SHADOW’S STUDIO — THE CITY
To play God was to be truly alone, to carry the weight of the worlds, and to accept the consequences of every action. Shadow was grateful to share the burden with Harry; it made life bearable. The two worked hard to avoid turning into sociopaths—a feat easily achieved when you held so much power over so many people, and when personal stories were abstracted to numbers and percentages. To hold on to empathy and truth at all costs was to bear the pain of the masses and somehow attempt to function objectively—a paradox impossible to overcome.
His Harry was a typical data guy, a technologist, a scientist always chasing patterns in pursuit of insight. It gave him the ability to pull back and attain some level of perspective. While they shared feelings and logic, it was the differences in their proportions that had created the most effective partnership in the history of Up Above.
Shadow found ways to cope—his dear friend, his art, the cuts that kept things real, and the acts of compassion toward his creatures. He couldn’t share any of this with the dramatic, hurtful, and ecstatic burst of life that held his hand as he guided her through the halls of his home. Like the scars on his wrists, the mercurial Thorn pulled him out of his inner swamp of despair. She made him feel alive and validated his human status. A validation he needed now more than ever. Thorn gave Shadow the strength to pursue solutions when he was drowning in despair.
The door to the studio creaked open, revealing the vast expanse of the room, with the faint scent of oil paint and turpentine hinting at what was to come. This room was his sanctuary, the hiding place where he nurtured his soul. He couldn't share who he was or his predicament, but he could offer her a glimpse of it all through his art. Taking another moment to weigh the potential consequences of his plan, he realized that an error in judgment could have significant repercussions for his worlds. Art, I'll just talk about art.
He watched as Thorn's eyes roved over the studio's aged brick walls, her expression tinged with a flicker of surprise. The walls were sporadically adorned with his sketches and a variety of canvases in different sizes. Some were blank, while others portrayed life Down Below. Occupying the eastern corner of the room was a stunning expanse of windows that stretched from the floor nearly to the ceiling, filling the space with a gentle flood of natural light.
“Oh, one of those. An artist, huh?”
Scattered throughout the room, various sculptures—some half-finished—offered her insight into his eclectic taste. She meandered toward the corner he'd designated as his reading nook, passing his favorite armchair to approach the tall bookshelf. It overflowed with his art history books, poetry collections, and well-thumbed classics.
Turning to inspect his art, she remarked, “It's all very... black and white.”
“Yes, that's correct. I specialize in contrast.”
“Clearly.”
Pressing his lips together, he pondered how best to articulate his thoughts. “Contrast adds depth to human perception. Light appears brighter when juxtaposed with shadow.”
“Poetic,” Thorn said, her playful tone edging into a tease. “Were you a goth as a teenager? Black, spiky hair—”
His lips quirked up, a hint of amusement touching his voice. “Light is a privilege to be cherished and nurtured. You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?”
“Dark eye shadow. I can totally see it.”
His mood soured. She seemed to take for granted everything he'd given her and her kind. “We must work extra hard to guide the audience's eyes toward the light.”
She pulled him toward her by his waist, her chin resting atop his heart as she gazed upward. “You're pretty deep and intense for a…”
“A what?” He knew the word she left unsaid, but he couldn't help but provoke her into voicing it. It was a warning that he was revealing too much. Even today, the Underlings weren't sophisticated enough to engage at this emotional depth. Yet, how could he resist the urge to call out her privilege? He brushed her rebellious curls away from her eyes and conjured up a simulated smile.
“Never mind. Don't stop; this is riveting,” she said, her voice tinged with irony. “It's like watching paint dry.”
Her sarcasm served as a deceptive shield against their invisible bond. In all her violent fury, she was his captive, and that fixation brought him back to life. She reached into her back pocket and produced a cigar—guards everywhere, shielding the perilous route to her vulnerable heart. Emotions she vehemently refused to acknowledge even existed.
