Shadows in Light

Entering the club, my ears were assaulted by music that was blaring out at an unbearable level, and I could see a mass of people of both sexes bouncing and dancing around like there was no tomorrow. Everything about this club was modern looking and it was filled with new age technology. There were massive televisions set up all over the walls showing off music videos, drink deals, and random events that were upcoming. Lights were flashing around the place, showing off the UV paint and decorations on the walls, and the mass of jewelry and make-up on the people.

People had gathered in groups, drinking and trying to talk despite the extremely loud drum and bass flooding out from the speakers. I felt out of place, I was more goth in the end. This was a happy hyper club to come and dance away the weekend, although they’d started a day early. A place to pretend you have no problems. Or drink till you didn’t remember them.

And from the eyes I was seeing, a startling number of drugs was also being done to help that forgetfulness.

Walking through the club, I kept my eyes open looking out for anything that stood out, and for Sally. She might be here again, but I had no idea. I didn’t know what type of person she was, beyond my brief meeting with her, but I still wanted to know she was okay. Even if this wasn’t the easiest place to do that in.

The music and lights were distracting, and then the outfits the women had picked as they bounced and danced their way around the place certainly weren’t helping keep my attention on my chosen task. And on top of that there was something else about this place, it felt full of energy. It felt like something I could breathe it in and feel invigorated by it. After a few breaths of that, I honestly felt better than I had before I got shot. I almost wanted to dance around the place. Instead, I went and got an expensive drink.

I took my drink to a corner and watched. I’d noted that this club was lacking on security, they’d let me in with my bag without a single comment or even trying to search it. Granted, I only had a change of clothes in it just in case. But still, I hadn’t heard of a club these days letting you in without at least insisting on a search through it.

As I looked out over the place though, I realized why. Here and there I could see people moving around in plain looking outfits with a jacket thrown over it with lots of pockets. They stood out amongst everyone else in their thin brightly colored outfits. They kept stopping to talk to people, and as I watched, money was exchanged followed by pushing something into the dancer’s hand that soon went into the mouth. Guess they didn’t care about drug dealers here.

I kept an eye on the dealers out of curiosity as I looked out for Sally, but after half an hour it was clear she wasn’t here. I wasn’t expecting anything, even though I was hoping, so I let my attention drift back to the dealers.

I watched one discreetly from my corner as he moved along a wall, and then to my surprise, went through a door clearly marked ‘Employees Only’ in bright neon-lit letters. He was back in a few minutes, returning to moving through the crowds, selling drugs. In the next half an hour or so, another two dealers did the same thing.

Did the fact this was club that had drug dealers have something to do with Sally ending up being chased down an alley? And by something that emitted light? It seemed implausible as the two places were so far away from each other, but you can’t discount anything.

I set off around the club, looking for someone to talk to. Maybe talking to someone here would help me find out some more. By this point the dancing had moved beyond individuals bouncing around and moved towards drug high couples shifting and grinding, bodies wrapping around each other lithely. Mouths and tongues were meeting as hands roamed and inhibitions dropped.

I looked away from it all, it wasn’t helping me find out what I wanted to know, except this club was high as hell. I spotted a guy sat in a group of chairs by himself in a quiet-ish area. By quiet-ish I mean my ears were only hurting rather than trying to bleed. Taking the chance, I motioned to a chair when he looked at me, and he shrugged noncommittally, leaving me the chance to sit down opposite him.

“Hi!” I called out.

“Hey! First time here?” He yelled at me over the music, getting a vigorous nod out of me. I didn’t think screaming is better when nodding would do. “Cool, you can tell. You’re not all... high like everyone else.” He said waving at his eyes. His pupils were wide, and he had a happy, friendly, yet vacant expression to his face. Many people in this club had the same expression.

“Is that common here?” I asked him, leaning closer to save my voice. This left us close, closer than men normally like in truth, but in a club it’s weirdly okay when talking. Especially when someone’s drugged up.

“Yup. People who run the club sort everyone out who wants them. Don’t force it on nobody or nothin’. But it’s... a way to relax,” he said with a laugh. “It’s fun. And gets the week off your shoulders.”

“Isn’t that kind of illegal?”

He shrugged at that, glancing out at the dance floor.

“Probably, but I’ve been coming here since it was set up. No cops ever come here to shut it down, never had any raids. All good man. Just relax. Couple of times here, you’ll be taking. Everyone does.”

