Shade of Human

One - SoH

One:

Six Months Later

Terror seemed to claw at my waking mind even as I fitfully rest at night. Freezing, yet I wake up swimming in my sweat. The darkness claws at me, it stalks me as if unable to sever some imperceptible bond. Haunted in my skin, the pain never failed. Hopelessness was my unending fall. Cursed to watch Ariel slip away over two days in the hospital as the darkness skittered inside her, reducing her to a human husk inside.

Since then, I have slept little, and I can barely eat. Most just believe it is my grief, which is true to an extent, but it is the insanity that comes with witnessing just how profoundly helpless humans are to things they don't even seem to notice existing beside them.

The invisible world around them, the shadowy darkness clawing out at night. They see only deep shadows. Where I see movement and skittering hunger as formless as the air itself.

That should have been crazy enough to have me in a rubber room with a new type of jacket accessory. So, imagine my surprise when I started seeing ghosts in the cemetery! It all was unraveling for me after that night in the haunted house. Ariel's parents even torched the place like two arsonists. I confiscated the evidence and took the fall for them. Since I was underage, I knew I owed it to them. They were in too much shock to argue with any veracity.

I only did three months in juvie. I did not even miss the end of the school year. Part of me would have loved to have missed the looks for a little longer, even if it came with the horrid orange and white ensemble. They ended up visiting me more than my shellshocked parents. At least me getting arrested thrust them into therapy.

Our world was in flames. Not just those made of a wild night of grief and some custom-made petrol bombs. I went from sheik to freak overnight. A girl's popularity tanks if she is caught vandalizing and burning down property. There is always a mean girl waiting in the wings for a queen to fall.

Safe to say that the past half year has been filled with bizarre discoveries and traumatic turns. The freak show that was my recent life was also interfering in my ability to process and greave the loss of Ariel.

"Hey, you in there?!"

The stern masculine tone of my best—and only—friend broke through the dam that had blocked my ears metaphorically. Clarke would not leave me alone. Even though it was cramping his social status, he refused to stop allowing us to be spotted together. He was in by way of the jock if he merely cut his ties to the lamer who watched her girlfriend die. We both abhorred the rules of the "civilized" world, but each of us was still subject to them.

I looked at him, his puffy hair had grown upwards a bit since last, I had paid him two second's attention. He had the dark shadow of unruly coarse male facial hair growing wildly across his cheeks. Gone was the babyface Clarke, I had known my entire life, and replaced was the young man who looked on me with veiled concern.

"Hey, how many points did you score this week?"

I asked absently. Clarke frowned at me in confusion.

"You don't like basketball. You're just trying to distract me."

I shrugged and huffed mildly.

"Color me curious."

Clarke rolled his eyes and then said, "Twenty-nine."

I nodded in approval.

"Good job sounds like you will make the finals this year."

I said, my tone sounding barely attentive enough to reality to keep him from inspecting deeper. I did not like being the center of attention now. I did not need Clarke to investigate the strangeness that was my life. He had been too ready to give everything up to follow me into social exile. Some might just say I have a martyr complex, but I did not wish this insanity upon my best friend.

"Your fam told me you were back yesterday evening, but to wait until tonight to come to see you."

Clarke confessed. I looked up at him and into his eyes. He had purple circles beneath his eyes like he had not been sleeping. His breathing was noticeably shallower and more frequent. If I had not known he was in perfect health, I might have believed he had either a sleeping disorder or he was smoking a few packs of filthy cigarettes a day.

"Sounds like some snitches need stitches."

I mumbled to myself sarcastically. Clarke narrowed his eyes at me.

"Yeah, so I guess even you come out sounding rougher, even if it was only three months."

He observed. I gave him a glare that he ignored. Whatever was on his mind was far more menacing than my death stare.

"You know how it is, adapt or die."

I stated casually as if we were discussing the weather.

"Look, I didn't come to ask you how juvie was. I also did not come to press you for the deets on why you narced on yourself and copped to some s**t you did not do. I had three entire months to puzzle that all out for myself. I came here for an explanation of what I saw. I know you saw it. It seems only Jerry was left out on that horror show."

I stilled completely. I looked at Clarke as if trying to untangle the truth. His earnest expression and his shadowy appearance bespoke a guy who was struggling to sleep. I knew that drill all too well.

"Clarke, I wish I could give you answers, but if you were hoping for some great revelation, then I am sorry to disappoint."

I said, Clarke looked downcast like I had crushed him on the rocks of rejection. He seemed to hope for me to explain things to him. If only that were the case!

