Who Claims the Night

Who Claims the Night

v1.5

When I walk among the creatures of the night, the voices in my head tell me secrets, desires, as well as random thoughts about their existence. They have no clue that the mind speaks louder than any shout or scream that they can produce vocally.

The mind is a complicated entity; the basics you may understand, but that is not all there is when it comes to the one thing that everyone takes for granted. It transmits as well as receives information constantly, and if you were trained as I have been, you would be able to know the minds around you as I do.

I cautiously opened my mind to those creatures of the night, and a deluge of voices greeted me. I sifted through the sea of individual thoughts until I found the one that met the requirements to begin implementing my plan. I was just about to move closer to the man I had chosen when I was distracted by a woman only a block away from me.

Her name is Allis and she is afraid. She does not know the man who has been stalking her for the last four blocks, and her fear has gotten her lost among the towering buildings of the city. I reached out with my mind and touched Allis's stalker’s thoughts. His name was Frank, and what he intended to do with tonight’s victim made the choice a simple one. So, I made my way to a nearby alley that I nudged Allis to enter.

The would-be victim and the criminal could not see me because I did not wish them to. I watched as Allis trembled in fear when she noticed that the alley was a dead-end, and tears filled her eyes as she turned to face her attacker. To my surprise she did not scream or run, she just looked at Frank hoping beyond hope that she would survive what was about to happen.

The now confident Frank approached Allis smiling and stroking himself as the distance between the two slowly disappeared. He spoke softly repeating the words, “Do you want this? I want this,” as he got closer.

I waited until Frank was about ten feet from Allis, then I laughed. It was not just any laugh; it was a deep haunting laugh. It was a laugh pulled straight from a nightmare shared by anyone who has experienced true helplessness. It was a mocking malevolent laugh that proclaimed itself the master of those it chose to terrorize.

The laughter stopped Frank dead in his tracks. The pervert even stopped touching himself as his trembling voice managed to say, “Who, who’s there?”

I spoke to Frank in a whisper forged from his hellish dreams, "I follow and lead, but only as you pass. If you dress in the darkest black, I am darker still. The brightest of lights only make me stronger." That is when I let Frank see a pair of red burning eyes. He screamed in terror as he blindly ran out of the alley.

Allis swiftly spun around to see what scared off her attacker because she had heard the same words, but the tone was that of a calm yet firm man instead of the rasping demonic voice that terrified Frank. I let her see a man in a black trench coat with a wide-brim hat as I did my best to soothe her fears.

Taking a step back, Allis gasped in surprise. I said nothing as I waited until the majority of her emotions were under an iota of control, then I gestured to the opening of the alley and said, “The cab will take you where you need to go. Tell the driver that You Know Who is paying the fair, and he will take you anywhere you need to go free of charge.”

Allis found her voice after a few dozen rapid heartbeats, “How did you know?” Her voice held the slightest hint of fear, and I could feel her curiosity and bewilderment almost as clearly as I could feel my own emotions. I soothed her anxiety and incomprehension. I said nothing as I took a step back, and faded into the darkness.

After standing there watching the place where I had vanished from for a few seconds longer, Allis turned and made her way to the waiting taxi that I had summoned. The taxi driver briefly touched a finger just beneath his left eye. The simple gesture let me know that he would see the woman safely to her destination. I nodded to the man tapping the brim of my hat as I did so, and then I vanished from his view.

I knew this taxi driver well, and I knew without reading his mind that Henery could be trusted to take Allis to someplace safe. I had made arrangements with quite a few taxi drivers. All of them were financially compensated for their additional fairs, but most importantly they were genuinely honest and trustworthy people.

With Allis safely on her way, my thoughts turned to Frank. I reached for his deviant mind and found him a block and a half away trying to avoid the attention of a police officer walking his way. I raised all of my mental defenses and brought forth the images of all of Frank’s victims for him to see.

I made the shades surround Frank as they taunted and reached for him. The effectiveness of the assault on Frank’s mind caused him to shout at the ghostly images that only he could see. This caught the attention of the police officer who swiftly made his way toward Frank.

The officer tried to get Frank’s attention but at that moment one of the shades a young woman with blood running from where her eyes used to be lunged for Frank. Her bloody fingers resembled crimson claws ready to scratch and gouge.