I looked out over the club, and realized he was probably right. There weren’t many people who looked like they weren’t on drugs. Once again, odd man out, I guess. Still, if he’s a regular, he might know Sally.

“I met a woman when I was out. Said this was a good place to go. Pretty woman. Six foot or so. Long blond hair. Name of Sally. Would love to see her again. You know her?”

He shrugged again “Sorry man. Sounds like loads of women here, and I don’t pay attention to names.” He gave a grin that was leaning towards the lecherous end of the spectrum. “No one does.”

He grinned some more at me, before someone or something on the dance floor caught his attention again, and he stared at it blankly. After a few moments I realized he wasn’t going to be paying attention to me for a while, so I got up and walked off.

Walking around the dance floor got more couples in various states of indecent exposure, some people that were on their own but were throwing themselves around the dancing floor with either massive levels of skill, or a lot of luck overall, and the odd person who was staring at something blankly as my conversation buddy was.

My walk ended with me stood near the door for employee/drug dealers, looking over who was there. I checked it out carefully before I confirmed there wasn’t any guards nor cameras protecting the door, so I took a risk and just walked through it without pausing much like the dealers.

I got on the other side of the door and shut it quickly, causing the sound from the club to go mercifully quieter. Not a huge amount, but enough for me to have a hope of hearing sometime in the next week.

The room was a barren, with just paint on the walls and a couple lights hung down from the ceiling. Not far from the door was a table with a couple of lockers stacked on it against the wall. Across from me was another door. Otherwise, the room was empty. I gave the lockers a check, but they were firmly padlocked shut.

Feeling braver for getting through door number one, I tried door number two. I found that it was supposed to be locked, but some kind soul had stuck tape over the lock so wouldn’t lock properly, allowing me to open it without a key or a sound.

I got a general sense of blackness for a moment, before my night sight came in, and I was looking at a staircase that went down. I tried my best to sneak down, but I honestly don’t know how sneaky I was. As no one shouted, or ran after me, and no alarms went off, I’m going to rate it above average.

The staircase was a long one ending in a basement. It was a large open place that was unsurprisingly dark and dingy. I could hear water dripping somewhere nearby, along with a faint thud from the music floating down the stairs behind me.

Looking around through the darkness, I saw walls that were made of brick that rose from the floor, arching up from both sides until it met above me. Sat in the middle of the room were shelving units that held a mass of boxes and crates. There wasn’t any sign of anyone, so I dared to continue my sneaking around the place.

I paused at the shelving stack, looking over the boxes. There were shipping labels on them from Seattle Port and Seattle-Tacoma (or SeaTac) stickers. One of the boxes on the floor had the lid pried off letting me investigate it.

Inside I could see piles and piles of tightly wrapped packages, which when I picked up and unwrapped, I could see pills pressing against plastic.

Looking from one end of the room to the other, I could see more boxes and crates with stamps and stickers on. Seattle is a port of call for a lot of ships and airplanes, many of them from less reputable countries. And with the sheer amount of traffic going through it’s not impossible to smuggle stuff through, regardless of the level of corruption. And sadly, corruption exists everywhere. So smuggling drugs into the country isn’t that difficult in the end.

I dropped the package back into the box and moved back into my version of stealth mode, stalking down the shelving until I spotted some pistols laying out next to some boxed ammunition. There was quite a nice supply of them too laying there looking new to my sight.

It took me a moment or two to decide, but in the end, I reached down and pulled a couple of them free. I wasn’t great with guns, but I’d had some practice over the years. With people shooting at me recently, it didn’t seem like a stupid idea to have some of my own. And stealing from drug dealers didn’t seem that bad.

I doubt they’d notice, and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to find me anyways. I slipped them into my bag, continuing around the place. I wanted to practice with them first before I tried out with them. But it couldn’t be a bad thing to have one surely?

I moved on past the crates and discovered that this place had a small office area set up in a corner. It was a simple prefabricated modular office, dull colored walls with lots of windows to watch everything. Going through the door, there was a desk with an amazing amount of paperwork spread out all over it in some chaotic manner that possibly made sense to the person who sat at it. A computer was set up but currently powered off, and while my computer skills weren’t that bad, I didn’t want to risk someone coming down to see it turned on. So, it stayed off. Looking over the paperwork, I could see receipts from breweries, pay checks, and notes in some language I couldn’t understand. And that was just stuff on the top level.

