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It was a question she asked herself less and less.
How did I get here?
At this point, however, how she had managed to tumble into the shadows didn’t matter so much to her anymore.
Over the weeks - months, years, even decades, perhaps - her priorities had skewed. No longer was the fact she had somehow ended up in a realm of shifting darkness, muted sounds, and stale air important.
Not since she heard the laughter.
Inhuman, grating laughter, more like the squeaking and grinding of the rusted hinges of her old home than anything produced from a living throat. Cackling, drawing ever closer, whatever was making it always just out of sight. Forever multiplying, each laugh ever so slightly different from the next, producing an unnerving cacophony that drove any care of causality from her mind.
So, she focused on more pressing matters.
Run.
Escape.
SURVIVE.
Each time the walls - walls ever flowing and transparent like silk, yet impassable to her - would shift and swirl, bringing that terrible cackling closer, she would run, barreling through what was feeling less like an open plane and more like a twisting maze.
Each time she felt the warmth of the material realm wash over her, she would tear hungrily at the shadows, her fingers searching for the final veil that separated her from reality, trying to escape. She would cry and scream at first, trying to catch the attention of anyone she could see on the other side, but her voice only brought the cacklers closer. So, she fell silent. No more words, no more screams, no more sounds.
Everything she did now was in attempt to just survive.
And survive, she did.
But, more than that, she adapted.
***
It happened slowly.
Gradually.
And, though there were no mirrors for her to witness the full extent of the changes that occurred, she noticed some.
First, it was her skin. She had found that, while she couldn’t manually claw her way out of the shadows, she could tug and wrap the walls of this odd realm around herself ever so slightly, an action that helped hide her presence from the cacklers. The shadows, perhaps eager for such contact, sunk into her skin bit by bit during these repeated actions, knitting themselves into her very flesh.
Camouflage. Camouflage born of commensalism, perhaps mutualism.
She found that, with her new skin, she could become as immaterial and unnoticeable as she pleased, and the cacklers - the smaller ones, at least - would pass her by without a second thought.
***
Deep, pitted grooves just beneath her cheekbones opened up next.
She felt them do so, and they prickled uncomfortably at first.
Yet, as the pain faded, something else took its place. Nearly indescribable, and not something she could categorize by sight (though hers had certainly improved over time), smell, taste, hearing, or touch, she somehow had gained a better sense for the rippling of the shadows, the natural magic and body heat given off by the cacklers, and the esoteric ‘deepness’ of whatever she was delving further and further into.
Navigation. A new awareness. A new understanding of this realm. She could divine which places were safe to rest, which were nests for cacklers, which were precipices not of height but of existence into points of no return where immeasurable and incomprehensible boluses of something she would rather not think about writhed, and which were not so much places, but beings within themselves.
Predators, gaping maws near indistinguishable from the walls at first, promising lights flickering at the backs of their throats, beckoning unsuspecting interlopers closer and closer until it was too late. She nearly walked into one once, drawn by the light, yet fled once that new understanding prickled through her and she felt the presence of teeth and hunger and raw, rank magic.
Back to a safe place. Back to where the shadows welcomed her rather than attempted to devour her.
***
She found herself leaving no footprints sometime after that. No footprints, no sound of footfalls, and no trail left behind for any predators to follow.
Stealth, and she was glad for it. It wasn’t until much later, however, that she looked down and realized the reason for this particular adaptation.
No feet.
They had sublimed into little more than a dark mist that lingered around her calves.
She screamed, then, in surprise.
Her hands latched around her mouth a second later, yet the damage was done. She had given away her position, rang the dinner bell, as it were.
The shadows shifted and whirled around her, and she felt the approach of…something.
Something massive. Something magically alight. Something that displaced the shadows and sent a chilling wind past her senses.
She ran - floated - as fast as she could to a dent in the realm, twirling the shadows around her and fading.
Yet, it still noticed her.
Tall, wraith-like, and wreathed in mist, it floated as she did, claws pushing aside the shadows that had been her hiding place.
Its eyes reflected what little light there was here with an almost feline, blood-red glow.
A pair of horns, conical and sharp, sat atop its head.
It loomed over her.
Then, it simply left.
Turned and floated away, as if disinterested.
Or, perhaps, unwilling to eat its own kind, she thought, running her hands through her hair and noticing, for the first time, pointed nubs that sat just above her forehead.
***
It was a question she asked herself no longer.
How did I get here?
No longer was the fact she had somehow ended up in a realm of shifting darkness, muted sounds, and strange and terrible creatures important.
Not since she became one of them.
The laughter no longer bothered her, the cacklers and wraiths would pass her by without so much as a sniff in her direction, and she found herself almost enjoying her surroundings. The swirling walls that she could now understand and navigate almost flawlessly were beautiful in their own way, and, even those event horizon-like precipices brought her more awe and curiosity than fear, now.
It felt like home.
Perhaps it was.
***
Laughter caught her ears.
Different laughter, however.
Thick and joyous and mischievous.
The realm swirled and shifted, the walls giving way like waters split by stone, and her senses were seared by the sheer energy radiating from the being that stood over her.
“Well well, what do we have here? You’re not like the creatures I usually see lurking through this little labyrinth.”
A hand tilted her head up, and she flinched away from the overwhelming presence for a moment.
“Ah! You’re human, aren’t you? Well, were. I can’t say what you are now…”
Yellow eyes, glinting, crinkled at the edges. A smile, at once warm and venomous. A voice, honeyed and assured, yet every word was hissed. She felt drawn in, inexplicably.
Perhaps it was the curiosity that had been fostered by her time spent in the shadows. Perhaps it was the fact, however, that this being was akin to her in some way.
Yes. Touched, consumed, and changed by the shadows, just as she had been. Knowing and understanding of the realm’s secrets, perhaps - no, definitely - more so than herself.
“How ever did you get here?”
The question was odd, out of place, and not just because she herself had neglected to ask it herself for the longest time. It was as if the speaker knew the answer already.
She stayed silent, awed and wary and confused all at once. Another hand rested gently on her shoulder, the motion oddly calming.
“My dear. What’s your name?”
Finally, she met those yellow eyes, drew a breath, and spoke her first words in a long, long time.
“Relomia. My name is Relomia.”