Frank swung a fear-fueled fist to knock away his attacker, but instead of striking the furious woman Frank’s fist collided with the mouth of the police officer. The officer responded with his taser, and Frank collapsed to the ground in a series of spasms.

With the crime averted and Frank in the hands of the police my thoughts reached out to find the one I needed to start my plan. I found him entering a cab. His destination was Central Park, so I reached for my phone to make a brief call to arrange Sam’s delay. Then I exited the alley and started to make my way to my car.

This city, my city has grown darker in the last five years. Violent crimes have skyrocketed, and the spirit of this great metropolis is being consumed by an evil I have yet to truly understand. This darkness has for some reason marked my city to be transformed into a fortress of shadows, and in doing so it has stirred up fear in the hearts of those who would normally be the protectors of the light.

As far as I know, I am the only one who has the ability to free New York from the growing evil, but I am not sure if my newly acquired talents can tip the scales in my favor. My fear is that my parents and their friend's sacrifice has been in vain and that I, the sole inheritor of their fortunes and secret knowledge will be consumed by the darkness that I must use to protect the flame of life from being extinguished from the city of my birth.

Through intense study and even more intense training, I learned how to see the tendrils of darkness that feed the unknown evil that has infected my home. Every crime I prevent, and every life I save weakens the grasp that this malevolent force uses to obliterate the petechial of life.

I am darkness fighting the darkness. For light to have a chance to thrive there must be those who are willing to venture into the dark; they are the ones who seek and protect the places where the embers of light can be set to drive back that ever-present darkness. This eternal struggle has been going on since the dawn of time, and my role in all of this is not to defeat the darkness but to regulate its impact upon the living.

My car was only three blocks away when I came across one of those vines of evil. I could see the thick twisted rope of absolute darkness jutting out of a subway entrance to my left, so I descended the stairs to the subway platform as I avoided the light flow of people.

All it took was a slight sweep of the minds around me, and the situation was revealed. There were five men all armed with semiautomatic handguns. The man closest to the subway rails was the source of the inky vine of evil. On top of that, the man had a bomb in his backpack with a remote detonator clipped to his belt.

I paused for the briefest of seconds to gather my thoughts. It was late and the foot traffic on the street was not as heavy as it would have been earlier. I reached out once again and learned that the target was on the next train; which was approximately ten minutes out.

Gathering my will, I put my hastily formed plan into action. I broadcasted an overwhelming need to leave. I influenced those who exited the train to leave the platform as quickly as possible, and for those who needed to board the train I gave them an extra push to board. I even had the men and women who worked on the platform to let those who have not paid to board the train as well.

By the time the train left the station there was only the five men, four workers, and myself. I sent the four workers on a smoke break, and at the same time, I tweaked the five men’s perceptions so that they would not notice the workers leaving the area.

The man who carried the bomb started walking closer toward the tracks when my assault upon their minds began. I brought forth a wave of darkness that washed over the five with a hint of apprehension.

The five men turned to look at one another; in an attempt to find the source of their newly acquired nervousness, and that is when I gave a form to fan the underlying fear inside of them. At the foot of the stairs leading out of the station, I showed them a silhouette of a man in an ankle-length trench coat with the collar turned up to conceal the avatar’s lower face. The broad-brimmed fedora that my mentally projected image wore barely concealed the burning red eyes that glowed with hellish intent.

All five of the men pointed their weapons at my apparition, but I was not standing where they gazed. The man closest to my physical location which was just inside the turnstile gestured with his gun and said, “Who the fuck are you?” I did not miss the undertones of fear in his voice. This made me grin in satisfaction; my plan was going to work nicely. I had eight minutes until the next train was to arrive, so I decided to take things up a notch.

And when I spoke it was dark and haunting, “I am the voice in the darkness. I know of your plan to murder the councilwoman Lora Smith is at its end.” The man who had spoken fired his gun at my conjured form, and the loud echoes of gunfire filled the subway station.

When the sounds of the discharged weapons ended, I filled the subway station with phantom laughter. The men’s fear turned into terror as the wraith lifted its right hand, and the man who shot at it fell unconscious to the floor. The three other men opened fire on the specter while the one with the explosive stood as close to the rails as he could.

I swiftly knocked out the next three men. They were preoccupied with trying to shoot my phantom to notice that I had become visible. This was not a mistake on my part, but a calculated risk.

