible tree branches from whipping my face, as I stumbled through the garden, hitting the hedges with each turn. Finally, the painful sting of thorn covered branches stopped, my feet falling from cobble stone to soft, snow-covered, lumpy earth.

I ran, the cold air beating against me, pricking my skin with needles as I tired to get away. I stumbled through fresh snow, my feet bare, having lost my shoes somewhere in the garden. I managed to get half way through the field, before my body collapsed. I fell to my knees, realizing I could no longer see. I was blind. I had gone blind. I could not see, I could not feel anything but the freezing snow against my knees and between my toes, wetting my dress. I could not feel the darkness. The tears streaming down my wet face froze to my skin, making the cold cling to my eyes. My unseeing eyes.

I could not feel the rays of the moon on my skin. I could not see. I could not hear. I could not breathe. I could not feel the darkness. Even the darkness had abandoned me. I was alone. I was lost. I was broken. In my desperation, I did the only thing I could think of, on my knees, surrounded by the cold; I prayed to the one being that had not yet abandoned me. I prayed to my creator. My patron God. I prayed to Nyx.

I prayed her to help me. I prayed her to free me. I prayed her to save me. I prayed her to bring back my shadows. I prayed her to take me back. I begged her not to leave me alone. I was all alone. I was abandoned. I begged her to save me as she had once done, on one dark night, many years ago.

"Please. Help me" I whispered, tears streaming out my unseeing eyes. And then, all at once, my prayers were answered.

My head suddenly snapped back, a phantom hand shoving my chin up, exposing my neck. A force rushed through me, my mouth fell open so wide that my jaw felt as though it were being cracked open by two hands. My mouth was gaping towards the sky, as if to inhale all the night, all the stars, all the darkness. I whispered. I whispered a language long forgotten—one belonging to night. I whispered to the darkness. And it whispered back. The darkness and I whispering secrets to one another. Like calling to like.

I was still blind, but I could now see. I could see the world for what it truly was. I saw the mana thrumming through it. I could see the magic that threaded the air into one, complex current. I saw the darkness for what it was; life, beating like a heart through the weave of time, pulsing around me, swaddling me like a child. I could feel it. I could feel it within me, calling out to its own. I could see that it never truly abandoned me, for it could not. I was its child, and it was mine. We were one, cut of the same cloth of existence. We could never truly peel ourselves from one another.

I could see the magic everywhere around me, an ocean of it, currents streaming around me, and I pulled. I pulled it towards me, absorbing myself into it. It pulled into me and I pulled into it, and once the magic was flowing through me as though my body was phantom, like wind running through still-standing air, I truly saw where I was. The shadow realm. The realm of night. I saw it for what it truly was.

It was not simply a realm of darkness. A realm of empty mass, created for me to mold it to my desire. It was the realm of magic. The realm of mana hidden to the naked eye. The mana that you had to reach for, and pull back chunks at a time, to utilize. Never before had I heard of passing into the realm of magic. Never before had I heard of transversing the veil of magic, of basking in it. Of swimming in it besides drowning.  Human bodies did not float in magic. We were never meant to survive its currents. Yet I did. I soaked in the magic. I absorbed it.

A now, realizing what the shadow realm truly was—raw, undiluted magic—I pulled. I pulled and pulled that power towards me. I forced it down my eyes and my throat and nose and filled my body with it. And when I was full of that ripe, overflowing, raw magic, never before touched, waiting to be molded to my desire, I released it out.

I released it out, dragging it from the realm of magic and releasing it in the mortal world. I felt the world shift around me. I felt my body, still on my knees, my hands still outstretched, head still snapped back and mouth still open, with my eyes still blind, but I did not feel the snow beneath my knees. I did not feel the pain of the cold biting into my uncovered skin. And most of all, I did not hear the screaming of Paris Arobynn, as he called out for me. I felt nothing, as I transversed past my body, and became a being of pure magic.