Shadow Marionette

I safely returned to the apartment that night with Liam's help. Of course, carrying Ethan in his rabbit form while being inside the cage.

"Exactly how did you got yourself in that situation?" I asked him as soon as I locked the apartment door.

"Tsk! Was gonna meet you there but I never expected that pole to be waiting there. Turned out he was a peculiar all along. Don't know what kind but I wasn't able to move and you knew what happened next. Threw me inside the cage," he said as he stomped his foot three times and transformed into a human as grayish-white smoke emanate from his body.

Wasn't surprised to hear Liam's a peculiar. "But how'd you know I'd be there?"

He only shrugged and said, "How would I know if it wasn't Vlad who told me?"

"Oh! I see. Did they say anything about me?"

"Nothing except that they wished to speak with you as soon as possible. And by the way, there's something I need to ask you."

"Spill it out."

"In that world, uhm… Did you see anyone who—" but he suddenly stopped and his countenance shifted. "Nevermind."

What the heck?

"Well, I think everything's fine as of now. I'll be back before the sun rises tomorrow," when he said that, he transformed back to being a rabbit and disappeared into the window.

"Ethan was acting weird again."

Now that I'm finally alone, a sudden thought came into my mind. Iksha told me that I am now able to cast some illusions. But how the heck am I gonna do that? I regretted not asking her when I had the chance. But there's no point crying over spilt milk.

I went in front of the mirror and lifted my shirt to look at the tattoo-like scar on my chest. It was far from being attractive, in fact, it was hideous.

It looked like a contorted eye. Reddish as if irritated around it. Just imagine having an amateur and inexperienced tattoo artist doing your tattoo without using any ink. That's what it looked like.

I put my shirt down and paced around the room. 'How am I supposed to cast an illusion?'

To humor myself, I tried lifting my right hand and pointing my palm at the opposite wall. Well, obviously, nothing happened. It only made me look like a fool.

Then what the heck should I do? Meditate?

I sat on the corner of the bed and tried visualizing something I wanted to cast.

What about something scary? A demon perhaps? It will only be an illusion after all.

And I did that exactly. What does a demon look like? A bearded, muscular, red-hued man with horns?

I tried all kinds of silly positions. Sat like a monk while visualizing the image in my mind for more than five minutes. Acted like a kung fu master and did all those cool moves though I'm pretty sure they only looked cool inside my head. I can't say for sure what I actually look like on the outside. And guess what? Nothing! As in nothing happened!

I don't know how long has it been already. But I felt like all the energy I had left my body and I collapsed on top of the bed.

'Was Iksha right about the illusion thing?' I started to doubt.

"Okay, this will be the last time."

This time, I decided to take a different approach. I tried feeling the connection I have with the mortema inside my chest. Though it wasn't so obvious, I can feel something like a thin thread connecting me and the mortema.

Only, I'm not really sure if it will work.

But all of a sudden, a gush of purplish particles floated in the air and lighted the room. No, I think they're everywhere. I looked outside the window and saw that they were all over the city.

"Amazing."

I tried controlling them but they're not budging from their places.

Tired from all the crazy things I did the whole night, I slid on the floor and pretty much just watched my shadow stretching long towards the opposite wall from the moonlight. And that's when I thought of an idea.

I saw the devourer earlier dive into my shadow. My shadow, according to the devourer was something he can hide in. What if instead of just controlling these purplish particles, I will lead them towards something? Like, say, my shadow?

And I did just that. At first, I thought it will never work but then they started to wriggle and followed my command. But it took a very long time before I finally managed to lead a few of them to get inside my shadow.

Honestly, I didn't really know what to do after that. But that's when my shadow began moving.

It separated itself from me and stood by my front and basically just stood there.

"Ha! What's this? A shadow marionette?"