The thing is that I am new to using my abilities, and when broadcasting multiple thoughts each idea becomes weaker and therefore less effective. I needed to focus on the task at hand more than I needed to be invisible. Besides I only had five minutes left before the next train would arrive, and I needed to reach out to the nearest police officer in order to convince him that a crime was in progress.

My calculated risk almost cost me my life, as the man with the explosive sent a volley of bullets in my direction. I tucked and rolled in an attempt to avoid the deadly rounds, but one bullet grazed my left shoulder. A burning pain radiated from the wound immediately followed by an icy numbness that rendered my shoulder and arm virtually useless.

It took me only a moment to counter his attack. I projected a wave of darkness with a hint of vertigo as I moved to find cover. I followed up with more laughter, as the man swayed from left to right trying to regain his balance.

The man’s gun swung wildly sending random shots into the ceiling. He drunkenly danced around the thick vine of darkness that throbbed as it filled its host with its mind-devouring poison. I shrouded myself with the gift of invisibility as the man slowly regained his footing, and I watched as a madness-induced grin formed on the man’s face.

I could hear the distant sound of sirens slowly filling the air. A brief mental query told me that I had maybe three minutes until the police arrived, and four minutes before the train was due to enter the station, but the shell of a man would not wait that long.

Radiating anger and hate the bomb-carrying man reached for the remote detonator on his belt. The now suicide bomber had that eerie mad look plastered on his face, and I knew in an instant that there was only one course of action that might prevent the pending explosion. I gathered my determination and reckless abandonment, and I did the one thing I was taught never to do. I entered the madman’s mind.

All things considered; the mind is a mystery to modern-day science. Yes, different parts of the brain and their functions have been mapped, but viewing the brain in its entirety to understand thought, awareness, and perception has just not been done. While these things can be studied, plotted, and predicted scientific research cannot explain the true origin of where these aspects of consciousness come from.

René Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” and this philosophical statement holds true when dealing with another's mind. An individual’s thoughts create the expanse in which the intruder interacts when inside the mind of another. The mind is a series of collected experiences and choices that forge ability, mindset, and will. It is normally controlled solely by the individual who has lived that life, but every mind has a part of it that receives a signal from the other minds around it.

These mental receivers are what allow me to become invisible as well as let me broadcast images for others to see. That being said invading a mind uses the same weaknesses, but instead of sending an image or an idea I am sending my consciousness in a constant stream to another mind.

When entering a mind, one must normally be invited, but in the case of a mind that has been dominated and controlled by an external source an invitation is not needed; and yet, I am still an intruder in a world where even the spectral ground I tread upon can be used against me.

A monochrome wasteland greeted me as my psychic avatar manifested within the mind of the man with the bomb. I saw fine webs of darkness that formed a strange tower at the center of the landscape, and the inky mass reached the virtual sky only to fade into the swirling clouds above.

The structure seemed to be about a mile or so away from me, but the idea of distance does not apply when inside the mind. Most things that you encounter inside another person's mind are merely an interpretation of what is going on in that mind. This interpretation is based on the knowledge that the invading mind has accumulated. This means that the more minds you have encountered the better your interpretation, and when you have experienced as many minds as I have the interpretation is as accurate as it can be.

The graphite-colored landscape angled down to form a ragged rocky valley, while the sky was a light gray with darker gray swirls that formed the clouds. I could feel memories and random emotions as if they were tangible objects being hurtled at me by the violent winds that spun around the strange structure in the valley.

I silently fought to keep the raging thoughts from merging with my mind. If my identity was to be swept away in the tempest that this mind had become, I would cease to exist, so I formed several more mental barriers and filters between myself and the world around me. This granted me the ability to see the thoughts and emotions of this person’s mind without the risk of merging with them.

Now that it was safe to sample some of the memories that were blown toward me, I did just that. I needed to know more about a person who would submit to The Darkness so fully, and What I learned about Steve Foxford was not pleasant.

Steve Foxford was a self-made monster. It began with a one-night stand that led to an unwanted child, and when money became tight, he took his frustrations out on his wife and child; he enjoyed the power it gave him, so John sought out people who would give him more of the power he desired.

He started as a thief. Smashing windows and taking whatever, he could find. Foxford then moved up to beating people for protection money. After that, he was hired to cause any and all manner of violence to accomplish the goals of the people who paid him. In the end, murder became a type of aphrodisiac for Foxford.