There were some drawers in the desk, but apparently the idiot who taped the upstairs door wasn’t the same one using this desk. Growing annoyed, I checked around the place, finding the filing cabinets were also locked. I picked up stacks of paperwork and flicked through it carefully trying to avoid disturbing the mass as much as possible. Looking for something, some clue towards Sally.

Again, and again, I found nothing. I was ready to give up and leave, as I was looking through then bin, when, hiding at the bottom under some screwed up papers and rubbish was an ID card. The picture matched Sally, but the name wasn’t Sally. It was Alice Goodwin. And a post-it note stuck to the ID read ‘Sent to J’.

Dammit. Someone got to her already. A surge of anger went through me, more than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I forgot about being quiet as I smashed my fist into the desk. The bang echoed through the storage place, and I froze, mentally cursing myself.

I stayed there for several minutes, waiting to see if someone had heard me and popped up, listening as hard as I could before I relaxed.

And then I heard it.

The quietest of sounds that I somehow heard, but to those with any kind of heart, one that is hard to ignore: the faintest whimper from someone trying to be quiet while crying.

It took me a minute or two to find the hidden corridor behind a that led off, and as I listened at the entrance, I could hear the whimpers floating down along the corridor.

The passageway itself was narrow. And old, damned old. It was an old stone archway tunnel heavily cracked in places, with shoddy repair work done here and there. No lights lit the way. It would have been pure darkness as I walked along, far worse than the basement itself. But thankfully whatever had appeared the day I met Sally... sorry Alice, lived up to my expectations. I could see without any issue, although everything did keep having this blue/purple tinge to it as I moved down. It was almost like carrying my own UV light with me all the time in some strange way.

I ended up exiting out into what I quickly realized was some strange kind of underground street.

It was a narrow concrete-lined street barely eight feet wide. There were decaying signs stuck to walls and hanging off metal posts near doorways. The concrete had fallen off walls in places, and in other places the walls had collapsed. Colonial style wooden window frames were rotten and falling apart with a couple of panes still holding glass in them, any remaining glass was generally on the floor. Doors had fallen off their hinges or broken in. All of it looked ready for demolishing. Looking up I saw a perfectly smooth stone ceiling that ran the length of the street, with no light coming nor sign of how to get upwards.

How was this possible UNDER Seattle?

I stared around in amazement looking up and down the street. One end of the street stopped at a brick wall, and another ended at a wooden paneling. There were dozens of doorways and building fronts under here. One of them stood out as I looked around for the third time. In the darkness the windows frames had been heavily nailed over with wood, and the door looked almost brand new. Now I was down here I realized it wasn’t that the crying was quiet. It was that it had to go quite a way before I heard it. It was loud from where I was standing, and coming from... The boarded-up house.

What are the freaking odds?

The weird pseudo-street was empty, so I went over to the door and tried it. It was locked, and the moment I tried the door handle there was rustling and murmuring from someone as the crying was quickly silenced. I could almost smell the fear coming through the door.

Sometimes you need to be quiet, sometimes you need to be sneaky and sometimes you need to break down a door. I rammed the door with my shoulder cursing out loud as I did, and it hurt. It took me a couple blows with my shoulder. I managed to get in, beating not the door, but the old frame it was mounted into.

And my shoulder only slightly ached.

Entering the room, I got that smell of fear again, and extremely poor bathroom facilities. The place was empty except for a large cage had been mounted into the floor, which held two women. They were both dressed up like they’d been out partying. Several days ago, from the dirt and mess that was all over them. They whimpered in the darkness huddling closer together in the furthest corner from me, looking around to see me.

I moved closer, making it easier to whisper, “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

They both looked vaguely towards me. They couldn’t see at all in this darkness, but as I could, I saw the surprise cross their face, then suspicion and fear. It’s not often a savior appears to save you from a caged room under Seattle streets. I think so anyways, I’ve never been in this situation from either side before so I’m just guessing. But that’s what I think was crossing their minds.

I looked at the cage, tried to door, groaning as I saw the lock.

Of course, it was locked. Why would my luck improve? And looking around I couldn’t see any likely key hiding places.

“Do you know where the key is?”

A shorter haired girl shook her head, then caught herself thinking I couldn’t see in the dark. She whispered “No. They lock the door, but I don’t know where they take it.”

