Writing Prompt: Shadows and Light

At dawn, Aliquippa feels off. People walk to their cars with no shadows. The light feels flat, bright, unanchored. I still cast one, but it's strange. It stretches towards certain things, seemingly randomly, curls away from me as if it's trying to communicate. But I don't understand. The town is mostly disconnected usually, that's not necessarily different. I live in a blue-collar neighborhood where people seem depressed and the houses seem sad, even as they drive nice cars. We live next to a busy road that makes riding bikes or walking or playing outside seem not worth it. But just a little down the road is even worse. It's crippling poverty and destitution there. It's a hallowed out husk of a city. No wonder nothing casts a shadow anymore. It's been disappearing for decades. It's just unusual to see things happening directly like this.

It's early. It's always early when I wake up. I don't really sleep in anymore, now that I'm over 40. The plants and the trees are still. There's no wind. The roofer across the street leaves at 6. I hear the truck fire up as the big, black duly rolls out on our tiny cul-de-sac toward the interstate. Neither the truck, nor the ladder it carries make any shadows as they pass by. He doesn't notice me as I wave.

The house is humble. I walk around it, looking for the usual ebb and flow of light around my amateur garden. The soil is poor and I didn't sow the seeds correctly so none of the vegetables have enough room to grow. Usually, there is a beautiful tree full of pink flowers casting dappled shade all over the south west side of the yard. Today, it's an unpleasant flat blue-white, as if someone has an LED trained on it from afar. The color is deeply unpleasant, more than that, disturbing. I feel as though I'm on a backlit stage or some other artificial construction. My shadow is in front of me. It's pointing toward the back, toward the forest that is creeping up slowly onto our porch. I've let it, since I think human civilization may be a poor idea. I follow my suggestion and head towards the giant oak tree that stands at the border between our yard and the forest.

The backyard is completely open and completely dark. It's nighttime still there and I'm afraid of the bugs and snakes. Last year, a hive of yellow jackets went after me causing eight weeks of intense misery that I haven't quite mentally recovered from. I stop, but my shadow insists. It mimes pulling me towards the oak tree and I seem to imagine I can feel it. Of course, I can't. That's ridiculous. But my skin prickles anyway. The hill toward the tree is extremely steep and wet with dew. I pick my way carefully down, praying there are no sleeping snakes waiting to bite me. I'm in cheap leather sandals and spare a moment to wish for my boots. My shadow doesn't care. It seems to be getting more excited as we get closer to the tree, even as I get more uncomfortable. There are spiders everywhere. I shudder as I stumble through its web and squeal a little as it scrambles away from me. I recognize that I am much bigger and more terrifying to them then they are to me, but I'm a puss and don't care. It's dark, I can't see and I stop, refusing to go forward. It's too dark to see my shadow at all now, though I can feel it frantically pulling at me. It wants me under the tree desperately. I regret my decision and cast my eyes up towards the house longingly, only to see…nothing. There's white light and nothingness up there now. A big hand grabs my shoulder from behind and yanks me under the boughs of the tree even as the white light intensifies into flame--something more than flame, maybe plasma? But I can't see anymore, it's too bright and painful. For a moment, I'm blind and confused and yanked into somewhere refreshingly cool and dark that smells like soil and rain.

"Do you want to vaporize with the humans, you stupid chit? You can still die in this Cycle, permanently" The voice comes from behind me and sounds too resonant to be a human. It sounds like a mountain had come to life to yell at me. I blink to clear my eyes and turn to look behind me. I must be in some kind of cave. The walls are stone, but not just stone. They're tinged with color and moss in a way that looks very old. Little rivulets of water run down the sides and pool in pretty pale blue depressions all around the edges, lit from something underneath that looks like phosphorescent mushrooms. The mountain voice seems to be coming from a pile of rocks that move and come together in a vaguely humanoid way. I blink, surprised and dissociated from the cognitive load of processing talking rocks. "I'm sorry?" I eventually get out.

"You should be," huffs the mountain. "And for making us come all this way to find you."

"Us?" I repeat. "Come all this way to find me?"

"Yes," says Mountain.

"Who's 'us'?" I ask, thinking more of an organization or citizens group.

"Us," says a new voice. This one comes out of the water itself, sort of spinning from the pools like a vortex coalescing into a vaguely serpent form with flowy bits and appendages that could be fins or scarves. Its body seemed almost clothed in water formations. Very attractive and very confusing.  Similarly, what I had thought to be my shadow peeled away from me, puddling into the translucent form of a cat outlined in the pale blue of the water creature. It nods at me as the other creature grew to something larger than a small child, pulling water out of the puddles to shape itself. "We are here to take you home."

"Home is vaporized, " I say cleverly, waving at the door to the cave obviously shut now. "I don't understand."

The Blue Thing gives Mountain a look and Mountain pins my arms and pushes me to the floor of the cave. Blue Thing peers into my eyes and sighs. "So stubborn. So clueless. Take a deep breath, this is going to be unpleasant." I frown at it, but take the deep breath anyway. As I do, Shadow leaps in front of me, dissipating into air and I can feel it rushing into my lungs until they are bursting. I try to struggle, to get it out, but my body refuses to cooperate breathing in deeper and deeper. I can't scream as violent, burning pain starting in my chest and radiating throughout my body rips through me.

