Chapter 1

My name is Roy Warren, and this all started when I was 13 years old resting on my bed, the second week of summer vacation, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. My computer was broken thanks to my obnoxious older sister “borrowing” it. (Because she definitely asked to use it and didn’t just walk into my room and take it for herself or anything) All the good TV shows were in between seasons and my brother was hogging the living room where the video game consoles were. In short, I was bored out of my mind. So in desperation, I left the house in search of something to do. Anything that could free me of my boredom, what I found was something beyond my wildest expectations.

Walking and running were always something that I enjoyed. Just moving along seeing the world, the people living lives I would never know about. At the time I was part of my school’s cross-country team so I could reach a decently long distance on foot. Eventually, I walked a few miles away from my house when I heard what sounded like crying.

It felt strange as I didn’t feel like I was hearing the crying. It felt like it was resonating in my head. I knew where it was coming from, though how I knew that I couldn’t say. At least at the time. As a curious person by nature, I’m not someone who just ignores such an unusual situation. I decided to track down the source of the crying. (I mean it’s not like I had anything better to do) So I followed the feeling for two whole blocks before I came across a small dark alley.

Now deep inside myself, I could somehow tell, that if I went down this alley my life would be changed forever. A part of me wanted to turn back and walk away, to just live my boring simple life, but then I realized I was starting to HEAR the crying and it was heartbreaking. It made me feel such a combination of negative emotions that I had never felt before. I felt fear, anger, hopelessness, disgust, confusion, and loneliness all combined into one and all being transmitted by the crying directly into me. I couldn’t turn away. I had to go stop the crying. So I walked into the alley.

It was hard to see but in the dark, I came across a box. It was a small cardboard box that was covered in an old blanket. I could hear the crying coming from the box. Something was inside and it was shuddering and shaking. I walked up to the box slowly.

“Hey, are you ok?” I asked, deciding to maintain some distance.

The box stopped shuddering and everything grew deadly silent. I stood there not knowing what to do. So I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do. Talk.

“I heard you crying, I thought you might be hurt or in danger.” I started saying

The box stayed silent but I saw whatever was inside shifting around shaking the box.

“You don’t have to be afraid, I heard your cry and it sounded afraid ... in pain ... and ... alone. Is that how you feel?” I was not sure what I was doing. I wanted to calm whatever was inside. Present myself as someone they could trust. I didn’t feel I was doing very well.

“You really want to help me?” The box asked with a small quiet voice. It took me a second to recover from the shock of getting an answer.

“Yeah, if I can, I want to help you,” I responded not knowing why I felt such an urge to help this random person in a box.

“Liar.” The box snapped with a tone of anger. The box trembled with rage.

“Why do you think I’m lying?” I asked a little defensively.

“Because humans never want to help me. The second I show you my face you’ll either run away screaming or try and kill me.” That one stunned me. Humans, who calls people humans? I was so stunned I didn’t even think about what I said next.

“People either run from you or try to kill you when they see you? How ugly can you be?” I said without thinking.

“Just leave me alone you jerk.” The box responded.

I saw the box shaking again as whoever was inside moved. I couldn’t believe someone with so little faith in humanity could exist. I don’t really think much of people either but the idea that someone would attack a person after seeing their face? It was a bit much for my young mind.

“I promise you I won’t hurt you and I won’t run away,” I said with as much authority as a 13-year-old can have.

“Fine, let’s just get this over with,” The box stated as it started moving and the old rag inside started to rise. I held my breath and prepared for a horrifying person to appear. The old blanket stopped after barely rising off the ground. The figure slowly pulled the old blanket down sliding it across its face. When it finally fell to the floor I stood shocked. In front of me stood the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She stepped out of the box keeping her head down and looking at the floor.

