original post

          Upon nameless hills sat a quiet village, patched stonework made up its roads and thatched cottages made up its homes. Within this place, so far and forgotten from the world, sat a boy upon the rusted husk of what once qualified as a bed. Now it trembled at every touch, mimicking its occupant, whose teeth rattled against bitter whispers of the wind.

          “No wandering about, you’re to stay in bed and sleep.”

          “Yes, ma’am,” replied the boy, looking up from rough spun blanket held tight around his shoulders. His voice cracked in a manner much older than the seven years he held, letting loose a dry heave he was forced to swallow away. A woman stood in the room, a crone really, one he knew not to cross. She was a tall wisp of a person, but the true terror of her was illuminated by the candle gleaming in her hand. The crook of the saucer deferred enough weight for her brittle wrists to keep it level, but it still angled toward to rotting floors. Her face, her skin, and her bones; All shallow and cold. The others once compared her to a skeleton, but it was Flora who said in the lowest light the old woman resembled every lich spoken of in old men’s stories. Flora, the recollection of her name left him devastated.

          “That’s a good lad, god is watching.”

          “No he isn’t,” whispered the boy, his heart fluttering as the woman furrowed her brow. A moment’s consideration passed between them before she turned away and disappeared through the narrow arch, slamming the door shut behind her. “If he was watching, she’d still be here.”

          Her feet dragged across the steps as she made her way to the cottage’s ground floor. The boy sighed to himself as the last echoes of light died, leaving him alone.

          “What ails you, Soot?” The voice was high and happy, with a slight hiss as it drifted away.

          “Flora is gone,” Soot replied to the shadows. “A man and a woman came today, they took her.” He nodded toward the empty bed opposite him and frowned, his voice remained a whisper lest he wake the caretaker below.

          “A family?”

          “Yes,” he answered. “A family.” The word lingered upon his tongue, like the stench of the half rotted apples that comprised his lunch.

          Family. He’d had two now, both lost to him. Two summers past, during the youngest moon of a month he couldn’t remember, a band of brigands happened upon his home. Soot remembered nothing of the night, only the slight sliver of the moon as he woke. They burned everything, every evidence that Soot ever had a home and left the boy buried beneath the ruins. It was there, amidst the smoldering wreckage, that he was found, buried deep beneath the rafters and roofing of his ravaged home.

          Some merciful soul must have discovered Soot, but when he woke once more he was in this new village. They wrapped him in anointed bandages, hiding the burns that covered his body, and muttered passages of scripture over him, fully expecting the boy to die. He didn’t.

          The first night of his rehabilitation was the harshest, he tried screaming through the night but found himself unable. His throat was raw, dry, and soundless. It was here that his friend first appeared, winding within the shadows around his bed and spoke to him. They shared stories, woes, and a great many laughs as Soot struggled to find strength once more. The shadow was the first friend of his new life.

          Soot ran his fingers over the strange web of skin that now comprised his face, a weave of intersecting, unmatched patches that grew during his recovery. It was Flora who first named him ‘Soot,’ when the boy refused to speak. She was younger than him, perhaps by a year, and often was the only one willing to speak with the strange boy in bandages that now occupied a corner of the orphanage. The town’s physician took to visiting the children, but where Soot was concerned he applied careful focus. An ashen paste was used to calm the boy’s burns, it left him a shadow as well.

          “Will you leave me too?” Soot asked the night. “You’re my last friend now, and you were my first. Will you leave me too?”

          “Someday, yes.”

          “I don’t want you to leave,” Soot sighed. “You’re the only one who never afraid of me, who never called me a monster.”

          “I never felt the need,” cooed the shadow. “We’re both monsters, Soot. We need someone to talk to.”

          “Will you stay then? Will you stay with me, even during the day? I don’t want to be alone again.”

          “I cannot. I will continue to visit, I will continue to see you, but only in darkness.”

          “Are you afraid of the light?”

          “Aren’t you?”

          Days withered and months followed, and his friend never failed to appear. The shadows spoke to Soot, they spoke every night and regaled him with tales written in smoke across a black canvas.

          “Soot, this is the last time we’ll see each other for a while.”

          “Why?”

          “You’re stronger now, you’re better.”

          “No I’m not! I’m still alone, I’m alone during the day. It’s me and the old lady, she doesn’t like me.”

          “She is your family.”

          “I’m her charge, not her family. My family is dead.”

          “So am I. You’ve spent enough time with ghosts, Soot. It’s time you went into the world, time you made your way.”

          “Nobody wants me. Even you’re leaving me, why?”

          “Soot…”

          “Why? Why won’t you stay with me?” Soot shouted. He leapt from his bed and stood among the shadows, ignoring the shuffle of feet up the stairs. “I don’t want to be alone, don’t leave!”

          Behind him, the door burst open and the old woman stood in the doorway with her candle held aloft. Soot stared at her a moment, her own eyes revealed by the wick’s light. Remembering his friend’s fears, Soot hurried across the room and swatted the candle from her grasp. His caretaker’s hand gave way as her eyes grew wider, the candle crashed into the ground and rolled through a crack in the floor. Soot turned away from her back toward the shadows, expecting some hint of his friend. He found none.

          Below them, the candle had swallowed the lodging’s lower level. Glints of orange flame tickled their way through the gapped floorboards, singing the bottoms Soot’s trousers. He reeled desperately, looking for any indication of his friend as the old woman shouted incoherently for him to follow her. Soot ignored her and sat on his bed once more, watching as the old woman finally turned and left him as the first of the roof’s beams caught fire. The cottage collapsed around him, but he hugged his knees tight and remained in the bed.

          “I can’t be alone again,” he whispered. As the flames engulfed the walls around Soot, he stared at the shadow growing opposite him upon the bed that once belonged to Flora. He let out a cry of relief, smiling a smile that cracked the dry scales of his face. “There you are…”