Hiding in the Shadows

"Where am I?" Shadow thought to himself. He attempted to look around himself. He suddenly realized where he was. "Great. I'm in the darkness again..." He knew the now familiar feeling of floating in the darkness. The darkness always seemed to grow larger and larger each time he had found himself floating in the void, and he knew the reason why it kept growing.

"I can read your feelings Shadow," a deep voice echoed around him. "I know your feelings towards those six ponies."

"So what?" Shadow responded angrily. "I don't care what you think of them. They care about me."

"The fact that you care about the ponies that can over power me disturbs me."

"Well get used to it."

"You really think you can tell me what to do? You think you can control me?" The voice's laugh echoed around Shadow. "I won't make the same mistake as I did with the younger alicorn princess."

"What are you talking about?" Shadow asked nervously.

"I was so busy planning on how to destroy the older alicorn princess, that I forgot to do something that I will regret for a long time."

"What is it!" Shadow yelled out nervously.

"I forgot to permanently become a part of her."

"You... What?!" Shadow shouted out nervously. The darkness around him started to grow restless. Shadow suddenly realized he could see both of his front hooves, but they were faded. They slowly started becoming more and more solid, until they were fully visible. Shadow turned his head to glance at the rest of his body. Every part of himself was visible. "What's going on?"

"Don't worry. This will hurt you more than it will hurt me." The deep voice told Shadow in a sinister tone. The darkness around seemed to grow even more restless. Everything around him turned a dark red color. It all started to spin in a counter-clockwise direction, slowly closing in on him.

"No. No!" Shadow shouted out at the approaching red blur in front of him. The red blur formed into a small sphere around him. It slowly started closing in on him. The dark red sphere came closer and closer to him. The sphere finally made contact with his front right hoof. Shadow screamed out in pain as the dark red sphere kept shrinking in on him. The pain was unbearable. It felt like any part of his body that had made contact with the sphere was burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. Shadow kept screaming out in pain. "Stop!" Shadow shouted out in agony. The voice just laughed.

"I'm just getting started," the voice informed him. The sphere kept closing in on him, until it finally reached his head. Shadow screamed out again as the sphere closed in on his head. His whole body was burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. The unbearable pain seemed to be lasting for an eternity. It was never ending torture. Shadow did the only thing he could do. He just screamed out in pain. The voice laughed again. After what seemed like an eternity, the voice finally spoke again. "I do believe we are finished here." The dark red sphere slowly started to fade away, and the pain started to become more bearable. Shadow was no longer screaming. He was curled up in a ball, whimpering from the pain he had just experienced. He felt broken. He wanted to cry, but the tears never flowed.  Everything around him slowly started turning a white color. All of it started to slowly spin in front of him. It kept spinning, faster and faster until everything was a complete blur.

Shadow screamed and bolted into an upright position as he awoke from the nightmarish experience. He immediately regretted this. Every part of his body was sore, and hurt if he moved it. He fell back down into the fluffy white pillow he was just laying on.

"Wait, pillow?" Shadow thought to himself. He tilted his head and looked at his surroundings, trying to figure out where he was. He suddenly realized where he was. "Celestia damnit!" Shadow thought to himself. He was in the hospital again. He let his head fall limp back onto the pillow under him. "Why a hospital?" Shadow thought to himself. He slowly pushed to blankets off of his body, even though every muscle was screaming in protest. Shadow looked at the rest of his revealed body. The left half of it was wrapped in some sort of bandage. He reached his hoof up and tried to brush his mane out of his left eye to get a better look. When he brushed the mane out of the way, he realized he couldn't see out of his left eye. "What the buck?" he thought to himself. He gingerly placed his hoof around his left eye. The left side of his face, like the left side of his body, was covered in bandages. Shadow let out a groan of irritation as he fell back down onto his pillow. He looked around at the surroundings again. There was nopony in sight. "Where is everypony?" Shadow thought to himself. He knew he couldn't leave the hospital anytime soon. There was too much pain when he moved. He was way too sore. The only thing he could do was lie down and wait. He was hoping the pain would go away in a day or two. He didn't want to be stuck in the hospital for much longer. He slowly closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep and escape the world around him.

     Shadow was just laying in bed, trying not to think of what darkness had done to him. "Was it a dream? Shadow thought to himself. "No, it can't be. That pain was way too real." Shadow didn't know what he should do. In fact, he didn't know what he could do. The darkness hated the five ponies that he cared about. The darkness could turn him against them if he wasn't careful. What would he tell them? How could he explain to them what he was doing in the forest. His thoughts were interrupted when he suddenly heard the click of the doorknob. The door slowly creaked open enough for a familiar cyan blue Pegasus to squeeze through. Shadow spotted the cyan blue Pegasus, and frowned. He dropped his head back and tried to pretend he was asleep.

