Chapter 3 Part 2

The pounding footsteps echoed from every corner of the hall, Jessica’s lungs were feeling raw and leathery by the end of the long hallway. It was much longer of a run than she had guessed the first time she ran. By the time she hit the halfway mark, her feet were wobbly and insecure as the sneakers hit the hard concrete, but the flight instinct in her kept her running, the short adrenaline burst was still circulating. With each foot step she heard a voice in her head say, “What have you done? What have you done?”

At the bottom of the stairs she looked over her shoulder and could still make out the outline of a tall monstrous man stepping from a door, which was swinging wildly on its rusty hinges. Shadow was loose, that was the only thought on her mind as she closed out each light, a silhouette of a man was getting dimmer, and dimmer, until finally it was just a ghost. Just a ghost, that’s all Jessica saw now, that’s all she truly wanted to remember.

Jessica left that much behind and her started up the stairs, her feet giving away with each step. She thought she wouldn’t make it up the stairs, and just as she thought it wasn’t so… the light burst in, it was the most beautiful sight Jessica had ever seen in her entire life.

            “And here we have the solitary confinement center, we aren’t allowed down there, but this was where some of the most dangerous men in the world were held,” a voice was saying and Mrs. Chantal’s eyes fell on Jessica, instead of scolding Jessica, she motioned for the child to join the rest of the group, and she stood close to her. Jessica breathed a sigh of relief, and looked to the door, half expecting to see Shadow jump out from behind the door and attack. No man appeared, Shadow looked like he was just going to run out in broad day light and not care who saw him. But he still remained downstairs, Jessica watched on with total anticipation. They started walking again, and before they vanished out of sight of the door, Jessica looked over her shoulder and could have almost sworn that the door had opened just the slightest jar and head was peering out from behind the door. She kept walking, her body stiff and still breathing heavily.

 

Shadow did not do what Jessica Parker thought he would, he only stood there long enough to let the realization that he was free flood over him. He looked back at the cage, the room that had been his for 40 years, 40 long years of illusions, sickness, and waiting. Waiting for something he was convinced wouldn’t come, but it came. It came! Shadow’s smile stretched into the biggest yellow smile he had ever made. With a whoop, Shadow took a running lunge and staggered. He hadn’t run for such a long time, he forgot. So the man stood and took slow steps, walking up and down the hallway, unable to wait for the moment when he could Shadowcrawl through the walls and out of here, home. Was home still standing though? That was a question that was haunting Shadow, he had often wondered if the Manor had been torn down, or moved somewhere else. The minutes felt more like hours as Jason stumbled up and down the hall, walking first, then jogging, then walking again. He didn’t want to wait anymore, so he just leaned into a shadow and he was gone. The shades were blinding even to him, and they gave way from dark walls to blue ocean and sky. Slowly, painfully slowly, Shadow stepped from the darkness and blinked rapidly. His eyes hurt, his mind was conjuring up a headache.  He stepped back into the darkness, the semi-darkness anyway, and the headache just the slightest bit went away. This was going to take a while, a long while, but the light was so welcoming, and the dark was so foreboding… A few more blinks and even the shade didn’t hurt as much anymore. A deep breath and back out Shadow went, the light wasn’t very much painful anymore. To Shadow it looked like midday, and he realized it was time to return home, if home still stood. Without a backward glance to the side of Alcatraz island, Shadow dove through another shadow, and he was gone, he was free.

 

            “Take a deep breath, Jessica no one noticed you, no one suspected what you did, you’re okay.” Jessica was saying to herself as the ferry carried them across the water. Jessica had been repeating that phrase to herself ever since the group was swept through cell blocks and more hall ways with various histories and finally the gift shop. Mrs. Chantal must have known that Jessica did something out of line, but she didn’t seem to have enough evidence to pull Jessica aside and accuse her of something farfetched. Jessica half hoped that she would, she wanted to confess her stumble to someone, but no one seemed to be noticing her anxious air; that was nothing new. Her mother was waiting for Jessica at Fisherman’s Wharf, and even then Mrs. Chantal didn’t stop her, or walk up to her mother. She just gave that same smile to Denise and Jessica before she turned back to watch off the rest of the students.

            “How was the fieldtrip?” Denise asked as mother and daughter crunched into the tiny sedan.

            “It, it was good, I had fun…” and Jessica launched into the fieldtrip, leaving out where she found Shadow in the database, and getting lost.

Denise listened with rapt interest and asked edgily, “You didn’t find anyone in the databases? No body at all?”

            “I found a bunch of people, but not people I could remember,” Jessica said and her mother seemed to deflate.

The rest of the ride home was filled with music from “The Pajama Game” and at home Denise went straight to work with her medical journals. Jessica sat in bed and continued to repeat the phrase over and over, until her eyes began to droop and she wrestled with her want to fall asleep. Sleep won the battle. She dreamt of an explosion, one that burnt blue, red, purple, and all colors violent and angry. Someone shouted, “Mommy!” and darkness was thrown into the mix, turmoil ensued, and Jessica’s head spin as people called over her and sirens screamed from a distance. Then there was nothing, still dark, but not as dark, she was standing in a building with boarded up windows, and a lighthouse mosaic built into the floor. She felt a sense of relation to this place, it felt familiar, but she knew she had never been to a house with a lighthouse mosaic in the floor. The room faded, and Jessica slipped off into deep sleep.

Author's Note

....Then again this was a short chapter anyway.
Saskia