"I'm just here to see what's up. I missed ya, girl. These muffies on campus are not even close to your level of cool!"

I smirked at his use of the term "muffies" since we were both mega-fans of Lost Girl. And McKenzie is like tre-fab! For a single moment, I smiled, forgetting the cruelty that was the second half of this fond recollection. Ariel had been the one who binged absurd amounts of the show with us. Clarke realized his mistake belatedly. He gave me an apologetic look.

"Come inside, and have a seat, unless you were not planning to stay?"

I invited him as warmly as I could muster. I remembered the life I led as a social riser and a budding superstar, but it's like that part of me was disconnected. Everything seemed to come out a lot blunter and my interest in things I used to love had dried up. Shopping used to be amazing and arguably nearly as good as s*x. Now it involved being subject to the rest of the teens judging and murmuring because they think my time in juvie somehow broke me or made me less than them. Damaged goods at the ripe ole age of sixteen.

Clarke brushed past me and walked into the house. He looked around and studied the place as if it had been decades since his last visit.

"So, heard you're startin' back to school tomorrow."

Clarke said. I hummed in confirmation.

"Out of the clink and back into the fryer."

I muttered in a sarcastic tone. Clarke snorted in amusement, and he looked me over like he was studying me.

"Dude, what?"

I asked, sounding a little bitchy, even to my own ears.

"You're just not the same at all."

Clarke observed. I resisted the urge to bristle at that comment. He had always been real with me. I could hardly fault him for a lifelong habit.

"A girl learns, and she adapts."

I said cryptically.

"Or she gets shivved in the shower."

Clarke put in. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"Believe it or not, there were no signs of shivs where I was. Plenty of fistfights, no hardcore stuff like that though."

Clarke tipped his head in comprehension.

"So, how long are you going to make me wait before you tell me what that black thing was? I heard it and saw it too! I know you were watching it. I saw it go into Ariel."

I huffed in aggravation.

"You really think it's wise for me to run around confessing to seeing rando things like that?! I've just got out of one jail. I am not in any hurry to get tossed in another!"

I said, Clarke leaned in conspiratorially.

"That was not a denial! Hannah, you saw it too! You know I am not crazy!"

I bit my lip and looked away. I contemplated a myriad of options through my head. My stormy mind was like a raging south-Asian sea in monsoon season.

"I'm just trying not to go crazy right now. It's not that I am not searching for answers. I just don't know where the hell to start! It's not like I can just Google 'IRL supernatural abilities' and expect to sift through all the fiction!"

I grumbled in an animated tone. Clarke nodded his comprehension.

"Have you seen anything like it since?"

I wiggled my hand side-to-side.

"The one that got Ariel was massive and I could feel the cold energy of it. I have seen some shadows that were smaller, and they ran from me."

Clarke absorbed my story in silence for a long moment.

"So, they were in jail too?"

I nodded my confirmation and added, "Yep, and I see real freaky ghosts in the graveyard too. You want some tea, coffee?"

I rose from my seat and prowled into the kitchen. I could practically hear Clarke's mouth hit the floor and his tongue roll out in shock. He seemed in denial for a moment. He stood and followed me into the kitchen.

"What the hell do you mean, you see ghosts?!"

He asked with his voice modulating higher with every syllable.

"You know, Sixth Sense, that whole shtick."

I said breezily. I plucked the tea leaves from the second upper cabinet on the shelves. My male friend was melting down mentally, so I used the break in our convo to fill the teapot and pour the water into the coffee/ tea machine. Then I measured out two scopes of green tea leaves.

My adoptive mom was from Dublin, so I have been making tea my entire life. She seldom drinks coffee. I suppose tea became our shared thing together. Besides, a good scone or a proper biscuit is nice occasionally. Some bitchy girls in my school claim I do this to appear fancy. I just like tea and biscuits.

"You want a cup? You know I make the best tea this side of Boston."

Clarke nodded dumbly and huffed at me.

"Dude, are you going to talk about what we will do moving forward, or are you just going to have a flipping tea party all semester?!"

He asked, his voice becoming grumpier as he spoke. I kept his gaze, not obliged to look away or show submission in any manner.

"If anything, relevant happens across my path, I will look into it. However, I don't exactly know where to begin. You realize people search for truth and for the miraculous all their lives, finding nothing. "

Clarke seemed to think over everything I said as we drank our tea in silence. I was hell-bent on finding that deep shadowy thing and I would learn how to kill it! I just didn't want Clarke too close to it when I did.