Episode 21: Shadow Walkers End

The week went by and Fitz alternated sleeping in each of the resident's room.

"Quit kicking me?" Kacey whined at Fitz's body laying perpendicular to the way they were supposed to be sleeping.

In Eliza's room, Fitz couldn't sleep with her snoring and the same could be said about Mandisa Colchester and Akira just wanted their spaces back.

"Okay we going to figure out what's going on," Eliza finalized while they all sat in a circle in Fitz's room. 

"You said you heard voices that sounded like us and yourself but it looked like a figure," Mandisa starts off and Kacey chimes in.

"I think I might know what this is," she paged through the journal.

"The Skugga Devva or Shadow Walker is a being said to be around the time before Adam and Eve were created and were the original inhabitants of planet Earth," she went on to say.

"Like the Islamic djinn?" Mandisa asked herself.

"Jinn? Like the alcohol?" Akira asked and Fitz slapped his shoulder

"No, they are invisible beings that can shape shift into animals or specific people,"

"It says that every person in the world has one attached to them," says Kacey and points to a picture of the being, it had a thin slender body with ocean blue eyes.

"I've seen this," Fitz exclaims.

"Are they dangerous?" Colchester asks and Kacey shakes her head.

"No, they are usually benevolent and don't harbor any hate towards humanity and don't really bother making contact with humans only when they taste blood do they become stronger and their eyes turn red," 

"So why did it say that it was me," Fitz asks.

"Because technically the Shadow Walkers are our doppelgangers," Akira asks what that meant.

"Doppelganger is a ghost or spirit version of yourself that looks exactly like you but isn't your twin," Mandisa informs.

"Why do they look like shadows if they meant to be us?" Eliza asks.

"Its original form is a shadow but it may shape shift into you or an animal of its choosing," Kacey still reading from the journal.

"Why is it bothering Fitz- Nee?" Jiro asks while snacking on chocolate covered pretzel sticks.

"That I don't know, you just going to have to speak to it," Kacey says and closes the journal.

 Fitz was left in her room by the residents as they went back to their own rooms; she was unable to fall asleep, and it was well past midnight. She was filled with both exhilaration and terror. She felt someone standing over her just as her eyes in her completely dark room started to feel heavy.

 "What do I call you?" she mustered up the courage to ask and looked up at the black mass towering above her. 

"You can call me Nera," her voice was smooth and gentle, soft spoken but a bit hoarse.

"Nera, what do you want from me?"

"I don't know,"

"You don't know?" Fitz repeated in disbelief.

"I've been watching you," 

"Well that's unsettling," 

Nera abruptly changed the way she looked to resemble Fitz, but as a younger, ten-year-old version of herself. Fitz recognized this appearance when she narrowed her eyes in the dark.

 "Whoa," Fitz exclaimed.

"You have a pure heart, Marceline,"

"Not the full name," 

"I can help you," Nera says and wraps her fingers under Fitz's chin.

"Why?" Fitz questioned.

"Because I can,"

"Okay now you sound like me," this made Fitz chuckle.

"I must go before they find me, also be weary for the Rega Devva around your friend,"

The next morning Fitz explained what had transpired with Nera.

"What's a Rega Devva?" Eliza asks as she bites into a pear slice with a toothpick.

"I'll look it up in the journal later," Kacey tells him.

As night fell, Fitz was sitting up in bed talking to Nera about her life and how exhausting manifesting as Fitz younger self was. She also asked if Fitz could remain in her shadow form. Nera told Fitz that she had a family and siblings and was born just like any other human.

"Do your parents look like my parents?" Fitz asked her.

"Yes, everything that happens to you happens to us," Nera informed her.

She continued by saying that her father had also passed away, but that death is not the same for shadows because when a shadow passes away, its life vanishes from this world.

 "So there's life after death," she asked.

"Yes and no," she explained that once you physically die your spirit is the one that lives on, so you are a completely different person once you reincarnate.

She concluded, "So only those who have lived multiple lives have shadows."

"Do you know if my friends have shadows?" Fitz asked.

Nera said, "I can't answer," feeling as though she was concealing something, Fitz questioned Nera about why she couldn't respond, and then, out of sight, she vanished.

"Nera?" she called out to her, without success.

The next evening, Fitz was filled with questions for Nera.

"I heard voices one night was that the voices of the Shadow Walkers?" Fitz asked Nera.

"Yes, they were your friends shadows," Nera told her.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Fitz asked.

"Because they were listening,"

"Do they watch my freinds like you watched me?" Fitz queried.

"No, most Shadow Walkers keep to themselves,"

"Did you turn invisible?" Fitz asked Nera with suspicion.

"You could comprehend what happened?" Nera, joyful.

"Can I?" Fitz hopped off the bed to stand next to Nera.

"Can you what?"

"Turn invisible," 

"You can but knowing you, you would find it 'gross' as you say" Nera states.

"I won't, I promise," 

With a torch in hand, Fitz descended the stairs, passing through the grand mansion doors as the moonlight streamed through the draped curtains. She went into the garden, where she saw something and pursued it.

She whined and struggled to hold on to a frog in her hands, asking, "What am I suppose to do now—ew."

"Give it here," Fitz placed the wriggling creature in Nera's pitch black hands and her sharp nails stabbed it.

"You killing it?" Fitz, shocked.

"We not done yet,"

"There's more?!" Fitz yelled and her voice echoed and rustled the trees nearby.

"Use this," Nera tossed a blade with a wooden handle on the floor.

"To do what exactly?" 

"Skin it" Nera deadpanned.

"Ew" she elongated the word and cringed at the very thought of it.

"How is this supposed to turn me invisible?" Fitz asked.

"You use the flesh of a frog with Slovvik scripture to turn invisible,"

"Isn't there an easier way to do this?" Fitz still apprehensive.

"No, this is an Agma Devva's cloaking spell I learn

t when I was younger," Nera concludes.

"And here I was playing with Barbies,"