I tried looking around the place, searching high and low, seeing if they’d hidden it somewhere amongst the trash and mess that was littering the floors and shelving on the walls. There wasn’t any sign of anything. I was looking at the cage, trying to think up other options when I heard something behind me.

I spun around to find someone stood in the doorway to the street, looking directly at me. He was about my size, and one of those rare people who was skinnier than me. He was dressed like the dealers upstairs, jeans, shirt, and many pocketed jackets.

We both paused in faint surprise at seeing each other, then his hand started to whip towards his belt. With no weapons on me prepared, I charged him and rammed him with my shoulder as he got his hand on his gun and started to draw it.

We tumbled out onto the street, rolling a few times, and his gun went clattering off somewhere. I ended up on top of him, however I had no real idea what to do next, so I fell back on the primitive method of punching him in the head. I was sure I didn’t want him to get up.

I got a couple of shots in before there was a flash of brilliant white Light and a ringing noise that hurt my ears worse than the music did in the club. I felt myself going back the way we’d come. I finally got a lucky break and instead of hitting a wall, I landed on my feet, sliding along for a few moments before I managing to stop myself.

By the time I’d stopped, and gotten my mind together, Skinny had gotten to his feet. His fist clenched and he hissed a word, then made a punching motion in my direction. But after his first shot I’d known this was likely to happen and tapped into that Shadow within, calling it in preparation, and threw it into the Light that burst from him. It came enmass this time, thundering out of everywhere around me, and collided with his Light. Like with Eli there was a boom as the two met, causing some of the various buildings to collapse a little more, but unlike with Eli, there was no pushing back and forth between the two. My Shadow outmatched his Light, swallowing it and rushing down to meet my extremely surprised attacker. It hit him with that metal screech, and he was thrown backwards like a truck hit him.

He smashed into the wall behind him, making it crack and collapse under the force of the impact, part of it tumbling into the room behind, leaving him bent over backwards on the wall. I stopped the Shadow burst, feeling faintly surprised at the sheer force I’d thrown at him.

I also felt a wave of tiredness pass through me, my muscles aching for an instant or two, as if I’d run a marathon before I recovered.

I moved forward cautiously to check see if he was alive, keeping Shadow rolling around me as I stepped onto the street. He was still breathing and trying to get up. All he’d managed to do was drag part of his body off the wall.

Then a large portion of wall above him dropped onto his head, crushing it. There was a screech as his head was crushed, and his body bucked before emitting a bright flare of Light that burnt at my eyes again. I tried to shield my eyes.

Even then the Light was so bright it crept through and I could see make out things. In the Light I could swear I could see the faintest impression of wings appearing for a moment before they disappeared along with the Light, leaving me blinking as I tried to get my sight back.

Had I just killed someone? Something? I didn’t have time to think about that. It was time to get the hell out of here. I let the Shadow go away and moved over to where he had been. His clothing was still there, although it was a bit smoky and charred. Around where his body laid there was a definite burnt impression of wings, running along the street and up the walls in places.

I just put this to the back of my mind, focusing instead on going through his pockets so I could get out of here quickly. In the mass of pockets, I found some drugs, a torch and a set of keys.

Hurrying back to the captive girls, I turned the torch on. They squealed at the sudden light, but they didn’t seem too objectionable to it.

“We need to get out of here.” Whispering seemed pointless, so I didn’t bother to whisper anymore, if they didn’t hear the fight then they wouldn’t hear my whispering. If they had then, it wouldn’t matter.

I tried the keys quickly and found the right one after a few moments, pulling the door open. The girls huddled at the back, staring at me. They had no clue what happened. Just a light show, I guess.

“Look. We have to get out of here!” I repeated, reaching in and grabbing one of the girls, pulling her towards the door. I know it wasn’t the best thing to do, but I’ll be damned if I was leaving them here. Thankfully, it seemed to do the trick, and they both followed me out. I put the torch in the girl’s hand “Follow me.”

I moved to the passageway I’d come up, but I could hear something up there moving around, and voices. Guess they had heard something. I tried to think of another way out of here, and for a moment I had no idea, before I realized that going down this pseudo-street towards the wooden barrier was probably the best option. I nudged one of the girls and pointed, and they went that way with me.