As I watched Steve Foxford’s life pass before my mind’s eye I had to reinforce my barriers before my consciousness was swept away by the violence of his memories. As I shored up my defenses, I caught a glimpse of the moment when the darkness rooted its self into Foxford’s mind.

I saw the vague image of a woman with darkness surging from her outstretched palms into Steve, but the image faded as my wall of protection was reinforced. I committed the image to memory as I made my way toward the webs of onyx in the center of the valley.

White tendrils of lightning struck the dead gray ground sending trimmers across the rocky ground. This reinforced what I had learned about the interpretation of invading minds. Because the landscape truly mirrored Foxford’s mental state, for the ground shook, crumbled, and reformed only to repeat the cycle.

I watched as the world around me shrank each time the ground reformed, and the web structure stretched and flexed in an attempt to hold the center of the valley together. I knew without a doubt that Steve’s mind was collapsing under the strain of what it was experiencing, and The Darkness was trying to keep it together until Foxford’s task was complete.

I knew I had to remove the darkness from Foxford’s mind; and yet, doing so would allow the remains of his psyche to crumble. I searched my thoughts to find a way to keep Foxford’s mind intact.

The problem was that if Foxford’s mind stayed intact then he still could set off the bomb, but if I did not act the bomb would kill the councilwoman, myself, Foxford, and whomever else was on the train.

When it came down to it, I knew that the bomb going off was not an option, so I reached deep within my being and brought to the surface all that was pure and terrifying in my life to form a type of psychic blade in front of me, then I charged the web of evil using Steve’s tempestuous emotions to lift me into the air and fuel my flight.

I flew through the air arms stretched out before me with my psychic weapon positioned in front of my fists. My weapon resembled a prismatic crescent blade that shined brightly in this dismal mind. The blade was forged from my memories and emotions, then refined by my will. I used those sharp-cutting memories to form the leading edge; for heft, I used those moments that hit harder than most people realize, and then I covered the entire weapon in the most enduring of memories, happy thoughts.

In the mind, if you believe it then it is real, and in the chaos of Foxford’s mind, anything could come to life. There appeared to be no resistance from Foxford to counter my will, so when I created my psychic weapon, it was as real as anything in his mind.

I collided with those dark strands of evil, and I sheared through them with ease. Every wire and rope of darkness I severed began to wither away; and as it did so the core of darkness shrank. As for the land that was Steve’s mind, it cracked and crumbled while new tendrils tried to embed themselves into the ground, but it was too late. The fragile earth that was Foxford’s mind simply turned to dust; leaving nothing for the evil to grasp.

I had destroyed around two-thirds of the ebony structure’s roots when the remnant of Steve’s psyche collapsed in on itself. The horizon lunged into the sky as memories turned into lightning that lashed at the ground gouging a deep hole. A cyclone of emotion raged sending fragments of Steve’s being in all directions.

The last thing I witnessed was the ground falling into the molten red hole made by the lightning. I did not want to run the risk of being consumed by Steve Foxford’s mental destruction, so I rode the stream of my consciousness back to my body as swiftly as I could.

The real world was a shock to my senses. My shoulder flared with a sharp burn; the scent of the station brought forth memories of traveling with my parents; while the sound of the police sirens screamed deafeningly in my ears, but the site of Steve Foxford passed out on the platform with his hand nowhere near the detonator brought a soothing wave of relief that almost made me forget about the throbbing shoulder. I watched as the darkness that had attached itself to Foxford shriveled and then fade away.

I wearily got to my feet as the police rushed into the subway station, and I clumsily faded into the shadows. It took more of an effort than usual for me to project my avatar on the opposite side of the station’s platform. I am sure it had a lot to do with the headache that sent waves of pain in time with my heartbeat, but there was nothing I could do about it or the injury to my shoulder right now.

My phantom projection stood motionless as I made my way behind the police. The six officers fanned out to survey the area as my phantom’s rough voice filled the station, “These men were attempting to murder Councilwoman Smith who is on the inbound train. The man closest to the tracks has a bomb. I suggest you do something about that.”

Five of the six police officers pointed their weapons at my avatar while the sixth one spoke quietly into his radio. One of the five holding a gun on my psychic image ordered me to lie on the ground face down, and so I did what the officer instructed.

