Shadow Man; A Dark Story of Jude Rutherford

Tales of Shadow Man

Getting to school today, my problems only grew worse. Everyone kept singing the praises of Shadow Man, the fake one obviously. And it felt as if they would never stop.

In the class rooms. By the school kitchen. In the principal's office. In the rest rooms. At the basketball court. Even right beside my innocent two ears, I could hear people screaming.

"Shadow Man this! Shadow Man that!"

They kept talking about the imposter while the real one was walking among them. But they never noticed, not even for once. They never noticed me.

"Today we were saved from the curling grasps of death by none other than our beloved hero of Twillightoria - Shadow Man." Ariana declared to the juniors who had gathered around her like listening sheep to listen to the marvelous tale of the miracle which we had endured today.

Did I say that Ariana was a good story teller? A perfect one at that. She took her time to properly analyze the electrifying moves and the extremely cool methods which Shadow Man used to save all of us, especially herself.

"He grabbed me by the waist and looked into my eyes and said, 'Ariana, today is not the day you die'. That took my breath away".

Even though she never actually saw him for a second. Funny.

The juniors did not know any better anyway, they all bought the ridiculous story, gasping and smiling.

"Awwn... You are so lucky, Ariana..."

"I wish I was the one instead..."

"Tell us more please..."

I always knew that girls were quite easy to deceive. But what the hell was that??

Anyway there seemed to be a bright side to all of this. Even though I was angry about this imposter problem at first... and I am still angry about it... I still was able to take some joy from the things I saw around me. If anything, it proved how much the people had grown to love me. Even the principal who always talked down on Shadow Man was full of praises for him today.

"I have always argued that mutants are nothing but a failure to mankind, a virus to the community of humans. Today, I take back my words. Maybe, just maybe, mutants can also be a blessing to our world."

I would take that home, Mr Principal. If there came a day and everyone eventually found out that I was infact a mutant, I would refer to my principal's speech today and hope that everyone accepted me as a blessing to their world.

This was because so far, mutants had been the subject of intense hatred among the people of my city. All mutants were considered to be monsters except for, of course, Shadow Man.

Three years ago, the earth was still the safe place that you all know. Science and technology was helping humans to grow more and more, and humans were becoming the most dominant species in the entire universe.

Then one day, it all changed when Professor Norman Einstein launched his his Mega Life Form Experiment 2.0

The experiment was meant to make humans stronger and reduce the need for robots.

According to Einstein, "Humans are becoming too dependent on these sullen machines! These mechanical animals are becoming more and more intelligent, day by day. I fear that one day, these robots would get tired of humans bossing them around and they would wage a war of rebellion, taking over the world. What shall be our faith then?"

Yeah. I know, he was such a crazy man. Which was why he failed to create the mega humans he spoke so openly about. Rather he gave rise to a newer species - Mutants!

"Professor Einstein has announced that today will be the day when he will test his first subjects and make them mega humans". I was at home when I saw the news. And somehow I just knew, that my life was about to change... forever.

The experiments went wrong as you know. And instead of calling an abrupt end to it, Einstein went further ahead rather, causing a terrible explosion which swept through the entire city of Twillightoria. He went completely crazy.

While some people died and some ended up in the hospital, many others were safe from the effect of the explosions. At least that was what everyone thought.

Until suddenly, strange violent creatures started appearing everywhere, laying waste to human lives in far more brutal ways than the intelligent mechanical animals could ever dare to imagine.

At first, people thought these creatures were aliens.

"Another alien spotted in the Stephanie Lane Subway!"

"The reoccruence of alien violence increases exponentially!"

"More and more aliens! Where are they coming from?!"

But they were not aliens. They were us. Humans, turned into animals. Not mechanical animals. But monsters. Far worse than rebellious robots.

"Breaking news! One of the violent alien creatures has just been spotted, switching form to become a college student who had earlier been declared missing! This begs the question..."

And we realized that there were no aliens. There was just us. Mutants.

But that was three years ago. Now, mutants have become a part of normal life. Yet humans do not want to welcome them. A mother could disown a child if he was born a mutant, a father could kill his own son if he found out he was a mutant. Everybody hated mutants. Which was why Shadow Man had always remained in the shadows, because no one would love the man behind the shadow anymore if he ever revealed himself.

The day soon came to an end. As usual, I tried to get close to Ariana on the way home. As usual, it was just an impossibility. She was surrounded by all the quivering juniors who had not gotten enough of her ridiculous stories yet.

I followed behind for a while, keeping my distance and keeping my eyes on her as I watched her walk away among her friends. She looked more beautiful when she was lying.

But it was getting late now. I needed to get home. Not because I had a happy family waiting for me but because I had nowhere else to go.

As I turned into the silent road, moving along on a lonely path, time stopped. So did the atoms of matter.

Everything floated around me, and I knew what that meant.

"That imposter!" He had come to find me himself.