The box girl looked like she was barely out of middle school. She couldn’t have been anything taller than 150 cm. She had long black hair that fell to her hips. Her skin was porcelain white and almost flawless. Her clothes were falling apart and they weren’t very good at covering her up. She wore an old T-shirt with a long cut diagonally down showing off her left breast and her smooth flat stomach. The shorts she was wearing looked like they used to be pants that had the legs ripped off as the edges were uneven and frayed. She had an old thin sweater wrapped around her neck that looked as if it had been stitched back together so many times there wasn’t a single thread of the original sweater left. Her small feet were covered in bandages that looked like they had not been changed in months. Her body was tense, it looked like she was bracing herself for a punch. Then there were the strange markings. Her skin was covered in strange black markings. The many holes in her clothes let me see that the markings covered her whole body. The craziest thing was, they were moving. The black marks shifted and flowed across her body like rivers of ink. I stood silently, she was cute and beautiful and those markings made me curious and intrigued.

“Well, aren’t you going to run?” She asked as she was still looking down at the floor.

“Why would I do that?” I asked in a low voice still marveling at the intriguing beauty of the girl in front of me. Then things got more intense.

“BECAUSE I’M A MONSTER! A MONSTER WHO EVERYONE RUNS AWAY FROM!! NOW RUN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!” She yelled lifting her head, her eyes meeting mine.

I was entranced. Her eyes were glowing, and I mean literally glowing. With a magnificent purple light that I could only stare at in wonder.

“How could something such a beautiful girl be a monster,” I said, still mesmerized by her glowing eyes.

Her eyes widened then and the glow faded. With the purple light gone her bright purple eyes stared at me in shock.

“Beautiful?” She asked in a small confused voice. “You think I’m ... beautiful?”

“Yeah,” I said, still mesmerized by her eyes. “I never knew people could have eyes with such a beautiful purple color.” I couldn’t control my mouth anymore. Her body seemed to relax after that, though I could tell it wasn’t by very much.

“Who are you?” She asked, both of us still staring at each other, shocked.

“I’m Roy. Roy Warren.” I answered, “Can you tell me who you are?”

“I’m ... you can call me Mitsuki” She looked like she was calming down.

I was reeling, here in front of me stood a strange, beautiful, curiosity that had my mind in a daze. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to think of something to say but I came up blank.

“You’re really not going to run away?” She asked, her harsh tone replaced with a tone of confusion.

“No. Do you want me to run?” I questioned.

Her response tore right at my heart. “Everyone always runs. The ones who don’t attack anyways.” She responded, her voice heavy with sadness.

I remembered what drew me to her. Her crying. The feeling that it brought fear, anger, and loneliness. She thinks everyone would be terrified of her. Or disgusted.

“I don’t think you’re a monster. I think you’re someone who could use some company.” I said hoping to calm her fears. In all honesty, it was rather corny, but I’ve never tried to comfort someone before so I just went with what sounded nice.

Her face showed pure shock and confusion. I finally got a good look at her face. She was Asian, with a round face and a small button nose. Her eyes were opened wide from the shock which made them look too large for her face. It was cute. The black markings flowed across her face as well and they seemed to converge directly into her eyes.

“You ... you’re really not afraid of me?” She asked as she moved closer to me. “You ... you’re not disgusted by a freak like me?” Her voice was quiet and afraid.

She stepped closer to me. Her whole body was shaking and her eyes were filled with tears.

“Please...” She whimpered, her voice barely audible.

I reached out to her and pulled her close. I hugged her tightly and said the first thing I could think of.

“It’s okay” She stood motionless for a second not able to understand what was happening. She had been chased away from so many cities, even her parents turned their backs on her. She felt so lonely she couldn’t believe someone was honestly calling her beautiful. That’s when I pulled back and looked down at Mitsuki.

“Your parents turned their backs on you?” I asked not knowing how I knew that.

“What?” Mitsuki stepped back quickly, fear back into her eyes. “How did you know that!? Who are you?”

Her eyes were glowing again and the marks across her body were moving. I didn’t know what that meant, something told me it was very bad.

“Wait, please. I don’t know how but that just popped into my head.” I panicked. She was filled with anger and I could feel her feelings of betrayal. “It’s what brought me here. I know it sounds crazy but please, I would never betray you.”