The policeman approached my avatar handcuffs at the ready to bind my arms, but once the officer went to one knee my spectral image faded from existence. The officer swore as the others were left with a bewildered look on their faces. I managed to make it up the stairs just as the train pulled into the station, and I caught the surprise from the passengers as they saw a handful of police with unconscious men at their feet.

On the street were black and white police cars as well as a few dozen officers that blocked off the traffic, but no number of police could stop what they could not see. I simply avoided them until I came across a nice dark place where I could stop broadcasting my illusion.

I was two blocks away from the crime scene when I pulled out my phone and called my car to pick me up. It only took about half a minute before the nearly silent car rolled to a stop next to where I was standing. I carefully got into the sleek black car minding my shoulder as I shut the door. I leaned back in the seat and instructed the car to take me to Central Park.

I do not remember much of the drive to my destination. I had echoes of Foxford’s memories tumbling around in my thoughts, and they skewed my perceptions of objects around me as well as my perception of time. I tried to isolate and expunge the rogue memories, but the pain of my injuries detracted from my efforts.

Before my encounter with Steve’s mind, I knew that the world could be a dark place, but having just a little of Foxford’s mental remains caused the world to become a pit of hatred and despair that sought to consume everything.

The pain in my shoulder and head combined with Foxford's perceptions created a less-than-pleasant experience, so when I got out of the car my body did so in odd shaky motions as if I were going through withdrawal.

I fought with the echoes of Foxford’s mind. It took me some time to place all of the memories that were not my own into a mental container where they could rage until they burned themselves out, but I am not sure how long it took. All I do know is that when I finally sealed them away it was as if the world snapped back into brilliant focus. I could see the trees of the park illuminated by the lights around me instead of murky columns of darkness with arms that wanted to do me harm. I took a cleansing breath as I looked at my surroundings in relief. With my mind now my own I reached out with it to search Central Park for Sam.

I located Sam near the center of the park, he was sitting on a bench, and his mind radiated a cyclone of hurtful memories that tortured his very being. I managed to push through the tempestuous emotions to learn that he had a gun in his hand.

Sam was too far away for me to get there in time to physically prevent him from killing himself, so with a considerable effort of will I projected my image in front of him. The pain in my head increased by a multiple of ten as I came in contact with Sam’s whirlwind of thoughts. The strength of his mental pain was enough to cause me to physically stumble when I attempted to speak to him through my avatar.

I am not sure if it was the appearance of my avatar or my attempt to speak to him that caused Sam’s left hand to tighten around the grip of the pistol, but I forced myself into a clumsy run to close the distance between my avatar and myself. My weary mind needed to be closer in order to compensate for Sam’s mental state as well as my own temporarily impaired abilities.

When I felt the connection strengthen in my mind, I attempted to speak with Sam again. I spoke to him in a gentle yet questioning tone, “Do you sincerely wish to end your life?” Sam looked up at my projected form. He said nothing, he just stared blankly as if he saw through my spectral image.

I was halfway to the bench where Sam planned to end his life. I needed to break through his haze of pain, so I pressed my will through his torrent of misery and then I spoke with the intensity of his own agony, “Why do you want to end your life?”

This time Sam heard my desperate question and reflexively looked at my phantom form. He gazed at my silhouette which was darker than the night sky. He began to tremble in fear. His shaking was so violent that the gun fell from his lap and clattered as it hit the concrete.

I spoke to Sam for the third time my voice more commanding than the previous two. “Samuel Abraham Morison, why do you seek death?” He looked up at my phantom and even with the distance between us I could still feel his nearly soulless gaze. His eyes hinted at the same maelstrom of emotion that I had seen within Foxford’s mind.

I searched for the smallest thread of darkness within Sam but I found none. This was more than a little confusing to me, and I needed to learn more about what could beat this man so completely to make death his only relief. So, I decided to open a small hole in my defenses to get a look at Sam’s memories.

As soon as the opening in my defenses was formed a surge of forlorn rushed through my mind. This all-consuming feeling threatened to burn a path of misery throughout my thoughts. My mind raced to find a solution to the invading emotions. In an instant my desperate mind replayed the entire extent of my training, and near the end of that flood of knowledge came a stream of understanding.