“Sorry, not here.” He placed his hand over hers and was met with a defiant, slightly irritated gaze, which quickly morphed into a sharp smile. She yanked her hand back and let the cigar fall to the concrete floor, scuffed and stained with the colorful remnants of past projects.
“Go on. I don't have all day.” Her eyebrow arched, as if daring to engage in a stare-down with someone much taller than her. The tactic was effective, but he chose to ignore it.
Heat crept into his face, yet he persisted, stubborn as ever. “The artist is the God of his own world, invoking darkness to give birth to light.” He immediately regretted his words, recognizing them as pretentious drivel.
Her smile vanished for a moment, and she shook her head. “Harboring some dark megalomaniacal tendencies, are we?”
A moment of silence hung between them as he despaired over his sudden inability to articulate his thoughts—an unprecedented occurrence for an award-winning writer. “Umm, that's not what I meant, but you're perceptive,” he said, dropping his gaze as he turned on the projector. On the solitary white brick wall, a depiction of God emerged—William Blake's image of a bearded, white-haired figure enveloped in a crimson halo of light, setting a compass upon the dark face of the Earth.
Thorn looked intrigued. “There’s no God, but if there were one, she wouldn’t have a beard.”
The corners of his mouth curved upward. “This is William Blake's The Ancient of Days. There are several copies of it—each a blend of art, faith, and science.” He flicked through the drawings, each one displaying varying degrees of contrast between light and darkness. “The artist intends to depict God in the act of creation, bringing light into the world. But, as you can see from these different versions, the strength of God's light is defined by the surrounding darkness. The contrast makes or breaks this scene.”
“If you weren’t tolerable in bed, I'd be lying here in a coma, overwhelmed by mind-numbing boredom. Show me your work. I'm not particularly interested in an art history lecture, Professor... What's your name again?”
A sharp, metallic tang of blood bloomed on his tongue as he worried on his raw lower lip. “Shadow. I'm Shadow.”
She flashed a wry smile. “Of course you are. Go on, Professor Shadow. Tell me about this one.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the center of the room, where a large wooden easel stood. It held a canvas veiled by a white cloth, surrounded by a sea of paint tubes and brushes.
“No, not that one,” he pleaded.
Defiantly, she pulled off the cloth to unveil the painting.
“Nooo!” He was too late. His poet’s gaze was set on him, the room now alive with the flames of his long hair. For his Nathan Storm, he had employed a full spectrum of colors—reds, oranges, golds, and greens. The vibrant palette breathed life into the canvas, immortalizing Nate's spirit and essence in a manner that words could never encapsulate. Shadow's unspoken feelings for his lost love were laid bare on the painted surface.
Her eyes widened in recognition. “Bloody algorithm,” she muttered through gritted teeth. Then she shrugged. “He's my favorite poet. I wrote him a letter when I was seventeen. He never replied.”
Thorn's words resonated deeply with Shadow, evoking a mixture of nostalgia and shared pain. “Mine too…” That bloody taste again. He massaged his jaw with his fingers to release the tension. “You... listen to Nate’s words?”
The windows allowed the neon lights of the City to filter in, casting an electric pink glow on her face.
“Every time I’m sad. Every time I’m mad. Every time I’m angry. All the time, really.”
He smiled, recognizing in her the kind of fire that could fuel change—if it didn't blow up the neighborhood first. “I have something else to show you,” he said. His hands trembled as they reached for the linen cloth, gently concealing Nate's portrait. In that moment, he was revealing more of himself than he had ever intended.
Squeezing her hand, he led her to another painting and pulled the cloth aside to reveal three black-and-white portraits of her on the same canvas. Stunned and momentarily off-balance, she silently took in the brushstrokes that so accurately captured every nuance of her features.
“Like it?” His confidence eroded with each second of her silence. Only the glimmering fire in her eyes gave him a sliver of hope. He got no response, at least not in words. “Look, Thorn, look. Your face is exactly the same in each portrait, every line replicated with precision. But the interplay of light and shadow completely transforms your expression and intent—from peace to war, from good to evil. All the shades of you are tightly confined between black and white. We can't take our eyes off you; it's the way the darkness shapes your light that captivates us.”