"Shadow?" Rainbow Dash said, looking at the grey pony. The figure didn't move at all. She let out a soft sigh and slowly trudged over to the side of the bed, dragging her hooves along the tile floor. When she reached the side of the bed, she stopped and stared at the grey pony lying in the bed. She sat down, still glaring at the grey pony. "When will you wake up?" she asked, knowing she would get a response.

Shadow thought to himself, "Not anytime soon if you're around." He laid as still as possible, making sure the rainbow-maned Pegasus didn't know he was awake. She didn't move from her spot, as if she were a statue. Her left ear flicked as she heard the click of the hospital room door, signaling that somepony was trying to get in. A timid, yellow Pegasus peeked her head through the opening, then advanced forward into the room.

"Hi Dash," she greeted. "How long you been here?"

"Not long," Rainbow Dash answered. "He's still not up. I'm probably just going to head out."

"So quickly?"

"Yeah. No point of staying if he's not awake, right?"

"Well, I guess so."

"Alright," Rainbow Dash said, getting up and stretching her legs out a bit. She started trotting towards the door of the hospital room. "I'll see you around Flutters."

"Bye," Fluttershy replied as Rainbow Dash trotted out the door of the small hospital room, closing the door behind her. Fluttershy turned and looked over at Shadow, who was still lying very still. She slowly walked up closer to the side of the bed, and sat down gently. She tried to examine the bandages on his face closely, but was unable to since his mane was blocking it. She slowly reached her hoof up and brushed his mane aside. She lifted her other hoof up and gently poked the bandaged area.

"Hey!" Shadow exclaimed, frightening the yellow Pegasus. "Don't touch. It already hurts enough."

Fluttershy let out a screams as she fell backwards onto her back. She tried to answer, but she was too startled to say anything at the moment. She finally was able to say a few word. "You s-startled m-me," she managed to say.

"Yeah... I kinda realized that. Sorry about that," he said apologetically while sitting up.

"It's okay," the frightened yellow Pegasus managed to say. "I thought Dash said you weren't awake."

"I was awake," Shadow replied. "She didn't know that though."

"But why wouldn't you want her to know that you're up?"

Shadow thought for a moment, before speaking. "Do you know that thing called 'forgiveness'?" he finally answered.

"Yeah, why?"

"I haven't used that recently, and I'm not planning to anytime soon."

"Wait, what are you-" she said, before stopping mid-sentence. "Oh, I see."

"I can't forgive her. Not yet."

"Why can't you forgive her? I don't think she meant to say that about you."

"Why? Here's why. First off, I don't trust her, and therefore, I don't believe her apology is genuine. Second, her comments about me drove me to suicide. Do you think I can forgive her for that?"

"But why would you try and kill yourself over what she said? Why her?"

 Shadow leaned back and closed his eyes before saying, "Words can cut deeper than any blade. Her words were the sharpest out of all of them."

"But why were they the sharpest?"

Shadow opened his eyes and turned his head towards Fluttershy. "Imagine mean words from a bully. They're tolerable, because that's the nature of them. Now imagine it coming from somepony you look up to. Those can't be ignored. They cut deeper than what the bullies could ever say."

"Oh, I see what you're saying."

"She can't be forgiven that easily. Those words still hurt, even today."

"Will you ever forgive her?"

Shadow turned his head and looked straight ahead at nothing. "I don't know," he replied. "Will I even stay in Ponyville long enough?"

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm a threat," Shadow said, his voice rising. He turned his head and glared at Fluttershy. "You saw what I was doing out there in the forest. How the hay am I supposed to stay in this peaceful town and not hurt somepony?"

"We don't even know what you were doing out there," she said in a soothing voice, trying to calm him down. "What were you doing out there?"

Shadow didn't answer. "I don't want to hurt anypony," he finally said. "I don't think I can stay much longer."

"But why can't you stay? We care about you Shadow."

"You don't understand the power that I possess. Even I don't understand it."

"What do you mean?"

"You saw what I can do when I was in the forest. A normal Pegasus can't do that."

"Well, what was it? You still haven't told me."

"I can't tell you what I don't know. It's just that I don't understand it."

"But you were controlling it. You have to have some idea about what it is."

"The only thing I know is that it's dangerous and unpredictable. I can use it to my advantage at times, but it's also deadly. You saw what happened to that rock I was trying to levitate."

"It looked like unicorn magic. Is that what it was?"

"No. This is something much more evil. It's dark. I think it's deadly enough to kill somepony if I'm not careful."

Fluttershy took an involuntary step back. "But you would never do such a thing, would you?"

"No. I would never harm you, or any other pony. It's not like me."

"Then what do you have to worry about?"

"I'm afraid that whatever this evil thing is will grow stronger."

Suddenly, Shadow's eyes started to glow, and everything in the room started to shake.

"What's going on?" Fluttershy exclaimed in a panicked voice.

"Gah! I don't know!" Shadow exclaimed, shaking his head and trying to stop the evil power emitting from him. His eyes stopping glowing, and everything in the room stopped shaking. Shadow fell backwards onto his pillow and closed his eyes.