"Oh for heaven's sake, LET GO!" Blue Thing shouts at me. "JUST LET IT GO!" But I don't know what it's talking about. I clamp my eyes shut as the pain becomes even more intense. I'm drowning. Drowning, flying, dying, bursting at the seams all at once. Dimly, I register water or something like it filling up where the air was and a violent, dissociative 'pop'. Like a deflating balloon, my consciousness rushes up and out of my body and my senses come back online.

Mountain is holding a strange set of clothing. It's ragged and burnt and smells like ammonia. I take an experimental breath, only realizing that I don't have to, exactly. I don't have to breathe. Air rushes around me and through me like I'm porous. I look at my hands, realizing that I don't have hands exactly. Wings? Do I have wings? I ask no one in particular.

"Yes," says Mountain. It heaves a big sigh. "Good, finally."

Blue Thing hovers in front of me with worried eyes. Pretty eyes, though, I think. They are blue-green and sort of swirl with emotions. Iridescent. Quite pretty. "Thank you," it says and the eyes shift from chaotic colors to a steady pale purple. "You were not yourself and we were very worried."

I nod. I feel fantastic, I think at them. Much better than before.

Of course you do, Shadow's thoughts drift into my mind effortlessly. You were trapped as a human for too many lifetimes. You forgot.

Forgot? Forgot what?

Blue Thing morphs into a mirror to show me myself. It lengthens and broadens, its face and body disappear to be replaced with a simple oval reflection. Mountain holds it up to me. I am the size of a human, but I am burning. Literally composed of flames. My legs, my feet, my torso is bare, translucent, and made up of fire. Great licks of flame curl out from my arms and back like wings, extending all the way down to my hands. My hands no longer have 5 fingers, but rather are talons, same for my feet. I do not touch the floor. Huh.

Blue Thing reassembles itself into the veiled serpent form. Dragon, I realize belatedly. You are a dragon. Blue Dragon.

"Yes," it nods, relieved. "And you are a Phoenix."

Ulikummi, Seiryu, Shu I say as if a door in my mind had been opened, naming Mountain, Blue Thing, and Shadow with relief. My friends, Where am I? What have I been doing? I hug Mountain-Ulikummi.

"The humans smashed their world again," said Ulikummi in hi deep rumble. "You didn't come back from your last rebirth, or the one before that. You stayed again and again, but still their world ended in Fire."

"Nuclear destruction this time," said Seiryu, undulating in mid-air without any breeze. "Since the last world ended in flood, we decided that it was your turn."

The last world? Oh yes, I remember. That would make this next Cycle the Age of Aquarius? Slowly, the long stretch of time began to condense in my mind. The long years of immortality, the cycles of death and rebirth we each take and the pattern of failures and new beginnings. So they decided on nuclear annhilation this time? Poor stupid things. I think they will learn each time and they do not.

This Cycle was better, said Shu gently into our minds. They survived Millenia and they didn't kill each other quite as quickly this round. I believe they are improving?

"You are an optimist," said Ulikummi. "We have all failed, this time and all the other Cycles. Perhaps we should give up like the others and return to the home Plane."

"At least for a while," said Seiryu. "I am tired. This last Cycle was quite long. Productive, but they continue to be selfish, stupid, and stubborn and there is no point in trying to teach them while they rebuild civilization again from this latest end."

But if we stayed, perhaps we could save them some time with the usual law, medicine, and science to get them started quickly again? It worked for the Egyptian Cycle, said Shu. Our presence saved them almost 12,000 years of development.

"And look where it got us," rumbled Ulikummi. "Another 2000 years of violence, stupidity, and greed. Even the Egyptians fell and could not restart the light of civilization after we departed. Once the obsession with the One God started and the death cults took over, there was no place for our ways."

I look over apologetically at Shu. I am sorry, old friend. I agree with Ulikummi and Seiryu. I am tired and disgusted with this species. Let them try to recover what they can after this latest stupidity. We will check back in a few thousand years to see what they might have to offer or if we can assist. I have the feeling that they will just kill each other again and there will be no point.

Why do we let them live, then? Shu asked reasonably. Just because we made them accidentally, they are obviously too intelligent to keep with us on the Home plane, too silly to keep themselves alive on Earth, and too stupid to ask for help or figure out there is a different path. What do we do with them?

"That certainly isn't just for us to figure out," said Seiryu. "There are many of the other spirits who may want to stay or help. I just vote that we let another group take a turn and have a rest. We have been here for so long and there is so little progress. Would you agree to that, Shu? A temporary respite, not giving up entirely yet?"

Shu made a little whisper of sound that could have been a nod and condensed himself back into his cat form, leaping up into my arms. I would like to go home for a while.

It sounds like we are agreed then, I said. There was a long pause with everyone looking expectantly at me. I looked back at them, clueless. Seiryu slapped a little wave at me in frustration. "Well? Open the gate, Atu! What are you waiting for! You know Phoenix has to open the Gate! None of us touch that. Go on, then."

Open the Gate? How do I do that again?  I would have scratched my head, if Shu wasn't taking up my arms. Seiryu made an exasperated noise and shoved me toward the back of the cave. "Just stand on the sigils, you stupid bird." I did as she told me. Immediately, flames consumed me and Shu. I could feel him feeding me power from somewhere as the Gate demanded energy. I fed it until my flames were almost gone and I was flickering and transparent. There was a moment of quiet and then the stone of the cave flared to life. All the colors of all the worlds reflected in the iridescent mirror that shimmered into being, casting unbearable white light everywhere as it pulled me through itself. I could feel my friends near me as we hurtled through space and time. Going home.