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River’s first day at this new school was going great. And by great, I mean: getting shoved in a locker. Super clichè right?
How did River get in this situation? Let’s take a look at all the facts.
River Collins; aged 9, base power: shadow manipulation, is small for his age. His parents don’t like him, for yet another cliché reason: shadow abilities = evil.
River’s father, has no super abilities, unless you count how easy it is for him to get drunk as one. River’s mother, base power: light manipulation, is a respected agent in a famous superhuman base. Of course having an evil son could ruin her reputation.
His father practically ignores him. His mother’s default setting is yelling, but at least she remembers to buy groceries every once in a while and buys clothing for him. He has to take care of making his own food and doing his own laundry. But that’s fine. It also doesn’t matter he never gets “new” clothes, the stuff from goodwill works.
It’s not like he can complain though, he doesn’t talk much. He can’t help that his voice gets all distorted when he gets stressed.
And of course because shadows automatically = evil, River doesn’t know exactly know how to control his own abilities. His parents won’t help him, so he has to figure it out on his own.
I think you get the picture.
Now his mother had just transferred him to a new school after an accident involving his shadows. His anxiety was already high walking into the building.
This scared boy, his size, his well worn clothes, the way he stayed by himself and refused to talk to anyone, and the one time he did talk, he sounded demonic?
Well those things just made him an easy target.
Enter Penny Martin, a bubbly little girl with a personality of sunshine, who walked right up to him before classes even started and helped him. The sweet little empath was the first friend River ever made.
Penny’s mothers both ran a highly respected base of superhumans. No kid in their right mind would try to mess with her. No kid in their right mind would mess with a friend of hers in front of her.
It’s a shame Penny’s mothers pulled her out of school early that day.
The first moment River had to fend for himself, was when the kids zeroed in on their prey. River was locker sized and kids can be jerks.
So yeah, River’s first day at this new school was going great.
And of course by great, I mean: getting shoved in a locker.
‘Oh god,’ He thinks ‘I’m missing classes, the school is going to call mom, and she’s not going to be happy.’
He’d given up on struggling a while ago. He doesn’t know how long specifically, he can’t keep track of the time, and it’s too dark to check his watch.
‘Let me out. Let me out! Please, someone, let me out!’
River squeezes his eyes shut as he feels the wall disappear behind him. He refuses to open them back up.
‘Oh no, now I broke the locker...mom’s really not going to like that!’
River stays seated, hugging his legs to his chest, not daring to open his eyes to see what damage he caused this time.
River was too busy worrying to realize that all the background noise of the school disappeared along with the wall. And that the wall didn’t disappear at all, he was in an entirely different place.
He also refused to open his eyes to notice the shadow skipping towards him.
“Hiya!!” Exlaimed a voice, coming from the shadow. River flinched at how squeaky she sounded. He also refused to acknowledge her. ‘Please go away. Leave me alone. Don’t tell anyone what I did. Please go away.’
That didn’t stop encouraging her though, because she can’t read minds.
“You must be new around here! I’ve never seen you around before, and trust me I’d know! I’ve never left this school, and I know every corner! I’ve never met a shadow like you before!” River thought he’d met the happiest sounding person when he met Penny, this voice is making that statement false. He still refused to even acknowledge the voice, and curled in further on himself.
“Oh silly me, I’m so excited I’m forgetting my manners! I don’t have a name yet, but you can call me Winnie until I find mine! Do you have a name? Or have you not picked or found one yet?” This voice, Winnie, was starting to make less and less sense to River.
Winnie doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon, so maybe after she hears “the scary voice” she’ll leave him alone.
He looks up and simply replies, “River”
He could hear Winnie start bouncing around, excitedly chattering about his name, but he couldn’t focus on that.
No. He couldn’t. He could only focus on the fact that his voice sounded normal.
He was starting to freak out. His voice shouldn’t sound normal. Why did his voice sound normal?
The confusion must have been visible because Winnie cut off mid-sentence to ask, “What’s that face for? Never heard yourself speak before?”
“Why do I sound normal?”
Ah. There was the sweet sound of silence. It only lasted for a moment before River heard Winnie start bouncing around the place like a wild child.
“OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH. IM A BIG DUM DUMMY!!! YOU WERE THE KID TALKING IN SHADOWS EARLIER!!!!!!! YOU’RE THAT HUMAN SHADOW!!!!!!”
River winced at the yelling, “Talking in what?”
Winnie calmed down the slightest bit before clumsily flopping down to sit across from him. “Speaking in shadows!!! At least that’s what Crowman called it. They’re a lot older than I am, so they know a lot more!”
“Crowman?”
“They haven’t picked a name yet either. They look like a crow and a man, so I call them Crowman! They’re from across the ocean! Apparently we have to travel around place to place to keep the negative energy moving around but, by golly, Crowman traveled a distance!! They-“ Winnie cut off her own excited rambling, “Why won’tcha open your eyes?”
River sighed, “I don’t want to see the damage.”
Curiousity instantly hit Winnie, “Damage? What damage?”
“I broke a locker....somehow.”
“I don’t see anything broken.”
“Well one minute, I was crammed inside a locker, and the next I fell through the back, so I had to have broken it somehow!”
River could feel the excitement that was radiating off Winnie freeze once he said that. “You. Were. WHAT?” River flinched as he curled in on himself even more.