We weren’t running, but we were hurrying along as quickly as we could. The street wasn’t exactly easy to move along in. There was stuff all over the place, piles of rubbish, rotting things was here and there, and wooden beams were strewn across our path.

It wasn’t too long before we were at the wooden wall, which caused the girls to whimper quietly, thinking the worse. I’d got a plan the moment we started this way and was thankful when I noticed some paneling that looked rotten as the torchlight washed over it.

A few loud kicks later, we had a hole to go through, but the kicks had given away our position. Behind us I could hear someone shouting. I shoved the girls through before sneaking a look back down the street. The night sight let me see four people running down the street as quickly as they could towards us. I took that as a good sign to get the hell out of here and ducked under the wall to see myself in yet another underground street.

What was this place?

Glancing up and down the street quickly, I decided, and pushed the girls ahead of me.

“Run!”

They didn’t need any more encouragement than that, and we were running as quickly as we could go, the light shining ahead of us.

Fear is a fantastic motivator, and we all ran as fast we could through the new streets. This street wasn’t as bad as the last, in fact this one looked reasonably well kept in comparison as we ran through it. The street was full of the same building doors and shop fronts much like the previous street we were on before, however unlike the street we were just on these were better maintained. They were still missing windows and doors here and there, but it wasn’t as rotten and broken down here.

I could hear noise as we ran along, and not just from behind us, but from the buildings we were running past. Stealing a glance, I saw someone moving in one of the shops as we went by. For a moment I thought it was just a homeless person taking shelter down here. But our eyes met, and they glowed bright yellow. So probably not homeless then. I was sure the girls hadn’t seen what I did, but they kept running regardless.

The streets were extremely cracked, and the girls had to keep the light pointed on the ground as they ran. But to me, I still had no issue seeing.

Up ahead a crossroads coming up, so I took lead and pushed them to the right, before following. I ducked down it in time to hear a loud crack, and the concrete wall behind me spat up chips. Great, now I was being shot at.

Again.

How did my life get to the point where I was being shot at twice in two days?

Still the gunshot encouraged the ladies to move faster. And we were now running as fast as possible down the street, but I could hear that those chasing us were getting closer, so I slowed down pulling out the gun I’d grabbed from the floor and pulled the trigger as someone appeared at the head of the street behind us.

I’m sure I didn’t hit anyone, but everyone had ducked and covered after three or four shots. I doubt they were going to appear for the moment which was good as I went a bit nuts and emptied the bullets in this revolver. I took advantage of it and bolted after the girls before they could return fire at me and got to the girls before they hit a crossroad again and dragged them down it before gunfire opened up behind us.

I don’t know what happened, but in the mass of gunfire, something shrieked. It sounded like a cat, but much larger. Frankly, it wasn’t a pleasant sound to hear.

Whatever it was, it distracted them long enough that we were coming to a corner in the street, but it wasn’t enough. They were going to have a clean shot at us before we could go around another corner.

I turned to face those in pursuit, summoning Shadow to me, and raised my hand to send Shadow forth at them. Instead of flooding down the street at them as I thought to do as a defense, it formed a vaguely me-sized black circular shape between me and the attackers. Gunfire erupted, hitting the buildings and street a couple of times but nothing hit me nor the girls as they ducked around the corner.

I could feel each bullet hitting the Shadow, and each strike was making me feel like I’d been lifting a couple of hundred pounds, drawing away my energy, with a painful stinging sensation in my outstretched hand that coursed up my arm.

And there was a lot of strikes on it.

Not knowing how long their ammo was going to last, I shifted and moved backwards carefully, trying to keep moving while keeping this shield up. It was only ten feet or so, but it was probably the most exhausting ten feet I’d ever walked, and the moment I got around the corner I dropped my arm and the Shadow dispersed, but I could feel my arms shaking with exertion like I’d run for miles.

The girls were waiting, looking to me with wide eyes. They’d heard the gunfire, but I think they were astonished to see me alive, and not riddled with bullet holes. I took a deep breath and pushed the girls forward. The gunfire had stopped, and we didn’t have much time. We went around another blind corner, and then our luck ran out. We’d run into a concrete wall that blocked our path completely.

I could hear them getting closer behind us. I pushed the girls behind me, backing up with them until we were right up against the concrete wall, and raising my arm to where they’d be coming around the corner. My arm was shaking still but I was going to do all I could to make sure they were safe.

Even if it was the last thing I did.