She dimmed after that. Her markings stopped moving around her body. She was still suspicious but at least she was calming down. She leaned on the wall not knowing what to do with herself. I could feel her confusion, how she wanted to trust me, to finally have someone she could trust. She wanted to trust me but was afraid to do it. I was so confused, my mind was being flooded with thoughts and memories that weren’t my own. Emotions that weren’t my own were resonating within me. The whole thing was starting to give me a headache.

I saw a large burly man with an ax swinging it down at me. A small blond girl running away, screaming for help. They kept coming. I couldn’t understand I felt the same wave of fear, hatred, betrayal, loneliness, disgust, and confusion that I had felt earlier but they were getting stronger. The memories and emotions just kept pouring more and more, it was too many to process. My headache was getting worse. I was leaning against the wall trying to keep myself on my feet.

Mitsuki was standing away from me. I could see the concern on her face. I was happy to see she was concerned for me, or I would have been if I wasn’t on the verge of collapsing.

“What’s happening to you?” Mitsuki whispered.

She didn’t quite trust me yet. Part of her was thinking this was some crazy overly complicated trap. Hard as it was just to stay standing I had to get her to believe in me. Get her to understand I did want to help her. Since I wasn’t in a position to use much thought I just said whatever came to mind first.

“It’s you. My head ... is being filled with ... memories ... emotions. Of being ... chased and attacked ... of being betrayed, of being hurt as ... people run away ... in fear.” I continued, not entirely sure what I was saying, “These thoughts ... These emotions ... They’re yours. I don’t know why ... but I was called to you. Please ... let me ... let me help you.”

“Aren’t you the one that needs help?! You look about ready to keel over!” Mitsuki shouted back.

She was right. I could feel my limbs losing strength. My headache felt like someone was taking a spike and driving it right between my eyes. My vision was getting blurry and it was getting harder to talk.

“Your p ... pain ... is ... is so ... much worse. This ... this is ... nothing.” I breathed out as my mind fell into darkness. Mitsuki ran over to me concerned and confused but I was already gone.

Three Years Later

The alarm was blasting out pulling me from sleep. I looked at my clock and saw it was 5:00 am. I hated waking up early. I was awake even before the sun and I just wanted to go and crawl back under the covers but I had work to do today and it was gonna take a while.

I thought back to my dream. A dream of the past. I wonder why I was dreaming about the past. Well, it’s been about three years since Mitsuki came into my life. It should be three years exactly tomorrow. It seemed almost poetic to reminisce about that fateful day now. I looked under my bed and was not surprised to see nothing but darkness but I could feel her, Mitsuki, and I also felt that she was pissed I disrupted her sleep.

I remember back to that day three years ago, she spent hours hiding me and protecting me until I finally woke up. Afterward, I offered to take her in and snuck her into my house. I knew I couldn’t abandon her to the streets and she seemed to trust me a little, so she started living under my bed. She reminded me of a cat, cautious and hard to understand but thanks to the strange connection we shared we grew closer. As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months Mitsuki became my best friend.

Mitsuki told me she wasn’t human. My best guess, from the fragments of memories I could see was, that she was born to normal parents but they abandoned her when her powers manifested. How she had powers and those powers made it so people she met either feared her or wanted her power for themselves.

It was awkward at first, but thankfully after that initial flood of her emotions and memories the headaches weakened considerably so staying conscious wasn’t a problem. Over time our connection stabilized and we got used to each other’s company. However, Mitsuki wasn’t much of a talker and I still have a hard time getting her to be honest and open with me. But over time she started to trust me and after three years we’ve come a long way. My connection with her has only grown stronger though never as strong as when we first met. In the end, I’m still not sure why I’m connected to Mitsuki or where she came from but I don’t care much. I enjoyed her company when she decided to show herself anyway, and the new abilities I acquired from being around her were proving to be incredibly useful.

