A couple of days had passed since I started my journey. During this time, I confirmed that Max and any remaining shadow-dwellers were not in Kotauo village. With this in mind, I then ventured out into the nameless, grassy plains of the outside world. It appeared that, like Kotauo village, the rest of the world was also in a fixed state of twilight. While enduring my search for Max and the shadow-dwellers, I had learned new skills. I am now able to manipulate the shape of liquid shadows without physically touching them, and I can also have multiple shadows in my control at once. Along with that, I learned how to levitate shadows in the solid form.

I soon found myself at the entrance to a strange forest. There was nothing in particular about its appearance that made me deem it strange, I just got a weird feeling from the area. There was a wooden sign that stood, pinned into the ground. As for what it said, I couldn’t tell. I never learned how to read. I knew how to read braille, but that skill wasn’t going to be of much use here. Yet, there was one word in particular that stood out to me. It resided at the very top of the sign. This word was larger than the others, it was more apparent, as if it wanted to be noticed. Perhaps it was a word of dire importance.

It didn’t much matter what the sign said because the fact of the matter was that the forest was the shortest way to get to the nearest village. According to John, some of my earliest memories show of a village that was lively and quite close to where I currently stood. Villages mean people. People mean life-energy. Life-energy means shadow-dwellers, and if I’m lucky, it will mean Max too.

Now entering the forest, it became apparent that something else, something destructive had entered before me. The forest had very little light, and some of the surrounding trees were torn apart; fully grown trees snapped in half. There was also a very distinct, dirt road in which I was obligated to follow. I had a faint sensation that I was being forced down the dirt road by an outside source, although it also felt as if I was free to choose another path, and the only reason I couldn’t was because I didn’t want to. There was an eerie feeling about the forest, a feeling that I didn’t too much enjoy. Hopefully, I would get to the end of the forest soon.

I experienced what felt like an earthquake coming from the pit of my stomach. "Ugh, I’m so hungry."

"Well," said John, "I did say before, the use of the art of shadows requires a lot of energy, which will require a lot of food."

"Yeah, you weren’t kidding. I can’t even remember the last time I ate."

"You ate about two hours ago. Remember, when you picked those apples from the trees we found?"

"Yeah, I remember now. Not like that helps, though."

After a little bit more walking, I was met with an open area that held only two things:  a rock large enough to sit on, and a small girl that sat upon it, kicking her feet. There were two things that stood out from the girl’s appearance. The first thing was the size of her eyes. They were huge; at least three times the size of my own. The second thing was that the girl appeared to be transparent, almost as if she were a ghost. The wide gaze of the little girl soon captured me. She made a gesture with her hand, inviting me over. I proceeded, obligated to approach. Once I was close enough, I noticed that in her right hand she held a ragdoll that heavily resembled her.

"Hello," said the girl in a high-pitched, innocent voice. "What’s your name?"

"Sarah Pickaro," I said, slightly slower than usual, as I was fixated on the doll.

"My name is Susan, nice to meet you," said the girl, as she raised her right hand along with the ragdoll to shake.

I raised my hand to shake hers, but stopped myself as I soon realized it wasn’t her hand she wanted me to shake, but the doll’s hand instead. The girl raised her hand, holding the doll, and the doll actually raised its own hand by itself. Quickly retracting my hand, I said, "Uh, I’ll pass on the handshake."

"Okay," said Susan. "Will you help me?"

"Sorry kid, but I don’t have time to help people," I began to walk away, as my obligation to stay mysteriously faded.

"Please, you must help me. My father is in this forest. He’s being attacked by monsters."

Susan said this without much worry in her voice. However, the word ‘monster’ stood out to me. "What do you mean by monster?"

"They were super tall and scary. They had big, sharp teeth, and they looked like shadows."

"They?" I asked intrigued.

"There were two of them."

After a quick evaluation, I concluded that the two monsters that Susan referred to were probably shadow-dwellers. "I’ve changed my mind. I’ll help you."

"Really? Thank you Sarah, you’re a good person. Come with me, I’ll show you where I saw the monsters."

A path opened up that I was previously unaware of, as my obligation to follow soon returned. Susan and I walked down twisting pathways, and I lost track of where I was, but she seemed to know her way pretty well. Soon, I was met with the sound of roaring and screaming, simultaneously. The sound that I knew to be quite familiar, for it was the sound that shadow-dwellers made. Soon after the sound had entered my ears, my eyes were met with an open area, rather similar to the one that I met Susan in. There was a whimpering man on the ground, slowly inching himself away from the monstrous sight of the shadow-dwellers. The man wore a trench coat and top hat, with a walking stick lying on the ground next to him.

"P-p-please, do not harm me, whatever you are," said the man.

"There he is. Please Sarah, help him," said Susan, as her ragdoll anxiously tugged at my arm.

I quickly retracted my arm. The doll was beginning to creep me out. "Okay, okay I’m going. Don’t be so impatient."

