Shadow Morphs

“Did you see that?” Fred whispered as he pointed in front of them at a half demolished building. Kasey froze in her tracks and peered straight ahead, not seeing any signs of movement. “Man, I could have sworn I saw some-” Fred stopped talking as a human figure emerged from the rubble, taking a short look around at their immediate surroundings before walking over the end of the tarmac road. Kasey recognised Taylor following, her blonde hair giving her away, and she watched on as the two walked away from the shelter of the buildings and into an open field. The dry seeds came up to their knees and even though they were walking, they were speeding away from Kasey and Fred.

“Can we really do this?” Kasey breathed uncertainly as she glanced across at Fred. His stone cold face was an unwelcomed sight and her eyes dropped to the ground.

“We’ve got no choice,” Fred replied blankly before walking down the broken street. Kasey followed, having to initially jog to catch up, and they morphed once they met the building that had partially crumbled. “Stay quiet and we can do this quickly.” Kasey nodded at Fred’s order and then he sent his elk galloping forwards. It followed a direct line to the other two Shadow Morphs and lowered its head for the kill shot. Brett felt the vibrations on the ground and stopped midsentence to turn around.

“Get down!” he shouted while shoving Taylor aside. After doing so he flung himself in the opposite direction and grabbed onto one of the elk’s antlers to prevent it from grazing his torso. Brett was lifted off his feet and the elk came to a stop, trying to shake Brett off. His shadow morphed into a wolf as quickly as it could and snapped its strong jaw at the elk to distract it from Brett. He sprinted away from the beasts and saw that Taylor was creating distance between them too. Brett relaxed slightly as he accepted that she was still safe.

“Thank you,” Taylor said to Brett as she began morphing too, having spotted Fred and Kasey running through the grassy plain towards them. Kasey’s lion appeared out of nowhere and roared, quickly closing the distance to the rhino and taking a swing at it with its sharp claws. It managed to scrape the thick hide of the rhino and Taylor winced at the mental pain she felt. She drew her rhino away from the elk and wolf, wanting to give Brett some space to fight, and looked across at her friend. Her long hair matched the colour of the dry grass and the tips swayed with the breeze, but her face was filled with fear, ruining the serene picture.

The two large beasts engaged in combat, with the lion majestically leaping around to avoid the swinging horn. Whenever the feline took a break, it would slowly stalk the rhino and lay low amongst the brown grass seeds. Despite the lion managing to strike the rhino and cause Taylor pain, Taylor didn’t give up. She held onto her connection with the rhino, knowing that her life depended on it, and ensured that the rhino was attempting to hit the lion every single time it came close enough. Eventually Kasey became fed up with the slow pace of the fight. She could see Taylor’s distraught face and the agony that crossed it whenever the lion had a successful attack. Unable to watch her friend in such pain, Kasey decided to put an end to the fight. The lion prepared itself for one last attack, instinctively aiming for the rhino’s neck to destroy the beast. As Taylor breathed heavily, she spotted the lion taking the time to make a more precise attack and she warned her shadow. It acknowledged her with a snort, and Taylor’s stomach flipped with nervousness. As worn down as she was, she figured that there was still a chance she could defend herself. Taylor rubbed the back of her neck and then shifted to massage her forehead, trying to rid her head of the throbbing.

“Just one hit…” Kasey whispered to herself. “That’s all it is… Get the rhino and you live…” Her furrowed brow showed that she wasn’t truly accepting her task, but Kasey found the strength to command her lion to attack. It bounded forwards, golden eyes unblinking as it stared down the rhino. Kasey clenched her fists and her breath hitched in her throat as the lion jumped. The rhino shifted at the last second, avoiding having claws and teeth land in its neck, but the lion succeeded in striking Taylor as it bounded past her. Taylor yelped in pain and lost her balance, clutching her torn abdomen as she fell into the grass. Despite the immense pain from the scratch, Taylor fought with everything she had to hang on to the thread that linked her to her shadow beast, and the rhino fed off her pain. As the lion turned for another attack, the rhino charged. Kasey’s hesitant command to kill was followed by a splitting pain through her brain. She cried out and fell to the ground, clutching her head as the strongest pain she had ever experienced rippled through her mind. Taylor’s rhino had dug its horn into the lion’s chest. Without thinking twice, Taylor stood and ran up to Kasey with her rhino, following the dispersing shadow that was creeping its way back to Kasey.