The thickly accented English of my teacher Tenzin educated me once more as his words played in my mind, “Every mind is different. It has its own thought patterns, decision paradigms, and emotional ranges. This makes the experiences and most important memories of a mind quite unique. While you can listen to others’ thoughts, feel their emotions, and see prominent memories, these experiences are not your own. You may take them in by accident or by design, but remember these aspects of another mind are not comparable with yours. They can affect you in a variety of different ways, so be careful of what you take in. The aspects are foreign to your mind, and will not exist for very long. What is not of your own mind will always fade, and if you try to take in aspects from more than one person it will not work.” Before I could recall the rest of Tenzin’s lecture, I took the container of Foxford’s memories and hurled it at the invading torment from Sam’s mind.

I dissolved the container before the two forces collided, and the end result was nothing I had ever expected. The two raging aspects met in a monstrous roar. The thundering sound shook my mind as well as my body. I stumbled and slid across the ground, as the battle in my mind reached its abrupt climax. The two forces destroyed one another, and the silence that followed was almost as powerful as the roar that was the prelude to any battle.

I immediately scanned my mind for any residual damage from the fight that had just taken place in my head. When I surprisingly found no damage to speak of, I carefully reorganized my defenses to filter out the nearly constant flow of emotional pain from Sam’s thoughts.

As I slowly got to my feet, and started walking towards Sam. Now that my defenses were properly arranged, I could safely encounter Sam’s thoughts. I reached out to him with my mind, and in an instant, the story of his life was shown to me.

Samuel Abraham Morison's life was that of academic pursuit. He spent his childhood as well as the first twelve years of his adult life receiving an education, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Business Management. While earning his education he fell in love and got married to his girlfriend of those last four years Tabitha Dupre.

Soon after their honeymoon, the newlyweds learned that a baby was in their future. Sam and Tabitha were determined to find a balance between their careers and the family that they would soon have; however, Sam’s personal life was not as concrete as he expected.

Receiving the news of the death of his parents due to a burglary gone wrong caused Sam to withdraw avoiding everything except his work. This formed a rift in his marriage that led to divorce, but the final pillar of hope crumbled when Sam’s son and ex-wife were killed by a drunk driver.

With no family or friends to turn to Samuel Abraham Morison spiraled into a depression that led to the loss of his job with hopelessness being his only companion for the past two months.

Sam’s isolation only made his emotional pain grow to the point where he could not stand it anymore. He had found the gun, his father's service pistol only two days ago, and now he sat on the same park bench where he had met his wife. He was prepared to end a life that he felt had only begun in that very spot.

I had learned the reasons behind Sam’s desire to die, but I still felt this unexplainable sinking feeling that Sam seemed to possess was something else altogether. I needed to delve deeper into his mind in order to find the core of his being. Yes, that meant I would have to enter his mind.

To say that I was making the same mistake twice would be true, but not altogether accurate. Foxford's mind had been influenced by the darkness and subsequently corrupted admittedly not by much from that dark influence. Sam on the other hand had no traces of darkness, and his only claim to madness was his overwhelming desire to end his own pain.

While I knew what led Sam to his present state, I did not know the overall condition of his mind. I needed to know if he could be saved, and I needed to be able to influence Sam's mind in a way I had only done once before.

Everything about my abilities is invasive or obtrusive. I can read thoughts and understand intentions in an instant. That alone is invasive enough, but I can also forcibly enter another mind like I did with Foxford; and yet, that is not the full extent of what I can do. I have the power to fog the mind; to project images, sounds, and thoughts that can deceive or enlighten their preconceptions.

I would have to use all of my skills while I was in Sam's mind. This meant I would have to establish a connection that was strong enough to allow me to directly interact with his thoughts and perceptions from within.

This is different than when I invaded Foxford's mind because all I did in his head was dislodge an external influence. With Sam, I needed to drop all of my defenses, so that I could truly touch his mind. Doing so will leave me vulnerable in a way that I had not been since before I had left the Temple of Neban, and that would mean that my own mind could be swept away by the same pain that Sam was experiencing.

As I said, I am darkness fighting the darkness. My foe is a relentless entity that seeds fear and harms the minds of whomever it wishes to enter. Like my enemy, I must strike from the shadows and manipulate people to my own ends.

This is a war of sorts, and in any war, there are things that are done that can be considered questionable at best. I have never called myself a hero nor will I ever be one in the eyes of anyone who knows my methods, and when this is over; if it is ever over, I will make amends to those I have wronged. Until that day comes, I will defend those who I can against the dark invader with every tool at my disposal.

