Shadowless part III

A blood soaked sun rose on Neverland. It’s rays casting out lingering shadows. They crawled back to the dark corners of the island. Chased away by blinding light, they linger under the earth where most dead things rot.

Rotting away was a way of life for the, very not dead, Captain Hook. He had bid his time quietly, lurking around. Sure, getting swallowed by that old ticker hadn’t been a nice day. But eventually he had tore through the beast, hook piercing stomach and thick skin. The crocodile had vomited him on the edges of Skull Rock, bile and blood coating him. The acid had burned his skin and scalp. But he survived. No crew, no ship, just his right hook and need for vengeance.

As time passed his discovered the island was changing. Its nature and laws were profoundly at odds. Curiosity pushed him out of Skull Rock. A pirate could swim to the shore and seek his own answers. Which he did, and what a fine idea it had been. Under the cloak of night he’d approached the lost boys territory. And then he spotted him.

The bane of his existence flying care free. That night, blood boiling with anger, he’d followed the menace to the small leaf house. The one belonging to sweet, tasty, Wendy. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but it seemed the dainty girl was inside the house sleeping, and the flying idiot was watching her sleep, like a creep. And it wasn’t the only thing he was catching with his reddened eyes. Peter Pan, eternal pain in his ass, had grown. Not much by his own calculations. His ill fitted clothes gave it away. Did he catch budding stubble bear on the brat ? The idiot was a teenager. And a hormonal one by the looks of it. Lusting after sleeping young women…

Oh how interesting. He sneaked back to darkness. A plan was taking form in his, genius, mind. One that would give him his sweet revenge, and if he played his card right a pretty girl.

He’d started by producing more of his poison, distilled from his hateful tears. But a pirate, even a captain, if alone was no good. The remains of his crew had been killed by the savages and lost boys. Alone was a nasty thing to be. Nobody around to subjugate.

That’s when the voices had started to kick in. At first it had been but a whisper, lost in the echos of the Rock. Murmuring hateful words in his ears. Words became sentences, and the whisper grew as powerful as the roaring of turbulent waves.

Insanity was’t unwelcome in the mind of Captain Hook, in fact he’d always embraced it. This time he knew it wasn’t his mind unraveling. He learned to call it to him, to appraise it. And so the voice took a form. A misty darkness with glowing red eyes. About his height and shape. His shadow. His personal shadow had separated from him, grown and become something else.

The thing had a deep voice, each syllable came out of him ragged, filthy. A shadow for companion was a strange thing. But he could do worse.

Together they distilled more poison, and waited. Time was inconsequential to their need for vengeance. Skull Rock was abandoned and forgotten from the island, separated like a cut off limb.

Until, on a random night, he came. The moronic object of his darkest desires showed his ugly, adult, face on his Skull. Why did he came ? Hook could bet his shadow attracted him here. His hold on the thing was getting thinner by each passing day. The thing about severed shadows was that it came at a cost. The shadow needed to take its power from somewhere, and it used its owner as an infinite resource. Making the owner weaker and unbalanced.

As Peter wondered inside the Skull, the thing growled in his mind. It had an idea… One the Captain Hook could only agree upon. Hook grabbed his stash of crimson poison. Time for Peter Pan to pay.