“Kasey!” Taylor breathed as she fell to her friend’s side. She was writhing amid the grass, gripping onto her head. When Taylor reached out, Kasey jerked away.

“Taylor, p-please…” she breathed in a shaky voice, her eyes tightly pressed shut. “J-just end it…” Kasey screamed out in pain and Taylor stood, still pressing against her wound. She backed away from her crying friend and looked across at the rhino that stood by her side with a saddened expression.

“Please?” Taylor whispered to her rhino as her eyes welled with tears. The rhino stepped forwards and Taylor turned her back, unable to watch the awful sight. As Kasey thrashed about, battling her internal pain, the rhino hooked its horn beneath her arm and used the leverage to gently lift Kasey up. With a quick flick upwards, the rhino released Kasey and then shifted forwards, thrusting its horn through her heart.

Fred had been intensely fighting with Brett, occasionally straining to swing his elk’s antlers fast enough to catch the hound. They were both tiring from the fast paced action, and neither felt as though they had they upper hand. Together they immediately stopped in their tracks when they heard a woman shouting in pain. Both them and their shadows whipped their heads around to the source and saw only Taylor across the field with her rhino. Fred felt his heart shatter as he determined the cry had come from Kasey. His mouth fell open and his eyes widened as it sunk in that Kasey was either injured or dead. Fred’s strong heartbeat echoed in his ears while time seemingly slowed down. As he rushed forward, both his elk and Brett’s wolf followed. Brett sensed the impending danger to Taylor and sent his wolf on a frenzied attack. Despite its sharp teeth contacting the elk’s limbs multiple times, Fred didn’t register the mental pain. All he could think about was Kasey. As he got closer he watched as the rhino lifted up Kasey’s squirming body. The shock prevented him from calling out and as soon as he saw the horn exit Kasey’s body from the other side, Fred felt emotionally destroyed. His guts ached with sorrow, and without thinking twice he sent his elk storming towards Taylor with revenge.

“Taylor! Move!” Brett shouted, forgetting about the shadow link as he saw the elk storming at his friend. He knew that his wolf wouldn’t be able to stop the angry creature in time. She turned to the sound of Brett’s voice and immediately saw the beast hurtling towards her. Cursing out of fright and shock, Taylor sprinted out of the elk’s path and her rhino replaced her, locking eyes with the other shadow creature. The elk’s hard skull collided with the rhino’s sturdy horn and the two animals grunted with determination. They broke apart and slammed into each other once more, the rhino doing its best to protect Taylor from Fred’s wrath. Fred had found Kasey in the grass and he dropped to his knees, weeping profusely as he saw the hole through her chest. A trail of blood had trickled out of her mouth and he wiped it away, allowing her to have flawless pale skin once more. Crying loudly, Fred bent over her still body and cradled her precious head in his arms, wishing he had stayed by her side for the fight. It then dawned on Fred that it was Taylor, an old friend to him and Kasey, who had killed her, and he slowly stood. His fists clenched, muscles flexed, and jaw locked as he saw Taylor bleeding and desperately trying to run away from the elk. It was repeatedly trying to get to her, but either the rhino or the wolf got in the way.

“Stay still, damn it!” Fred yelled. With his words, more frustration and grief flowed into the shadow and the elk bucked, kicking the wolf away. Brett fell to one knee and grabbed his head, the sting inside his brain not lessening with time. He gritted his teeth and forced his injured wolf to stand again, thinking that he couldn’t let Taylor suffer the same fate as the others. She was doing her best to get her rhino to shield her from the attacks, but because she was already weakened from her fight with Kasey it was becoming more difficult. Taylor noticed she was making hasty mistakes and the rhino was becoming more hurt. The elk was getting closer. Its antlers flicked the fatigued rhino out of its path and the elk charged. A few steps later and it was an inch from Taylor’s face, but it didn’t collide with her. Instead, the shadow disintegrated and flew past her. The smoky shadow could not harm her as it turned and floated back to Fred, who Taylor could no longer see. The field was empty of people and shadows. She allowed her rhino to disperse to save some energy and then she sluggishly jogged to the area where she had last seen Fred. Every time her feet collided with the ground, her cuts felt as though they tore further open, but she had to find her friend.