It seems the more time I spend with Mitsuki the more I start to change. After our first contact, her emotions would sporadically flash through my mind and I could always get a sense of how she was feeling at any given time. The feelings were usually vague and hard to grasp but I got better at interpreting them over time. I also have flashes of memories. They were always short and mismatched sometimes blending with other memories creating a very confusing mess. But the most severe changes were happening to my mind and body.

The first thing that changed was my intellect, I was just your average guy, some of my teachers would say I was on the smarter side but I never gave their words much weight. Now though, it was different. My thought processes were faster, I understood things quicker, and it was to the point where I could perform advanced mathematics and scientific problems easily in my head. My memory was stronger than I thought was possible. I was what could be easily classified as a genius. I knew it was thanks to Mitsuki, her power was flowing through to me making me smarter.

After my mind was my body, I started getting stronger and faster. It was great until recently when my skills started breaking world records. I had to quit cross-country since I could run a full twenty-four hours without even slowing down. Meanwhile, I could lift about 500 pounds without breaking even straining myself. When this strength started developing it brought a lot of attention so I learned quickly to start holding back while still looking like I was trying. It was not as easy as expected and there was a lot of trial and error but so far no one has learned my secrets.

I could feel my hunger rising and since I was going to be pretty busy later so getting breakfast out of the way seemed like a good idea. All my physical enhancements didn’t change my need for food and water, in fact, I found myself needing to eat more often than most.

I started to walk to the door when I felt my feet stuck on the ground. A black shadow was wrapping itself around them keeping me from moving. It wrapped itself around me climbing up my body until it was covering my entire body. Finally, the shadow faded and it was like nothing happened. That shadow, if you couldn’t guess, was Mitsuki. When she said she wasn’t human she wasn’t kidding. If there’s a name for what Mitsuki is she doesn’t know it and since I wasn’t just going to call her a shadow thing I decided I’d come up with a name myself. I named her an Umbra Viventem, or living shadow. It’s not the most clever name out there but it’s pretty self-explanatory. If you knew Latin anyway.

Mitsuki could become a shadow, so I’m decently sure her existence disproves a good portion of humans’ scientific understanding of the universe. She could move through the darkness and could manipulate it in ways that I could only describe as magic. She could open portals to different locations. Move at speeds too fast for the human eye to follow. She has incredible healing powers and according to Mitsuki is even able to heal massive gashes and lacerations, which was a little upsetting finding out how she knew about that. She can also completely hide her presence like she was now under my clothes. I had tried all kinds of sensors and radars but it seems impossible to detect her by any human means I could think of if she doesn’t want to be seen.

She wasn’t all-powerful though. Her main issue was light, which makes sense. The stronger the light that hits her the weaker she gets. The sun is especially dangerous. If she’s exposed to indirect sunlight she grows weak and slow. She can’t move well and her senses become dulled. Meanwhile, direct sunlight is deadly and will burn her if it touches her body, or it used to, anyway. It seems I’m not the only one who benefits from our connection. Mitsuki is becoming more and more resilient to light. She can survive sunlight now, though she becomes completely comatose after a few minutes of direct sunlight. Still, she can hide under my clothes for the whole day and not suffer anything but mild fatigue. It wasn’t that long ago that even just standing in a room with a window during the day could cause her to start burning. For now, her immunity seems to keep increasing alongside my physical and mental enhancements. So far I haven’t noticed any other drastic changes in her abilities though measuring such things was not a simple task.

Mitsuki still doesn’t talk much. She sticks to me pretty much 24/7 but she stays quiet. If I wasn’t directly connected to her and her presence, I would almost forget she was with me sometimes. Or I used to feel that way, ever since she started wrapping herself around me I’ve been very aware of her presence. But I feel her emotions and right now I can feel how annoyed she is with me for getting up so early.