I was less than seventy-five feet from Sam when I lowered my mental defenses and braced myself for the turbulent emotional pain that Sam was projecting. The pain felt sharp and insistent. It never wavered in its intensity, and it thickly coated the outermost shell of his mind.

For what felt like hours of agony I managed to push through the dense barrier of pain only to come across an oddly slimy fog of forlornness that nearly staggered my resolve. It was as if I had entered a realm of congealed self-loathing and pity that I had to bludgeon my way through. It seemed to take me just a moment shy of eternity before I reached the core, and to my surprise what I found among the doom and gloom of Sam’s mind was a slight flicker of hope.

Like I said before, when you enter another person’s mind the landscape can be anything, and in the case of Samuel Abraham Morison it was a void with different colored points of light scattered across what looked and felt like emptiness. It was as if I had entered outer space, and Sam’s memories were nothing but distant planets and moons with a single point of light at his center.

I flew through the icy emptiness with nothing to contend with but the frosty pain and hopelessness of isolation. It took me ten agonizingly slow heartbeats to reach the tiny spark within Sam, and I immediately knew he did not have much longer to live unless I acted.

Up until this point, I did not truly appreciate the pending cataclysm that would soon happen within Sam’s mind. He was dying from sheer loneliness. This phenomenon occurs when a person’s will to survive is crushed by the absolute absence of hope.

I now understood what was happening within Sam's mind. One by one Sam had pushed away the painful memories until the only thing left was a void between him and the life he had lived. I had a plan to reverse the damage that had been done to Sam's psyche, but I needed something from him before I began.

I spoke to Sam in the voice with a low mocking lilt; it was that disdainful tone I give to all who wish to disrupt life; it was the voice of the darkness I had chosen to become, “If you are so eager to throw your life away, then I will claim it as my own.”

To my surprise, Sam's eyes focused on my projected form. His diminished spark shined a little brighter, while those nearly lifeless eyes delivered a hint of the man he once was. “If you can take away the agony, then I will devote my very being to you,” said Sam with a determined whimper. My spectral image nodded its head to him, and then I began the task of restoring his mind.

What I had to do was easy enough to put into words. Sam had disconnected his memories from the core of his mind. He did this in such an extreme way that the void surrounding his core was slowly and painfully fading into nothingness. To fix this I must reconnect memories to the core and that should be enough to push out the void.

I searched the vast emptiness of Sam's mind for every happy thought, joke, and good experience that he possessed. I pulled all of these things from the icy void and moved them to the flickering mote of light.

I watched in shock as the tiny spark started to dwindle. In a panic, I swiftly scattered the shards of happiness, and the flicker of light stabilized. The gathered memories and emotions were smothering the spark within Sam, and as much as he needed happiness to combat the despair; he needed something to encourage the spark his will to live to grow.

I thought about the problem for another heartbeat. I had placed logs on top of a single flame and expected it to become a roaring fire. What I needed was the mental equivalent of lighter fluid or at the least another source of power to give the spark the energy to withstand the sorrow surrounding it.

My thoughts raced for an answer when a loosely formed idea came to me. The spark of hope within Sam was that inexplicable source of energy that kept him alive. You can call it the soul, chi, ki, qi, or call it the force if you must. The name did not matter; that energy was energy, and what Sam desperately needed was something to jump-start this fading aspect of himself.

I quickened my unsteady pace, because what I planned to do required me to be close enough to physically touch Sam. It took me a few seconds to reach him. All the while keeping my mind's eye on his spark of life.

It took more time than I would have liked, but now I stood wearily before Sam taking slow even breaths to steady the pounding of my heart, head, and shoulder. I slowly lifted my good arm to place the palm of my hand upon Sam's forehead, when a problem occurred to me.

My plan was to take a portion of my own energy that fuels my mind, filter it, and refine it into a concentrated stream that would allow Sam's spark to feed off of it and grow, but no matter how hard I try to filter certain aspects of my life from being used in this transference of energy, echoes of my intentions or my true name could be left behind.

Temporary as those aspects maybe they could still be observed and committed to Sam's own memory. I considered the possibilities for only a moment. The darkness took those who had hate and the desire for power in their heart; I would take the hopeless and forgotten in order to forge them anew.

