She spent the next several weeks exploring the library. She didn’t find what she was looking for, but over that time she discovered a number of books on the practice of shadow magic. Deciding it would likely be her best avenue towards escape, she began to study. She found that she had no need to eat, drink, or sleep here. In fact all of her bodily processes seemed to have largely shut down. Because of this, she made remarkable progress studying and practicing what she found. The books were written in the same script, as if all written by the same hand. At first the language they were written in was incomprehensible, but the moment she looked at them for any length of time they resolved into legible if somewhat archaic sounding english. Ahron and her shade, who had decided to name herself Danielle, were happy to help with the project. Over time she learned skills and techniques necessary to shape shadows like putty. With her friends as willing test subjects, her mastery of the subject progressed at an astounding rate. Danica found that while they had a natural human form, they were actually infinitely malleable, with no limitations on size or shape. Ahron quite liked being a dragon, while Danielle enjoyed being a horse because “They’re just so cute!”

By the time Zed came for her, Danica was sad that she had to leave. She was studying a particularly dense tome at the time, and as he appeared from a wall an odd look crossed his face. “How did you find this place?”

“Ahron showed me.”

“Who?”

“One of the shadows?”

He looked at her oddly, then said “it doesn’t matter how you really got here, your time is up. I have prepared defenses in case Jon should try to harm you. You will be safe in your home now.”

He folded her into the shadows, and as he did, her knowledge of shadow magic allowed her to figure out the means by which he did it. She knew how to do it herself now, so she let him take her back to her home. After she was certain he had left, she experimented. She plunged her hand into the shadow of her couch, and was satisfied when it penetrated successfully.

After a few more tests she tentatively moved her head through the opening she had created. When she looked into the shadow passage, she at first saw nothing but a dark fog. Tentatively stepping inside, she found that her surroundings shaped themselves into a hallway with a kind of greco-roman architecture. She knew instinctively where to walk; though she couldn’t describe how she knew, and reaching a specific section of shadowed surface, she concentrated her will.The wall seemed to react to her thoughts, and as she looked, an image of the library formed. She refocused, and saw an image of zed from the side, who was himself peering through a shadow portal intently. She could not see what he was looking at, only that he was looking intently at something. She moved on, finding the correct patch of wall for her next target. Jon worked feverishly in his lab, taking notes and constructing something, though she wasn’t quite sure what. Eventually she moved on again. Ahron and Danielle were nestled together, chatting and laughing. They looked up, and waved happily in her direction. She slid her hand into the shadow so she could wave back. She let the shadows slide back to their natural state as she returned to her living room. Laying down on the couch, she stared blankly at the ceiling for a while before drifting off to sleep.

…………………………………………….

More time passed as Danica returned to her daily life. During the day she worked, and at night she returned to the library. She found that the embrace of the shadow-lands was far preferable to the embrace of sleep, which gave nothing but nightmares. In the library she found a book which described the stabilization of shadows against light, and after that she took to bringing Danielle and Ahron with her in the form of twin bracelets on her hands. Though they had difficulty speaking or acting independently in her world, she still found their presence comforting; knowing she had friends nearby.

As the weeks passed, she realized she had a new problem. She had not had her time of the month in quite a long time. The moment she realized this, she took a pregnancy test, and wasn’t particularly surprised when it came out positive. In a fury she jumped into the nearest shadow, flowing through it to pop out by Jon’s house. It was early evening, and street lights came on as she stood in front of his door, fighting through a sudden wave of terror. Straining against her soul, she knocked on his door, and after a brief wait it opened. He was disheveled, looking as though he had barely slept in quite a long time, and there was a kind of maddened glint to his eyes as he stared out at her.

“Danica?” He said, surprised.

“I’m pregnant.” She said furiously into the look of shock in his expression.

“Wait, what?” He didn’t say anything else for a moment as though his brain had shut off.

“You got me pregnant.”

“Um, would you like to come in?”

She pushed past him, and sat down on the couch with her head in her hands, looking up as he sat in a nearby chair.

“So, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I wasn’t sure about contacting you.” He said.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been making a device that can erase everything that happened. It would erase all your memories since that day, and undo all the hurt I caused you.”

She thought about this for a second before dismissing it. The trauma was terrible, but she didn’t want to go back to him in blissful innocence of his violation of her. She couldn’t simply erase what had happened, as much as she might wish it never had.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t want that. You can’t make what you did go away with some invention.”

The mad glint returned to his eyes, as he said “but I have to fix this. I need to fix this. I can’t go on destroying everything in my life!” He gripped her arm. “Come with me, it’s for the best, I can make it all go away.”

“What about the baby?” she said in a panic.

He stopped for a second, looking at her as if seeing her for the first time, but then the moment passed, and he began pulling her through the house. “We can deal with that too, just trust me.”

“No, that’s not your choice!”

She struggled against him, but to no avail as he dragged her into the gloomy depths of his basement. As he fiddled with the buttons on his machine, the gloom gave her an idea. Using her shadow magic, she reshaped Danielle in her left hand, forming her into a long blade. With as much force as she could muster, Danica swung at his hand. While it didn’t manage to cleave the whole hand off, it sank through the skin, and lodged against his bone. He screamed, and reflexively released his hold as he stumbled against the console. Turning to face her, he stared at her in shock.

“What… how did you do that?”

“Zed abducted me to protect me from you. I thought he was crazy, but clearly I was wrong. Don’t talk to me ever again. Don’t come near me. If you do, I’ll drive Danielle into your heart.”

“You named your sword Danielle?”

She said nothing as she turned. As she did, he pressed a button on the console.

“I’m sorry, I understand how you feel, but I have to fix this.”

The machine began to whir, and understanding what was about to happen she whipped back around, and brought Ahron up as a shield in front of her. She was not a moment too soon; as a beam of light rammed into Ahron, straining the bonds of her magic. Struggling to keep Ahron from breaking, she held her ground, pouring more and more energy into him. Just as she thought she would collapse, the machine blew the circuit breaker, leaving the whole room in darkness. The sudden release of tension threw Danica across the room, and as she got up, she stared at Jon. In his rage his energy had flared, causing him to emit a soft glow. His face was soot-stained, and a hot rage lay in his eyes, made more tangible by the red glow shining out through them.

“I just want to fix you! Why won’t you let me fix you!?”

Power exploded around him like a mantle of red, and his eyes filled with a bright red light. He rushed at her, and she stumbled backwards, calling shadows to try to trip him. They melted away under the glare of his red mantle, and he moved with a swiftness that terrified her. She jumped out of his way as he came, and let herself slip through a shadow, into the safety of the shadow passages. Her friends returned to their normal forms as she peered back out into what was left of Jon’s lab. The mantle of red sloughed off him and dissipated as he slumped down to lean against a table, and sobbed. Her own emotions conflicted, she sobbed too as her shades leaned against her to lend their support. Eventually she drifted back into the cold embrace of her library, and though her body didn’t need to sleep here, she still fell into a dreamless, thoughtless slumber.