Clenching my muscles, I pulled some liquid shadows from the ground and quickly propelled them towards one of the shadow-dwellers. Making contact, I managed to gain their attention.

"You’re going to kill a defenceless man? That’s pretty cowardly. Why don’t you try fighting a formidable foe?" I said confidently.

The shadow-dwellers looked at each other for a brief moment. One of them pointed towards the man and the other nodded its head and grunted. The shadow-dweller who had pointed, then began to approach me, while the other continued to terrorize the man.

"They’re planning to split up," John informed. "You’re going to have to attack the shadow-dweller nearest to the man first."

"I don’t care about the man," I objected. "The plan is to kill all the shadow-dwellers and find Max. I don’t have time to save every person I happen to meet."

I quickly readied four solid shadow balls and shot them wildly at my foe. The shadow-dweller raised its hand and created a shield out of shadows to thwart my attack. Projectiles repelled off the face of the shield as it launched in my direction. With little time to react, the shield and I made contact as the force of it pushed me to the ground. The shadow-dweller continued its approach, claws extending from the tips of its fingers. I quickly returned to my feet as I was met with vicious claw swipes, although they weren’t too difficult to avoid. I conceived a plan and immediately executed it. Relaxing, I fused into the shadows beneath me in order to get myself behind the shadow-dweller. Fusing back out of the shadows, I created a raised, solid platform for myself to jump onto and then off again, to latch myself on the shadow-dweller’s back. Whilst latched on, I shifted my weight, bringing the shadow-dweller down into a tumbling fall. With the shadow-dweller face down on the ground, I grabbed the top of its head, making sure to grip firmly. Finally, I whipped its head backwards, hearing a satisfying cracking sound as I did so.

"No!" said the man, in fear. "Don’t kill me, not here of all places."

I could hear the man’s heart rapidly beating faster, fearing for his life. I was curious as to why he said not to kill him here of all places. I began a steady approach toward the second shadow-dweller, who was beginning its approach toward the man. The shadow-dweller then retracted a liquid shadow in which it shaped into a sharp, triangular object. Hardening the shadow, the shadow-dweller then propelled it through the man’s neck, killing him, as he lay motionless.

"No, Daddy" said Susan, still with no expression in her tone.

The shadow-dweller expanded its nostril, sucking the life-energy from the dead man. Seeing an opportunity to kill the shadow-dweller while it was occupied, I sprinted towards it, extracting some shadows in which I shaped into a sword-like object. Hardening the shadows, I stabbed it into the shadow-dweller’s back and out of its chest. Pitch-black blood oozed from the carcass as the shadowy monster fell to the ground.

"Okay, there you go kid," I said to Susan, "I got rid of the monsters for you."

"But you didn’t save daddy," said Susan in tears.

"What does it matter? He’s going to turn into a ghost just like you anyway," I said assuming that’s what she was. "You’ll see him soon."

"Didn’t you read the sign? This is Ragdoll Forest. When children die in this forest, their souls get stored within ragdolls and they are imprisoned here until they become adults. But, if you’re an adult and you die here, then you disappear forever," Susan continued to cry. "It’s all your fault. You’re a meanie."

"Oh boo-hoo. Your father’s dead. Suck it up, you’ll get used to it."

"She’s right you know," said John.

"Don’t you start now! This is stupid. We only have sixteen shadow-dwellers left to kill, so I’m leaving."

"You can’t leave," said Susan, growing a rather unsettling smile. "You’re an adult. If you die here, you will disappear too."

I was then met with an unexpected confrontation. The ground beneath my feet began to darken as I started to sink into it. Susan began to laugh, not as though she were satisfied, but as if she were being forced to laugh. She was like a puppet being pulled by strings; controlled by someone else. This reminded me of what Susan had just said; her soul is in the ragdoll. The ghost is just a puppet. I had sunk down to my waist and, not a minute too late, I retrieved a shadow, shaping it into a sharp object as it hardened. I launched the shadow at the ragdoll as it pierced through the stitching. The doll fell to the ground and Susan’s ghost disappeared. The ground returned to normal, but not before launching me into the air. I hit the ground, landing flat on my back. Luckily, I wasn’t propelled too high for the landing to be painful.

Getting up, I peered at the ragdoll. "She was an ass. I try to help a person and they end up attacking me."

"Her actions were not unjustified," argued John. "You had ample opportunity to at least attempt in saving her father. Instead you chose to focus solely on the shadow-dwellers. That man’s death is on you."

"Whatever, it doesn’t matter. All I can think about now is food. I’m even more hungry than I was before."

"Then I suggest finding a suitable meal on our way to our destination."

"Oh look, you actually said something today that wasn’t stupid or annoying. Congratulations," I sarcastically stated.

I continued walking through the forest, finding no edible food. Eventually, I found my way outside of the forest in the direction of the village I was heading to. I left the forest with satisfaction, and little guilt about what had happened, although I didn’t show it. The only things I cared about now were Max and the shadow-dwellers. The less shadow-dwellers there were, the safer Max would be.