With my ultimate plan set firmly in my thoughts, I gently placed my palm on Sam’s forehead and reached for the essence that binds thought, memory, emotion, and action within myself.

 I had crafted what could only be described as a thread of silvery light that I cast from the outskirts of Sam's mind. Seemingly out of nowhere a gust of woe swept across the void nearly sending my thread of energy spiraling off course. In response, I thickened the thread to around the size of braided rope and fortified it with some of my will and more than a little hope.

This gave me the ability to direct my energy through the storm of emotion that sought to prevent me from reaching Sam’s core. My rope of energy now glided easily through the emotional currents and connected with the mote of light.

I could tell that this link between us was stabilizing Sam’s core. It now resembled a flame dancing on a candle rather than a spark drifting in the wind. I cautiously moved a relatively small asteroid of pleasant thoughts to the flame and watched as the flame slowly grew as it took in a portion of the asteroid.

After witnessing this I began to broaden and expand the link between us providing more of my energy to add fuel to the flame. The energy, my energy flowed forth causing Sam's flame to grow into a brilliant inferno of fire that absorbed the rest of the asteroid.  

I brought more memories and emotions to Sam's core and they merged with it turning flames into a brilliant star. The distant planets and moons seemed to pulse and writhe as they were pulled from their distant positions toward the now-spinning ball of light.

While Sam's mind was being reforged, I felt the triumph, tragedy, happiness, and sorrow of his life. The connection between us made it hard for me to know where Sam’s thoughts ended and mine began. I struggled for a few moments to prevent my thoughts from entering Sam, and when I was sure I had accomplished that, I severed the connection between us. Withdrawing from his mind, I raised my defenses as battered as they were.

I could feel Sam’s determination to live grow within him as I removed my hand from his forehead. My shoulders slumped as the pain that I had been ignoring rushed back with a vengeance. I looked at him as he sat on the park bench. He seemed to sit taller and his eyes were now filled with life once more.

Sam looked at my avatar, and spoke in the voice of someone who had just woke from a troublesome dream, “You, you’re the one who took the pain away?” The look on Sam’s face was that of a man who just met his creator, and I wanted to dissuade him of any divine notions.

“No. I gave you the resolve you needed to restore yourself to a functional state of mind. I am not your savior. I did this in order to advance my own goals. You, Samuel Abraham Morison, agreed to serve, and now you will do just that.”

To his credit Sam did not flinch nor did he disagree. When he did speak it was in a quiet tired voice, “You saved my life, and I will spend the rest of it repaying that debt.” I reached into my coat and produced a business card and handed it to Sam.

He took the card with nervous fingers, and as I spoke to him, he read what was printed on it, “The card contains the name and address of your new employer. He will tell you what to do when you get there.” Sam just gaped at me as I turned to walk away.

“Wait! I, I saw your thoughts. I know what you are fighting against.” I said nothing to Sam. I just kept walking. “How can one man save an entire city from that thing?” I stopped walking and spun to face him, and when I did so I did not show him the image of a man hiding behind clothing and sunglasses. Instead, he met the phantom visage of my shadow with its molten red eyes gleaming in the dark.

My haunting gaze caused Sam to tremble as I focused on his eyes. I stood silent for only a moment letting the effect of my appearance take hold, and when I spoke I did so in a ghostly voice that grew more hellish as I continued, “Fear begets panic, panic begets terror, and terror opens the door to my vengeful powers. The night is the battleground, and that is where I shall wage war upon the darkness. From this point on, I claim the night, and the evil that lies in the hearts of men shall wither and rot at the mention of my name.”

Sam nervously nodded, and then he looked at me with questions filling his thoughts. His curiosity obviously outweighed his fear as he asked, “How do you fight the evil? Hell, what does it even want?”

I was not ready to share my plans with another just yet, so when I replied to his questions I did so in a low spectral tone. “The Shadow knows.” Then I faded into the night leaving echoes of haunting laughter.

I left the first of many people who will become the shield to my sword in the battle with the unknown evil sitting on the park bench. Before I got into my car, I looked up to see a hint of dawn brightening the night sky. I reached out with my mind only to find that the creatures of the night had quieted for now. I could return home to rest, research, and plan my next engagement in my war with a foe that has existed since the origin of thought. My name is Lamont Cranston, Practitioner of the Mind, Warder of Neban, The Shadow.

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