CHAPTER 38: ARE YOU THE SHADOW KING?

The warm wind of the hallway brushing through artificial flowers standing at the edges of every door, carrying a sweet scent of pineapple and the desolation of paint on the wall.

Soft footsteps echoed as Kai walked to his door, opened it, and entered, throwing himself on the bed. He gasped, stretching himself and brushing his right hand across his face. For two minutes, his palm kept on brushing and moving his hair sideways.

’What a stressful day,’ he thought, closing his eyes and welcoming the cool air gushing from the opened window and pushing the curtains sideways. Sleep dwelled on him, clinging to him tightly and forcing his mind to turn numb.

The curtain moved, crumpling, mending into itself, and brushing on the wall. Fireflies flew by the window, stopping at the stool and jolting up in the air, joining the grouped fireflies.

Wherever darkness ruled at the corners of the barracks, shadows moved, shifting and climbing high on the walls and entering into open windows.

In Kai’s room, tiny glows of blue and red lights sneaked out of his closed eyes and lightened the room. He felt the heat the light carried as his body shook, trembling and moving hastily on the bed.

On the second time, he saw himself at the same dream and at the same ground, but this time, saw other people dressed in black robes walking toward an unknown destination.

Kai inhaled, closed his eyes, and cracked them open before taking his first step. Little by little he moved past the building, entering into a new red earth that shimmered and hummed with harp sound whenever a thudding sound echoed as boots slammed on it.

Reaching the door with red light sneaking out from it, he stopped, moving toward it and placing his palms on it. For the first time, he saw no one moving toward him or heard no one mentioning his name, but felt a heavy force slamming at his back whenever he tried moving his palm from the door.

...

"Wow, what a nice place," he said, opening the door and entering, tilting his head around, scanning the boxes and the glowing ceiling that seemed to be similar to the night sky.

He became overwhelmed, spotting black boxes of the same size as the one his mother left him, walked to it and raised his hand trying to feel the texture of it.

"KAI!..." A voice echoed from behind him, stirring a cold sense of fear in him, and for an unusual reason, he felt his body weakening, though it was just a dream, yet sweat beaded his physical body and wetted the bedsheets.

"Who is there?" Kai said, shouting and swinging his hand in the air, and stopped after finding no one. Though he saw no one, yet the tension never vanished, as his bones began to crack on their own and curled in him, piercing his veins so much it felt as if wanting to flee from his palms.

A red-hot pain surged in him so deep he fell, slamming his knees on the ground and gritting his teeth. He tried shouting but his throat denied him, making his chest arch from the force at which the shouts carried.

At the far distance in front of him, at the other side of the room he was in, shadows moved, floating in the air, swelling on the walls and on the ground.

He saw them but couldn’t do anything as his own body denied him total access.

...

"Are you the shadow king?!" the sound came again, and when Kai forcefully cracked the bone in his neck and stared at the direction the shadow erupted from. Lo and behold, a twelve-foot being stood at his front, stretching from the ground to the ceiling and bending his head downward with a grin on its face.

Immediately he saw the being, he jolted up from the dream, turning and slamming himself on the floor with a loud thudding sound. After raising himself from the floor, his chest heaved, spotting the marks at the back of his hand and in his palms. The dotted marks shimmered with red on his right hand and blue on his left hand, but vanished when footsteps passed by the other side of the door.

’What did I just witness?’ he thought, removing the wet bedsheet, replacing it with another, and sitting calmly on the edge of the bed, at where he could see the night sky.

Sleep had vanished from his eyes yet, he felt drowsy, scratching the skin under his right eye and yawned.

The sky rumbled, followed by two distinct lightning flashes that tore through the sky, turning the dark sky into a daylight exposure. And on the second rumble, tiny drops of rain dropped from the sky, falling on the roofs and the road, flooding the gutters at the far distance, welcoming the first day of the second month of the new year.

...

"We’ll strike when on the third day," Kang said, pushing and dragging the edges of the sword held tightly in his palm.

Boats roamed, carrying and placing brown boxes with a red skeletal head carved at its side into the huge van. In the other rooms, dynamites and other blasting weapons packed in an opened box.

"Have you received the coordinates from our guy?" Denis said, walking and stopping beside Kang who now raised the sword and placed it in the burning fire as if burying it. He pulled it out, placed it in the pond of dirty water and waited till the evaporating air stopped flying in the air before cleaning it with a black cloth.

"Yes, I have the coordinates, all we need now is to wait and counter them on their operation, there we will get a lot of soldiers to slam, not only that brat among them," Kang said, staring at his grinning reflection in the now clean sword.

"What about the golden sword? Have you started training with it?" Denis added, folding his hand on his chest.

"About that sword, didn’t you hear of one of our men dying after sneaking into my tent?"

"Wait... you mean someone among us tried stealing the sword from your disposal?"