“Freddy?” she weakly called out before she spotted the condensed patch of grass. She moved close enough and then saw that her friend had perished by the bite of the shadow wolf. His glasses lay crushed against his face as blood flowed into the dirt. Taylor’s heart sank as she realised that it was all over. She had somehow won the fight. It suddenly hit her that Brett too had disappeared. “Brett? Where are you?”

“Over here!” he yelled and Taylor spotted another depression in the grass to her left. She hurried over to it and collapsed at her friend’s side, instantly noticing how exhausted he looked.

“Are you okay?” she asked, even though she knew what the answer was.

“My head is killing me,” Brett replied with a groan. It had taken a lot of willpower to make his wounded shadow wolf pounce on Fred, and the toll was being taken on his mind. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m mentally drained, but also…” she muttered before she shifted her hand away from her torso. Her pale pink shirt was now stained with her bright blood, and Brett’s jaw fell open with horror. He reached out and gently lifted the top upwards, relaxing slightly when he saw that the scratches weren’t very deep. “We did it, didn’t we?” Brett exhaled as disbelief flooded him.

“I think we did…” he agreed. Just as he was about to grin and congratulate Taylor, Brett heard a motor in the distance. He pushed himself up on his elbows as Taylor scanned the horizon, spotting a jeep speeding towards them.

“It’s not over?” she whispered miserably. Taylor knew that she would barely be able to put up a fight, and that Brett had also been pushed to his limits. Together, they supported each other and managed to get back on their feet. The jeep screeched to a halt at the edge of the grass and Sofia jumped out. She reached up to one of the steel beams jutting from the concrete of the half demolished building and ripped off the wireless camera that had been recording the last fight scene. The tech at the tent had already informed her that the resistance had won. Sofia climbed back into the jeep and drove across the grassland until she had reached the two Shadow Morphs, keeping her distance as they ogled her. She cut the rumbling engine, both Brett and Taylor standing tall yet anxiously as they closely watched the familiar woman. Sofia turned the camera to her face and took a calming breath.

“My name is Sofia Perez, and I’m the agent who was in charge of the Shadow Morph Containment Programme. I’m here to tell you that we need to change our ways,” she told the camera, speaking loudly so the two Shadow Morphs could hear her. “We’ve just witnessed a fight of epic proportions. This battle, and its broadcast, was ordered by the president who insisted that we scared the public with death to prove that the Shadow Morphs are a dangerous breed of people.

“We can’t insinuate that from this fight,” Sofia stated. “That would be unjust. Any normal human being would have reacted the same way as they did: by fighting for their lives. We’re all capable of killing when we receive a push.

“I’ll tell you what we can take away from this, though. That they are humans, just like us. You may have seen their abilities as a frightening source of power, but you also witnessed what happened afterwards. You saw the guilt, you saw the pain, the tears- you saw them all behave like normal human beings,” Sofia continued with emotion, her blank persona finally broken. “Because they are humans, and they deserve to be treated as such. The events at the facility need to stop. The containment of these people needs to stop. The programme needs to be shut down!

“This woman is Taylor,” Sofia said while turning the camera around and keeping it facing the two Shadow Morphs. “She is a sister, a daughter, and a friend. Her parents were afraid of her and called the hotline. Her sister will never have children because of an unnecessary precaution. And all of her friends have fallen on this battlefield.” Taylor continued to stare at the agent and didn’t acknowledge the tears dripping down her cheeks. Sofia had to try hard to not cry herself as she thought back to the touching moment she had had when she interrogated Taylor.

“She’s just like everyone else, and yet her life has been ruined. How is that fair?” Sofia questioned, her tone demanding an answer even though she couldn’t get one. She flicked the camera back around to herself. “We’re afraid of power, but the solution to that isn’t suppressing them, pushing them down until they fight back. No, what we need to do is accept them, give them their place in the world, and train them to control their unique gift.

“I had a sister. A raging Shadow Morph who was completely out of control killed her. I know what it’s like to be affected by their presence, I really do. But more people are suffering and dying by us trying to control the issue like this. We need to change our ways,” Sofia concluded. A tear fell from the corner of her eye and she tossed the camera onto the ground. It landed with a view of Taylor and Brett gazing at Sofia with disbelief. Sofia jumped out of the jeep and stomped on the camera, cutting the signal.