Corrupted Shadow

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Prologue
East Rukongai, late fall

The full harvest moon burned a fiery orange in the night sky. The air was clear, crisp, with just a touch of the bitter wind that signified that winter was on its way.

All across the small framing district quiet lights could be seen, dotting the landscape with small dots of yellow. They were  made of grass and rapeseed oil, silent sentinels on tall poles that watched over the farmers who were still laboring past dark. Here and there the quiet murmur of a lone voice or two could be heard, but there was very little conversation as rough hands worked steadily, dragging wheat back and forth across the threshing floors. The oracle had told them that rain would come by tomorrow, even though the sky was perfectly clear now. They had yet to prove the old woman and her bones wrong, and the prediction had sparked a frenzy of activity across the land. If they did not store the dried wheat in time a season’s work would be wasted. With winter biting at their heels, a spoiled harvest spelled starvation for many.

The fields themselves lay still and barren, the wind blowing dust and chaff over the hard, naked ground. Kana felt the cold through her bare feet as she walked alongside her husband, Natsuo, across a small path that divided two fields. Both of them carried heavy loads across their backs, a pile of wheat stalks that they were transporting to one of the threshing floors. His steps were slow and heavy, and she felt the same exhaustion. They had been at work since the first rays of dawn that morning, with a scant break at noon for a quick meal of barley bread and pickled fish. Then it had been back to their toils. Every muscle in Kana’s body was stretched to its limit across her slight frame. Her shoulders where tight and there was a burning pain in her spine. Yet she had born it all without complaint, Natsuo had done the same. He was a good man. They had been married that spring, and though he was stoic and spoke little to her, he had a strong and kind strength of character. Perhaps he even loved her. She smiled a little at that.

From the corner of her eye she caught some form of movement in the shadows at the edge of the field. She stopped, straightened up a bit, and peered into the darkness. The moon bathed the dark earth in golden light, casting strange, long shadows across the berms.

There was a presence there, something lurking just beyond the edge of her perception. And, narrowing her eyes, she caught a faint, bluish shimmering of light. A ghostly aura, hovering above the ground.

“Natsuo…” she began, her voice cracked and dry in her throat. But then she trailed off. It seemed to her that there was a faint, barely audible song. A lullaby. Listening closely she thought she could remember the tune, but just barely. Some caressing melody that her mother had sang to her as a child, playing at the back of her mind…

Calling her into the field.

She let her burden of wheat slip to the ground and her tired, spent body carry her into the darkness. Her mind was already far away, drifting in some comfortable, hypnotic dream.

By the time Natsuo realized that Kana was no longer behind him he had gone some distance down the path. He turned, saw the stack of stalks lying on the ground, and panic seized his chest. For some time now he had been uneasy, the atmosphere did not feel right. There had been a nagging, insidious throb at the back of his mind, ever since the sun had started to go down that day. He knew what dangers could lurk in the wild lands of the Rukongai to the east, he had seen a Hollow take its fill of souls, and there were desperate men at large as well, some more deadly than Hollows. He could not allow anything to happen to Kana. Not now.

He dropped his own bundle and with staggering, limping steps ran back to where she had been just a moment before.

“Kana!” he called out. There was no reply. His heart was pounding in his chest as he searched the fields frantically. She could not just disappear into thin air…

There. Something had moved from across the field, shrinking into the dark shadows of a dry creek bed. He took off once more, ignoring the pain in his stiff limbs as he ran. That subtle menace he had felt all along was no longer subtle, the danger was real. Palpable. An unhealthy, dank sweat dripped from his temples and his ragged breathing filled the silence. Nothing else could be heard, he was utterly alone in the stillness. Natsuo reached the tangled brambles of the creek bed and stopped.

“Kana!” he cried again, and then he listened. Nothing. Except…

The breeze moved through the stripped branches of the trees, a shadow seemed to fall across the land. And then he heard a song. Faint. Haunting.

Eyes wide he entered the thick mass of dead woods, his feet thrashing noisily through the blanket of brittle leaves on the ground.

“Kana,” he repeated her name over and over to himself softly. “Kana,”

The branches seemed to part before him and he entered a clearing. There, in a sickly pool of yellow moonlight, her body lay. Black blood smeared across her mouth and chest. All his strength drained suddenly from him and he collapsed to the ground, crawling to reach the body of his wife.

“Kana,” he cradled her gently, murmuring soft nothings in her unhearing ears. He rocked her back and forth as harsh tears dug trails through the dust on his face.

It had been too swift. There had been no warning. He could not comprehend it. Her death terrified her.

And then, from the corner of his eye he saw as a shadow moved. He turned, and was suddenly frozen in place as the darkness moved across the clearing. It blotched out the moonlight with inky fingers, reaching for him, growing ever darker and looming over him, like a wide, yawning chasm.

Then, the shadows swallowed him.

The Assignment
(Somnium Fluxus will post next, please refrain from adding to this RP until then.)