“You can just stay and sleep if you want to sleep in so badly.” I tried to appease her a bit. I could feel her tighten around me pulling herself closer. Before we had met Mitsuki was very much a nocturnal creature. The dangers of the sun and her general weakness during daytime hours made this perfectly reasonable. However, nowadays she wants to come with me. She hated the daytime. It slowed her down and she always felt tired while the sun was out but she stuck by me.

Before Mitsuki would hide in my backpack or the dark corners of rooms I would go into. Since we met she rarely left my side but recently she’s attached herself to me.

I walked through the quiet house Mitsuki using her powers to make sure I didn’t make any noise as I headed to the kitchen. Thankfully the rest of my family was either asleep or working so I could prepare not just my breakfast but Mitsuki’s.

Food for her wasn’t a necessity but she did still have a sense of taste and enjoyed eating with me. She could eat anything a normal person could and some things humans couldn’t. Honestly, I would love to share a meal with her all the time but I was already eating an unnaturally large amount for one person so making more for her would be hard to explain to my family, so we saved that as a rare treat.

Mitsuki’s existence was a secret to the rest of my family. Mostly because I couldn’t think of an explanation for where a young girl came from. Especially since she was wearing rags covered in moving tattoos and had abilities that defied human understanding, I couldn’t exactly explain why I brought her home with me either.

So we decided she would hide herself away, recently by always attaching herself to me, though before she would simply hide in my room. It was a strange feeling at first. My heart pounded in my chest just thinking about how a cute girl was literally wrapping herself around me. I’ve gotten used to it now though since she clings to me every day. I’ve even started to feel slightly strange when she doesn’t coil herself around me.

So I finished making some breakfast for the two of us and she uncoiled herself and changed into her human form to sit across from me to eat. She used to eat without changing into her more human appearance but recently she’s started changing back into her human form when we are alone. I’ve been very grateful to be able to see her cute self like this rather than just watching a shadow slowly absorb away the food. However, I made sure to keep an eye on the sensors so no one catches her in the house.

My increase in intelligence made my engineering skills improve tremendously. I could build technology that would make NASA jealous. So I wired sensors, cameras, and detectors all around the house to keep tabs on everything and make sure no one finds out about Mitsuki.

We sat in silence as we finished our breakfast. Mitsuki still not being one for conversations and I could tell she still wasn’t all that happy being awake. Her appearance wasn’t any different than when I first met her. She was still a small thing standing at only 143 cm. (I measured) She looked incredibly young all around though I figured out fairly quickly she was not the age she appeared to be. Especially after seeing her not age a day in the three years we’ve been together.

Her old torn rags are gone, and now she wears a simple long-sleeved shirt and shorts that fit tight around her body. If she didn’t wear a baggy sweater that reaches down to her knees and covers most of her body you could easily see her slim curvy body. All a simple black of course. They were old clothes from my sister. Maybe a size too small but Mitsuki seemed to like them. Not much in the form of style though I’m not in any position to point out someone else’s lack of style. She was taking shy to a whole other level with the sweater covering her entire body. Thought that was cute in its own way too.

It’s a shame too, her body was gorgeous with long thin legs ending with small cute feet. Her waist was thin and her ass was nice and cute but plump and firm. Her breasts were a perfect handful, her hair long and black like strands of silk, and her skin was white and smooth as porcelain.

Thanks to some training we did together she eventually learned to hide the black marks that spread across her body. I was very disappointed by the development and wish she would embrace how majestic they made her look. Even after so long, I haven’t been able to give her more self-confidence and she thinks my compliments are just me trying to be nice.

After finishing our breakfast I took our plates and washed them in the sink while Mitsuki stood up and started concentrating. She moved to one of the kitchen walls and closed her eyes. The black marks started glowing and wiggling across her body down her arms and into the wall. They spread out creating a black triangle mark on the wall that seemed to sink into the wall.

A portal. One of many useful abilities Mituski had at her disposal. She could only make them at specific locations she marked beforehand but they could be as big as she pleased. They were incredibly convenient and made keeping our movements secret especially easy.

