Disclaimer:  El Hazard is the property of AIC/Pioneer LDC.

                                                Shadow Fallen

    Do I wake or dream.  In this endless night I do not know.  I can
never know...

    I remember.  They called me crazy when I told them that the Shadow
tribe could not exist in total darkness.  I told them that if they
banished the light from this world we would be annihilated along with
the light that we fear.  They denied that they feared the light,
claiming that they had nothing but hatred for it.  Hatred is as blind as
the darkness they thought they desired, and just like darkness hatred
will obscure the self.  Unlike the darkness hatred will never ever
release you once you have fallen prey to it.  They think that hate makes
you strong and don't realize that once you've succumbed to its deadly
embrace that you can never emerge victorious or otherwise ever again.
    This is their punishment and lesson for me.  I have been confined in
absolute darkness to prove that I still exist.  I think therefore I am.
I think I am not therefore I must be going mad.  I have no shape, just a
consciousness floating in space.  I have tried to create the illusion of
form but illusion that cannot be seen is useless, useless to the point
of nonexistence.  I used to think that we used illusions only to fool
the others, now I think we have been trying to fool ourselves.  How
ironic.
    Power.  Everything is about power.  Light is heat, heat is energy.
Motion (work) equals energy but what of motion that creates no heat.
Can there be heat without out light or power without heat?  As a
scientist I should say no, as a shadow... What should I say as a shadow?

    What is Roshtaria?  I see a picture in the mind I cannot feel.  What
is a picture?  Lines and color that is seen with the eyes.  Color is
light and eye is an object who's sole purpose is to translate light for
the mind.
    What is a shadow?  What is darkness?  What is light?  Who am I?
What am I?  Am I?

    The receptacle that had been fashioned to hold Galen in absolute
darkness was located in his own lab.  A guard walked past the rows of
glass tubes and scientific equipment nervously.  He was to release the
prisoner.  He had never believed that it was good luck to enter a lab,
not for anyone other than a scientist anyway.
    He breathed heavily as he approached the metal orb that held the
scientist.  The release switch felt horribly cold in his hand as he
pulled it toward himself.  For a moment he wondered what condition Galen
would be in.  When the orb opened he gasped, "He's gone."
    All at once the hundreds of glass test tubes and beakers shattered.
And then there was darkness...


Author's notes:  What can I say? It's different.  This scene was just
floating about in my head.  Someday maybe I'll write a fic to
incorporate this into.