Chapter 1- Sven

a chapter of "The Shadow" narrated by Sven Welsley.

I was once told of a shadow. An invisible stream that flows in the district. My brother knew it well, for it was his savior. But nobody knows who it is. Legends say its ghost of Robin Hood, always haunting the rich and helping the poor. In this case, we are the poor.

 

Our district held firm and strong until that bombing some fifteen years ago. We fell when a foreign bomber pelted us with bombs. And it only took one to knock us out. The bomb struck the district’s center with a thud, thus creating a radiation strong enough to lay our district in ruins. Towers and skyscrapers crumpled to the ground. Some taking the smaller structures down on impact as well. Electric wires from those poles crashed into shatters. Trees slicing some houses in two. Flames from the bomb burning us to cinders. Millions died that day. Including the entire army base. Only hundreds of us were survivors. Amongst those, most of us were buried beneath a heap of ruins. Weeks went by as those who managed to get out came and searched for our bodies. And to what my brother saw, there were about a third of them found alive. One of them, however, was just merely a newborn. A newborn whose life is to be changed forever.

 

                Now, we’re still in the process of repair. Repair from the damage fifteen years ago. Here I am at the dinner table eating with my family now consisting of me, mom, and Adrian, my older brother. Rain poured through the humdrum clouds and our roof of straw. Adrian took a bucket and mounted it under the leak. Watching and eating I thought of his hardships. Being the man in charge since our father died in the bombing. He was just turning three and I wasn’t even born. Growing up and taking care of our sickly, heartbroken mother. Not to mention his own jobs as well. Attending the preschools, now located in tents in the woods, and supplying food for mother, himself, and the baby mother carried- me. They survived off a charity for until my brother was ten and old enough to find food for us. School educated him with ways of survival. He learned the makings of atlatls, spears, and pitfalls. School by day, hunting by noon, and housework by night, I thought of the hardships in my brother’s life.

 

                Worried, we were by evening, when he left in midday and still hasn’t come back. Thunder clashed and lightning roared as we were bombarded with another shower. Mother and I sat by the fireplace awaiting his return. Hours passed and he was still out there. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and I myself felt in panic. Clearly, I’m no Adrian. I’m not up to it physically. He’s tried to teach me but I still can’t hunt. If he’s dead, then we’re all dead. The sudden banging on the door struck me awake from the nightmare. Mother sniffled and hoped for Adrian’s return. I went over and got the door.

 

                Sure enough, there he was. Only not the way one’d expect. He lay, soaked to the bone, collapsed on the front steps. Mother ran over to see. We dragged him into the room. The light allowed me to see the scars on his back, the cuts in his arm, four long, even scratches across the torso, and the wooden half of his spear still gripped in his hands. Mother scavenged the house for herbs and bandages while I kept an eye on my deeply wounded brother. Again, my thoughts turned to how brave he was. How hard his life really must be. Yet, he keeps it all to himself.

 

                Mother came back with the medicine. We dragged him and his heavy, tight, but ripped up abs across the floor, by the fireplace. A rag was used to dry him off. We began filling the wound with herbs and sealed them up with the bandages. The living room flooded with manly screams during the procedure. Mother was drowned by tears again, to see her oldest son wounded this badly. I wept as well at the sight of a torn apart Adrian. A hand reached my back and patted me as I cried. Rough as it was, it had a gentle touch. I realized how lucky it was, then, for me to have Adrian as a brother.

 

                Weeks passed to months before my brother could hunt again. While he was healing, we lived on the leftovers that we saved after his injury. He hasn’t said much since then, and I hope he’s alright. Sometimes, he has a weird expression worn on his face. One as if he was thinking. But of what? One warm Saturday morning, when mother was out in the yard, I asked him what was wrong.  First time I received no reply, but I soon bugged it out of him. He told me then, of a shadow, the one who’d brought him home the day he came home half dead. But I heard him sigh of how it must have been a dream for he was sure he had fainted.

 

                I never told mother Adrian’s story. He burst in through our door one evening with the most kill I’ve ever seen. Also, it seemed like it was probably cooked since he brought it home in a sack. A smile was engraved upon his face. He set the feast down on the kitchen table to meet a shock in mother’s eyes. Then he ran for me, pulled me into our room, and whispered something to me. He said he saw the shadow.

 

Author's Note

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