Shadow Slave

For a moment, Sunny was afraid that they had been walking in circles all this time and now returned exactly to where they had started. But then, he calmed himself down and noted that this river, while as eerie as the one they had crossed on a wooden boat, was rather different.

He couldn't exactly explain it, but it didn't feel the same. Plus, there was no pier with two boats tied to stone pillars anywhere in sight… or rather, sense.

Instead, there was a bridge.

Sunny could feel its shadow falling on the cold water, solid and firm as the stone it was built from. The bridge arched over the river, leading far into the distance.

Not wishing to spend another minute in the terrible maze that no living thing could see if it hoped to remain alive, Sunny led the cohort toward the bridge.

If Cassie was correct, they would be safe after crossing the second river. Sunny surely hoped that it was true, because the long journey where he had to play the role of a guide for five blind people had been nothing short of exhausting.

After spending seven… or was it eight by now?... months on the Forgotten Shore, Sunny had thought that he possessed a high tolerance for terror. But this last ordeal tested the limits of his mental endurance.

Walking through that dark place with his sight taken away…

It was a miracle that Cassie had somehow managed to remain sane at all.

He tensed up when they entered the bridge, expecting for something dreadful to happen at the last moment. But the silence was not broken by anything except for the sound of rushing water, their steps, and laborious breathing.

The cohort walked on the bridge, leaving the dark maze behind. Soon, they could feel the mist surrounding them grow thinner.

some point, it was

without any trouble

several more steps, Sunny stopped and finally allowed himself to tremble. Then,

"Are we through?"

quiet, each of them subconsciously avoided speaking ever since entering the mist.

few moments later, Cassie answered in

"I… I think so?"

wasting any more time, Sunny untied the cloth that covered his eyes and removed

stone shore inside a vast cave, through which the underground river was flowing unobstructed. Some distance away from them, the wall of the cave came down, with a

of the cohort were removing the strips of cloth. Sunny

had already opened her calm grey

around, Sunny followed her gaze… and

few meters away from them, on the shore of the dark river, he saw a human skeleton. It was sitting on the cold stones, its back

from the catacombs of the Dark City, this one

place where the First Lord of the Bright Castle had

***

river, just a few meters away from the bridge that he had

eyes closed at all times. But in the end, the wounds

the Nightmare Creatures, created a safe place for the humans sent to the Forgotten Shore to live,

friends and companions had died, leaving him alone in