The Shadow Speaks

My name is The Shadow. Or, actually, it isn’t, but that is what you may call me. I have gone by many names – The Dark One, Sa-ah, Singer, Raato, even Lord Nothing. That final one is what matters most, because I am neither kinu, human, nor animal, which is something very unusual. Let me tell you a story.

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The creation of the universe as we know it today is not something to be taken lightly. Before the worlds began, there was only Perception. Perception is an unexplainable element. It is a force. It’s just there, and always will be, in its many different forms. It is infinite. There was never a time before it, because time did not exist then. Things just were.

At some point, a part of Perception began to develop a physical form. Or rather, seven physical forms. As they were created, so was time, for physicality cannot exist with out the rules of time to govern it. These seven beings, once they were fully developed, were known to one another as the Ancients, for they knew there would be many beings to come after them.

So, as the Ancients realised this, they saw the need to create physical worlds to contain their living creations. But when they experimented with a small world and a small group of creatures, they saw how quickly these creatures died – they had a lifespan of only six or so decades. This was an exceptionally short time to the Ancients, as they were wholly immortal.  And when their physical selves died, their own small conciousnesses had no way of rejoining Perception.

The Ancients launched a new experiment, this time with two planes. Planes were like layers of existence, connected but apart and unaware of each other. On one plane was the physical world, and on the other, the way to rejoining Perception and eventually being recreated differently. When the Ancients placed creatures inside this experiment, it worked seamlessly – the creatures lived, died, passed on to the next plane, and then were finally reincarnated as the circle began again.

Delighted with their results the Ancients began to hone their creation. They allowed the small creatures to form their own intelligent opinions on how their world had been created. Thus religion began. The Ancients always felt a certain fondness and affinity with the creatures of the First World, and helped them from afar with their religious beliefs. Hence they were known as Old Ones on that world. The Ancients knew that their creations should not know the complete truth about their origins, but allowed the First World creatures to be more accurate than the others. Eventually, the creatures on the Sixth World developed so much intellectually that they knew of the Ancients.

For, yes, they created other worlds on other planes, which overlapped in a different direction. There is a diagram of this in another Ancient Text. The worlds overlapped horizontally in a line, and each overlapped vertically onto their after-death planes. And in their turn, the after-death planes overlapped in their own horizontal line.

Although difficult, it was possible for some of the creatures to cross horizontally into an adjacent world. However, it was only ever possible to travel to an immediately touching world – the creatures’ short life spans simply did not allow them the time to go further. In fact, although patient beings, it took the Ancients so long to visit their worlds that they created a passage between them all, where they overlapped much more strongly. This they called the Fold. Only the Ancients and their chosen Assistors could walk through it.

Once the Ancients had created twenty-eight worlds, they stopped. They knew it was enough. And they created three types of creature to inhabit their worlds. The first, which they had originally experimented with on the First World, they called Humans. They were unremarkable creatures, with not many skills to speak of. These Humans were to fill out the worlds, to populate them and make them ready to receive the other two types of creature. There were two types of Human – Mage and just regular human. The Mages were basically adaptations of the original Assistors.

The next creature they created was Animal. Animals came in many shapes, sizes, colours…they were different in so many ways, but retained one similar trait. Every Animal that was ever created was beautifully pure and innocent. They were a shining example of what the best of people (or Ancients, as it was) could create.

Finally, the Ancients created kinu. Kinu were a marvellous blend of the two other creature types. Largely humanoid, they nevertheless possessed many animal features (especially when they bred with humans), and were able to shift themselves into oversized versions of various designated Animals. The kinu race were ultimately designed to be the rulers over the other creatures, due to their unbiased, in-between mix of the two races.

But no power can last forever, and the (although colossal) power of the Ancients was no exception. As their powers dwindled, the Ancients finally managed to complete their creation. The twenty-eight worlds and fifty-six planes were complete, along with creatures to inhabit them.

Six of the Ancients returned to Perception and sealed the way behind them. However, they left one Ancient behind to watch over the planes. His name was Rei.

Yet even Ancients make mistakes. When they sealed the way to Perception behind them, they accidentally sealed Rei in place, right in the middle of the Fold. This place was eventually known to them as the Inner Room.

When Rei realised what they had accidentally done, he observed what he could do before the seal fully took place. As he did so, he came across a world, the twelfth they had created. This was the only world without kinu, created as an aeons-long, still uncompleted experiment. It was, to sum up in one world, evil. There was so much wrong with it that Rei could hardly bear to be there for too long.

But what he did try to do was to bring it back from the evil it had gone towards. Unfortunately, he was not successful at all – he only managed to make one of the world’s landmasses better, and it did not last long. However, doing so drained him of almost all his remaining power. Rei was immediately snapped back to the Inner Room as the accidental seal took full effect.

Rei knew that the other worlds needed him to keep their balance, and he could not help them from his current, constrained position. With the last vestiges of his failing energies, he adapted the consciousnesses (also known as souls on most of the worlds) of thirty kinu, fifteen male and fifteen female. He caused these souls to fit together seamlessly. When these thirty met, they would be able to work together effortlessly.

They would be able to work together to break the seal and bring him back from the Inner Room. For this reason he called them his Bringers. And so Lord Rei, the final Ancient, waited for the day when he would finally be saved.

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That was taken from the Ancient Chronicles, the recounting of our world’s history. As you can see, it has no mention of the Shadow-people. Well, my Shadow-people. It’s hard to get used to the fact that they are mine now. Minions, if you like. And there is a serious mistake in that text. There were not seven Ancients, there were eight. In any case, I am merely illustrating the fact that I am uncategorisable. Or, perhaps, I am categorisable. Look at this extract from the older Shadow Texts.

Three thousand years before the Ancients left for Perception again, sealing Rei, they were confronted by one who called himself The Shadow. After a thousand years locked in battle, the Ancients finally overcame the Shadow and sealed him in what is now called the Inner Room. He is barely six metres away from Rei, and it is said that they fight even in their sealed state, using only their minds. The Shadow was the very personification of evil, and knew nothing but hate and resentment, and was therefore the polar opposite of Lord Rei, the Final Ancient. This being was neither kinu, animal, nor human.

He was an Ancient, once.