Winnie quickly continued, “Sorry! Didn’t mean to yell, but those meanies shoved you in a locker!!! That’s horrible!!!! Oh sweetie, no! You didn’t break anything! You just slipped through the shadow to the Otherside!”
River jerked back as Winnie’s voice somehow morphed from a little girl’s to a teenage boy’s in the middle of the sentence. ‘What is even happening anymore?’
“Sorry, uh, I’m still Winnie.....this happens sometimes. I don’t know why, and Crowman doesn’t know either...we’re supposed to have 1 main shape but be able to shift into whatever shape we please....For whatever reason I keep switching between these two randomly....and only these two. I really didn’t mean to freak you out, if I did, I just don’t have any control over it.”
“That makes two of us”
“Huh?”
“Not having any control, I understand. Mom and Dad won’t help me find another shadow manipulator to teach me, and they refuse to help me figure anything out. They think the shadows are bad. So I’m on my own. You can see how well that’s going.”
Winnie had to clear his throat to keep from yelling again. “That-That’s awful. But hey! We can be out-of-control friends together! I can stick with you and help keep whatever happens with your powers to a minimum. And maybe I can help you figure some things out too!”
River was processing his words, so Winnie continued. “I know I’m not the best teacher. Heck, I don’t even know what I’m doing most of the time. But Crowman visits and checks up on me every so often. They’re a much, much better teacher, so you’ll definitely have to meet them and learn stuff from them too!”
River hesitated for a moment, “Do you mean it? And you’re sure Crowman won’t mind either?”
“Of course I mean it! Don’t worry about the Crow, they’re super nice and love helping everyone. That’s also part of how they were formed, they’re a sort of doctor. They’re also always interested when ‘a-no-ma-lies’ show up. Hence why they’re helping me! They are super nice! They’re just not around lately because of something weird happening at Wilson Valley.”
“Ah...ok,” River paused for a second before smiling, “then I guess It’d be nice to have some help.”
“Awesome!” Winnie stopped for a second before he facepalmed, “Wow I really am a dummy, you don’t know how to get out of the Otherside do ya?” River shook his head as Winnie stood up and continued on, “I figured as such. We have 3 lessons today. Lesson number one! Leaving the Other Side!”
River squeaked as he felt someone pick him up and set him on his feet. It also felt like he opened the freezer in his kitchen, and he felt a chill go down his spine. After Winnie was confident that the kid wasn’t gonna fall over, he continued his lesson.
“So I’m going to take your hand and this time I’m gonna lead ya out! Always, ALWAYS, keep your eyes closed. The light difference will kill them.” Winnie paused to chuckle as held Rivers hand, “However seeing as you never opened yours in the first place, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for!” River shrugged in response.
Winnie sighed “ok. Lesson number 2: Your parents are WRONG.”
“Huh?”
“Your parents are wrong. You’re not bad or evil. Me, Crowman, and literally every other living shadow like us are created when very, very bad things, HORRIBLE things, happen. That doesn’t make us bad. We’re made to keep emotion and energy sensitive people, like that Penny girly, from being overwhelmed from all the negative energy connected to a place and making those sensitive people unable to go anywhere! It sounds to me like that helps them, which is GOOD, yeah?”
“...yeah”
“And YOU get to talk and communicate and have an entirely new world that only people like us can access. Isn’t that nifty?”
“...yeah. Yeah it is.”
“So, River? Are you bad or evil?”
River couldn’t help but chuckle, “No.”
“Good! Lesson 2 was a success!!!”
“I’m lucky you found me.”
River felt Winnie tense as he said it.
“What?”
“I’m lucky you found me. Who knows what could have happened if you didn’t.”
“...You’re lucky? I made a new friend that’s not a Crow man! I think I’M the lucky one...because I’m pretty sure you also just helped me find my name!! I’m lucky! My name’s Lucky!! Gosh! That’s amazing!!! Just wait until Crowman finds out I found my name before they did! They’re gonna be so jealous-“
River smiled as Lucky continued to ramble on. Lucky was a pretty cool shadow.
“Hold on! You just let me spout of all this nonsense when we have to complete lesson one still!!! Ready? 1...2...3!”
It only took 5 steps to leave the Otherside. River never realized how cold it was there until he was standing in front of the lockers.
River opened his eyes to be greeted by an empty hallway. School had been over for a couple hours.
River turned to face the lockers only to see the silhouette of a teenager in a hoodie fade into a little girl in a dress, with 2 holes, one through the stomach and one through the chest. She waved. ‘So this is what Lucky looks like.’
River waved back, “hey Lucky.” He heard the familiar distorted version of his voice.
The sound that came from the shadow looking at him sounded like layers of static playing at different frequencies and pitches all playing at once, instantly causing River to have to cover his ears. Lucky proceeded to silently laugh as she pointed to her left, where letters written in shadow appeared on the wall, “Lesson three. Shadows can’t speak on your side.”
‘Oh. So the distortion is a shadow thing, and it only happens when I get stressed, which is negative emotions, that...makes a lot of sense.’ River smiled and nodded.
Lucky clapped her hands and proceeded to leap from the wall and into his shadow. The letters “Ok! Ready to go! Onwards to adventure!” appeared right next to it.
River laughed quietly to himself, ‘I guess today really was great after all.’