My Own Shadow

It has been at least four years since it happened. Since the day I vowed never to leave my home. It all started with an emulator, a PS3 and a game called "Shadow of the Colossus"

It was a day like any other, it was half-term so I had a week off school. I spent most of my time on Skype talking to my friends. My best friend, Tanner had just gotten a PS2 emulator to work on his computer which gave me an Idea. He told me he refused to pirate any game whatsoever, Apart from EA games and ones he knew he would never have. Shadow of the Colossus fell into the latter category. After some bugs and framrate glitches Tanner got the game to work.

At this point I asked him "Hey since you've got it working, wanna do a race?" We often had races, games like FTL, Left 4 Dead and many others we often raced each other on.

"I dunno, a game like this shouldn't be rushed, besides you've beat the game 5 times already. You have a massive advantage." He replied.

"Tell ya what. I'll do it on hard mode, even things out. I win you stop nagging me about watching stuff. You win, we do a marathon of whatever show you want." We liked to watch shows together, nitpicking and mocking them as we did. I say "we" in reality we'd get halfway through a series then I'd get bored and lose interest.

Tanner knew this better than anyone. "Alright, You're on" He instantly replied.

The game was normal when we played through it although some things felt off. Many Colossi that were initially peaceful attacked right off the bat. Even Phalanx, the Colossi known for never attacking constantly tried to dive bomb Wander and Agro. Not to mention some Colossi were just uncooperative. Gaius would never do the slam attack, instead he always stabbed the floor. Phaedra seemed to always know where Wander was, even when he was in the catacombs. Hydrus was almost always underwater. Kuromori never climbed higher than the second level. Basaran would never flip. In hindsight that was probably more due to the game itself never worked right at that fight. Dirge emerged infront of Wander and Agro causing many instant deaths. Pelagia flat out refused to take orders from Wander when he struck the "teeth" atop it's head. Cenobia stopped itself right before colliding with the objects it needed to. Argus was smarter than ever he wouldn't stomp Wander when he was on the platforms. He wouldn't break bridges and would simply stare at Wander when he was up there. His eyes were not blue nor were they orange. Just blank stone. I had contributed all of this to simply being Hard mode. Never the less I was winning the race. That was until...Malus.

Malus was something else. In the original game he would occasionally speak to the player. "Speak" is a bit of a long shot. He would roar and bellow which sounded remotely human-like. This time however there were some words I could decipher. "Brethren" "Without thought" "Kill without reason" These weren't the full sentences he spoke but it's all I could translate. Malus, normally is quite curious, when Wander reaches his upper half all his Malice seems to disappear. This time, Malus tried to crush wander with his hands, he tried to burn wander with his energy "rings" but I finally did it. The black tendrils didn't attack Wander though. Instead he simply fell backwards off of Malus' corpse and off the mountain.

Wander woke up back in the temple. The ending didn't play. Dormin began to speak once more.

"You have slain sixteen"

"The ritual is over"

"But your journey is not"

"Journey beyond"

"There you will find Dedecus"

This was completely wrong to say the least. The Colossi didn't have names, not official ones at least not to mention there were Sixteen colossi. I had to be done then I remembered. Hard mode. I began my trip. Upon reaching the sight where the sword had pointed me. At the location was a pile of rocks with the occasional patch of fur. This was normal, most Colossi looked like this until they woke up but this one...didn't wake up.

"For hard mode this isn't too hard. Looks like I'm getting some peace and quiet" I bragged over the skype call. No response. Tanner's internet must of went down again, nothing unusual internet wasn't that good where he lived.

I killed the Colossus quickly with only two full power stabs. The camera showed the Colossus twitch slightly before the tendrils attacked Wander. The tendrils didn't attack him though, they went past Wander and into the camera. It seemed that my room got darker when this happened. I shrugged and simply thought I needed some sleep the time was 3:00am after all. Turning the game off and climbing into bed I had a peaceful nights sleep. No nightmares at all, not even a dream.

I woke up around 9:00am-ish. I looked to my clock and sighed it was gonna be one of those days where I wont make it to dinner awake. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I must a brushed too hard because I felt something hurt. Moving the brush away black gunk began to spew forth from my gums. I dropped my brush in fear. I called out for help but both of my parents were at work. The "blood" flow eventually stopped and I looked in the mirror. My eyes...they weren't brown they were blue. At that moment a mosquito flew by I immediately tried to swat it out of the air. When I did this my eyes turned orange. The damn thing still managed to bite me though. On my left hand. It hurt, like being stabbed with a knife. Mosquitos shouldn't hurt this much! I brought my hand up onto the sink and noticed it was much more hairy then the night before. The biggest difference though was glaring at me. A shining blue sigil.