"Shadow, what's going on?" Fluttershy asked with anxiety.

"I don't know," Shadow groaned as he opened his eyes back up. They were no longer glowing. "There's got to be a way to control this."

"Maybe we should ask Twilight?" Fluttershy suggested. "She said she was going to see if she could find out what it was."

"Yeah, what's she gonna do? Find it in a book?" Shadow said annoyed. "I highly doubt a book will tell her about an evil power that I possess."

"But she can ask Princess Celestia."

"Yeah, but-," Shadow stopped mid-sentence. "Wait, Princess Celestia. As in the princess that rules in Canterlot?"

"Yes. Twilight's her personal student."

"Wow. That's impressive. Not sure if I should believe that or not. But why is she in Ponyville and not studying in Canterlot?"

"She's studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville."

"Friendship?"

"Yeah."

"Uh, okay then. Not sure why somepony would want to study that."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't tell who your friends are. They could be your closest friend, and then when you least expect it, they stab you in the back. That's why I never tried making friends."

"But did you ever have friends at your flight school?"

Shadow shook his head. "Never. Nopony would talk to me, most likely because I was so, how do I put it?"

"Strange."

Shadow glared at Fluttershy. "What are you getting at?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized while slowly sinking down lower to the ground. "I didn't mean it."

"It's fine. Don't worry," Shadow said with a disarming smile. "Anyway, the word I would say was 'mysterious'."

"Why mysterious?"

"Nopony could see the left half of my face. I had my mane like this ever since my dad died."

"You do look kinda mysterious I guess."

"Most ponies avoided me because of that. That pretty much explains why nopony would hang around me. Well, they also avoided me because they thought I was a loser."

"Loser? How?"

"I couldn't fly, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"But boy, were they wrong to judge me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can fly, and I can probably fly much better than them."

"How are you a better flyer? And how did you learn to fly?"

"Self taught. Plus I've been on the run for years, so I had plenty of time to practice my flying."

"How do you teach yourself how to fly?"

"I watch others, and I remember what my dad would tell me when he flew around."

"Oh, I see."

"Yeah. That's pretty much how I learned," he explained. "Hey! Can you remove these bandages? They're starting to get annoying."

"What?" she asked confused. "I don't know if I can."

"Why not?"

"Your wounds aren't fully healed."

"I can deal with it. I just want these bandages off. They kinda remind me of my father when I saw him in the hospital."

"Oh, I can see that as a good reason," she said, stepping closer.

"So you'll do it?"

"Sure. What are friends for?" Before Shadow could answer, Fluttershy reached forward placed her hoof on the bandage on Shadow's face. He flinched a hit when her hoof made contact. She hesitated a bit, but continued anyway. She slowly and carefully peeled the white bandage off of his face, being careful not to hurt him. Once the she pulled the first bandage off, she reached down and pulled the sheets off of Shadow, revealing his bandaged side. She grabbed one end of the bandage and slowly started peeling it off. Shadow flinched a bit as it pulled off of his skin. Fluttershy yanked off the remaining piece of the bandage and placed it on the floor.

Shadow examined his side. "Thanks," he said with gratitude. He could see a bunch of cuts running down his left side, which ran from the top of his left hoof to the front part of his flank. "I forgot to ask, how long have I been out?"

"Not very long. Maybe a day or two."

"Only? Sweet. Maybe I could leave the hospital soon."

"But you just woke up," Fluttershy protested.

"I know, but I want to get out of here."

"But you need to rest."

"I know I need rest, but you know how much I hate hospitals."

"Just stay one more night. It's already dark outside, and you need to rest," she argued. "Please?"

Shadow thought for a moment before answering. "Fine. You win. I'll stay one more night, but no more than that. I'm leaving this hospital tomorrow."

"When?"

"I dunno. I guess around breakfast time."

"Okay. I'll come by at that time." She started walking towards the door.

"Wait, where are you going?"

Fluttershy stopped at the foot of the bed. "I'm going to leave you alone so that you rest."

"Oh, I see," Shadow said with disappointment. He enjoyed her company. He liked having a pony to talk to that would actually listen.

"I'll see you in the morning," she said as she started walking towards the door again.

"Please don't tell anypony I'm awake," Shadow said to yellow Pegasus. She stopped again.

"Why not?" she said, turning her head towards the grey pony.

"I don't want them to know I'm up. I don't know how they'll respond when they find out I'm awake, especially since they saw me controlling that evil power when I was out in the forest."

"Fine," Fluttershy reluctantly agreed. "I won't tell them then."

"Thank you so much."

"Like I said, it's what friends do for each other. I'll see you tomorrow morning." She started trotting forward and passed through the doorway, leaving Shadow alone in the hospital room.

"Friends," Shadow thought to himself. "I like having Fluttershy as a friend." He leaned his head back onto the pillow under him and closed his eyes. He slowly drifted asleep as Luna's moon shined through the large glass window.