He stared at her, taking in her features, and for a fleeting moment, her eyes widened and met his. In that instant, she saw him—all of him—the person he once was. He quivered, and she quickly turned, striding toward the door.
Thorn's face flushed with anger, her eyes narrowing. “What the frack do you know about my darkness?”
“Wait! Please wait,” he implored. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back toward him. Then he planted a kiss on her hair.
The elbow she drove into his ribs hurt less than her words. “Fracking bot! Let go of me! Who the hell do you think you are? We should pull the plug on this entire thing.”
He pursed his lips, struggling to contain the torrent of words threatening to escape. “There’s so much privilege in the way you take up space. The entire world revolves around you and your needs.” He was snapping at all of them, the travelers. He was pushing back at her inability to see him, to see all of them for the sentient beings they’d become.
Her shoulders tensed, and she turned around, pushing his hands away. “Judgmental bastard!”
“You live in a world without pai—” He stopped too late, and her expression changed. Doubt came to her brows, to the way she leaned her head. He wasn’t supposed to be aware of her world, and she was on to him.
“You know nothing about my pain or my damn world.” Her eyes moved to Nate’s painting and back to him. Then she seemed to go within, perhaps trying to make sense of words, pictures, moments—connecting the dots.
His eyes turned to her portraits, closing in on the dark shadows. “I know the light that caresses your skin comes at an impossible cost.”
Unable to curb his impulse to share too much, he scrolled through the slides, looking for the right image. He wasn't sure why he had chosen that particular picture, but it felt pertinent to the source of her distress. Whether guided by intuition or some other force, he abandoned any pretense of rationality and control. Pure instinct drove him, and for a moment, he wondered if Sibyl—Down Below's sentient operating system—was influencing his actions.
Soon enough, Fuseli’s The Nightmare took over the entire wall. A ravished woman, bathed in light, lay unconscious across a day bed. In stark contrast to the luminosity and clarity of her form, the rest of the scene was shrouded in murky darkness. Perched on top of the woman was a small, hairy incubus—a sexually insatiable male demon often depicted preying on virgins in mythology and art. A black mare burst onto the scene through lavish, blood-red curtains. With white eyes bulging and nostrils flaring, the mare seemed to react to the horror it had stumbled upon.
“Fuseli explored the dark recesses of human psychology. The woman may be bathed in light, but she’s lost to the world.” Why am I sharing this?
Thorn paused and turned to study the painting. She crossed her arms and tilted her head from side to side, stretching her neck.
Shadow dropped his head, his mind swirling with uncertainty. “Perhaps no amount of light will ever reach the darker corners of humankind.” What am I doing?
He wasn’t sure if it was the painting or his words, but the hint of wetness in her eyes turned into a flood of ugly tears.
“It's the fault of the artist—the bastard who let horror infiltrate an innocent world! You're him, aren't you?” She yanked a gun from the side pocket of her pants, her face flushed with an incandescent fury. “You're Astley-Byron, aren't you?” she screamed, an explosive mix of fire and wrath. “You're Thomas. Nathan Storm's painting, the books, the God complex, the megalomania—I should have known! You'll pay for everything!” Her eyes blazed with a thirst for revenge, but revenge for what?
When Thorn aimed the gun at his heart, poised to pull the trigger, something shifted—a glitch, perhaps. In her stead stood a tall, dark-skinned woman with long, ice-colored hair, her gun pointed at Shadow. She smiled warmly, letting her armed hand fall to her side. Shadow shook his head, bewildered, and just as quickly, the mysterious woman vanished.
Thorn reappeared, her face a tapestry of hatred and anguish. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. Gone from Down Below, lost to him. He lay on the cold floor, grappling with the confusion that clouded his mind. There was little he knew, but one thing was certain: Shadow already missed Thorn more than he cared to admit.