Mitsuki turned her head to face me and nodded at me. The portal was ready, is what she was trying to tell me, as she melted into the ground a formless shadow. Her dark shape snaked its way back to me crawling up my leg, A velvety cool sensation rolled across my leg before once again wrapping around my chest.

I walked through the portal feeling Mitsuki tightly wrapping herself around my body getting ready for the busy day ahead.

As I walked through the portal I felt the now familiar chill of the portal’s edges, like walking into a refrigerator. It was a dry chill that quickly shot away any remnants of sleep as I passed through it the feeling disappearing as swiftly as it came. On the other side, the dull sound of machine wiring filled the air. It was my laboratory, research facility, testing ground, and on many occasions a recreational area.

Once upon a time, it was an abandoned military hanger, now it was our secret place to learn and understand each other and our connection. The place was massive with a 30,000 sq ft area and 3 stories high ceiling which was made plenty of room to work with. We decorated the place more with function in mind rather than form. All the walls were old and discolored. We brought in steel 10ftx10ft panels to create rooms within the massive space but we never tried to make them more presentable. The original walls were stained, showing years of exposure to the elements. The floor was concrete with decade-old stains and scratches from who knows when. The outside was old and rusted with rusted metal slaps covering what used to be windows, and there were warning signs covering the rusted-up entrances. The road leading to the facility was overtaken by the wilderness, while the entire facility was covered in vines and other shrubbery. Anyone who saw it would probably assume nobody had been inside the place for decades. Which was perfect for us.

Inside all the machines I had made were strewn about. Some hummed quietly as they worked away. There was also furniture I had brought in to make a rest area for Mituski and me.

We spent a lot of time here, I studied myself and the changes my body experienced and studied MItuski and her powers and abilities. I also used my new intellect to create and build things that would make any scientist who saw them rethink their entire understanding of how our world works. It was all thanks to Mitsuki, through her I learned about things scientists hadn’t even dreamed possible.

At first, I didn’t know much about where her powers came from or how she got them. I’ve tried to look into what she did before we met but when I ask, she doesn’t answer and the visions and memories I get are too short and fragmented to make sense of anything. She’s still so much of a mystery to me but I’ve pieced together a basic understanding of her general abilities and skills.

I headed for the experimenting area, a portion of the warehouse sectioned off with a 50 by 50 sq ft lead box inside of which I tested out new creations, I called it The Testing Cube. It was the only room in the hangar that had strong lighting. Because of Mitsuki’s photophobia, everything was dimly lit, with weak filament lights that cast a weak orange light across the entire building. Enough to see but not bother Mitsuki. The Testing Cube had fluorescent lights that showed a bright blue. Mitsuki would get weakened by being exposed for too long so I sectioned off the whole thing. It wasn’t as bad as sunlight but even with her heightened resistance, she was still more comfortable in low or zero light.

The Testing Cube was fitted on all sides with cameras and sensors that I built from parts I ordered online and old computer parts I “collected” from landfills and garbage dumps. It took a few months but I was able to build them so they could record across the light spectrum, from X-rays to Thermal, they would catch anything. In comparison, the microphones that filled the area were a lot easier to make and only took a week to build. With that, any sound in the room would be captured and recorded.

For today I would test out the machine I had been working on for nearly a year. The connection strengthener. I couldn’t think of a good name for it yet, but if it worked, I could improve the strength of my connection with Mitsuki and learn more about her. It would tell me about what she doesn’t, or maybe can’t, tell me. If it works the fragments of emotion and memories should be larger and clearer meaning I can learn much more than ever before.

When I first told Mitsuki about my desire to create this machine, I expected her to try and stop me. In the end, while I felt her unease she didn’t try to stop me. Now the machine was in its final testing phase and she did nothing but quietly observe. I was fully prepared to end this experiment and destroy the machine the second she asked but she never did. I could feel her unease and apprehension but still, she just let me work. This reaffirmed my desire to make this machine. Whatever was going through her mind, I would get to it. Whatever doubts or fears she felt I would blow them away.