SHADOW PLANE

FRAN WILDE

July 8, 20 :: 04:00 :: Lat - NULL, Long - NULL

If you’re seeing this? This is transmission one of however many it takes for us to be rescued. Or for as long as it takes for my sister and me to die on this mountain.

I know our last post from Paro was very upbeat. I know Bella and I promised to show you the most secret peak in the Himalayas. Well, we’re doing that, as promised, but the situation’s changed—a lot—and we need your help.

We’ll keep uploading for as long as we can, as long as the handset holds out and the satellite stays in range.

And before anyone says it, we’re not doing this for followers. This is dead serious. We need you to figure out where the hell we are and send help.

If no one locates us in time—and God knows we’ve tried—then maybe these recordings will serve as a record of what happened to us. To Bella and me, to our pilot, and to Myerton, the guy who paid us to guide him to the top of a mountain no one had ever summited. A mountain that doesn’t appear on any map.

I know there will be dark tales told at basecamp if we don’t make it back. There always are. I mean, everyone at Namche Bazaar was still speculating about what happened at the Sovyagi Pass and that was last millennium.

Ah shit. Why did I start thinking about the Sovyagi Pass.

Okay, breathe, Nicole. Stay calm. You’re a survivor. You can do this.

Friends, we’re going to be fine, nothing like Sovyagi is going to happen to us. Especially if you—any one of our sixty thousand followers—are out there, helping us. Especially if you have your sleuthing hats on, or access to some fancy geological recognition software like they do on that old rescue-Matt-Damon movie. Seriously, if one of you can run some neural network shit on the images I’m sending? Triangulate us. Do whatever it takes, okay? We’ll keep broadcasting for as long as we can.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to get upset. I know you’ll find us.

Here’s what else I know: our Druk Air charter crashed somewhere past Gangkhar Puensum. Don’t worry, we weren’t going anywhere near Gangkhar, that place is off limits—and with good reason. No, our client claimed there was another mountain nearby that no one knew about. That’s where we were going.

I’m sure you figured out by now that my sister and I weren’t just in it for the money. We wanted the recognition, to bag the peak for ourselves. That’s why we were so cagey about where we were going and with whom. Don’t judge.

Everyone wants to climb something first. Everyone wants to find a place without footprints.

But now, with the pilot dead, Bella stuck, and the instruments going crazy, I’ve got to say, I’d love to see some footprints. Or a plane. Or at least fewer shadows.

If I’m honest, the shadows are the worst part of all this.

The sun’s just coming up now, behind the peak. It’s making a huge, beacon-shaped shadow on the clouds. I don’t think it’s a real beacon, or that it’s summoning anything, but in our current situation, it’s hella spooky.

I don’t know if you can see the rest of the peak well enough yet to identify it, especially with the shadow. I’ll try to get a better shot soon, once the sun’s higher.

Anyway, this is the crash site. I think we hit the mountain Myerton was after, but we’re on the wrong side or something. Around us there’s nothing but clouds and the kind of wind that gives you a headache after a while because it’s so low pitched.

The worst part? There’s no air traffic. Sky’s been empty for hours. And nowhere gets a completely empty sky anymore. I hope we’re not nowhere.

For a minute, just after the accident, I thought I saw a dark plane overhead. Just before, too. But that’s got to be shock. Or a weird shadow on the clouds—what are those things called? Brocken bows? Whatever it was, we haven’t seen anything like it since.

Before the crash, Myerton was pointing out the peak—a crenellated edge that rises over a deep bowl. The bowl looks like something blew its way right out of the mountain, up around 19,500 feet, with snow so deep it shades purple, and parts of the zenith above it all melted too, which is crazy because the Himalayas are fold mountains, not volcanic. But maybe that will help you figure out where we are. Satellites have got to show something like that.

Anyway, Myerton felt very strongly that this was the peak he wanted to bag, on the other side, away from the bowl. He paid us cash up front. He wouldn’t tell us why he wanted to get up here so bad. When we asked, he added more cash to the pile and Bella put a hand on my shoulder and I shut up. My sister had a better idea of our finances. She’s in charge of the books and deals; I take care of the social media. It works best that way. Usually. But I still knew we were on the rails and Myerton’s money would set us up for a season of peaks. Plus a lot less ramen for dinner.

So we said yes and asked no more questions.

I wish we’d asked questions.

The peak we’ve landed on—landed is a euphemism—you can see some of the AR42 in the background, clinging to the cliffside. We’re up around 20,000 feet. Below the beacon-shadow, above the bowl. There’s a sharp ascent. I’m positive no one’s been up this side. On the plane, the way Myerton talked about the other ascent, it sounded like he’d been there once, long ago. But he swore he was a researcher, with little experience. And when we neared this peak, and the sun caused the mountain’s shadow to angle out against the clouds toward the plane so it looked like a beam from a nightmare lighthouse and darkness rippled in the bowl below too. That’s when Myerton absolutely lost it.

“Avoid that!” he shouted, gesturing at the side of the mountain. “Go away!” Myerton unlocked his seatbelt and everything, even as we were going down. And when it was clear the pilot couldn’t do anything to avoid it, Myerton grabbed a chute and made ready to jump.

That’s when we hit, I think. With the dark night wind whistling through the open door, and everything smelling like overclocked plane propellers. The dark came in and the snow with it, covering us like velvet until it was deep and airless in the cabin, and then we hit.

When I woke up, Myerton was gone, and Bella was stuck bad, and the pilot was dead.

And now the compass on our Iridium handset can’t make up its mind where we are. Sometimes it says, “Lat: 28.041° N, Long: 90.45° E,” which is near Gangkhar. Sometimes it says, “Lat: 00.00° N, Long: -43.22° E, “which is impossible, and more often, it says, “[NULL],” and that’s the most frightening of all. How can we be null? It’s got to be some sort of interference.

So we hacked the handset and hooked it up to our phones. We’ve got it—at least for now—so we can broadcast out. Even if we can’t see your reactions, we can talk to you. Like an old-fashioned message in a bottle. Except faster.

Which is good because we don’t have much time. We’re at twenty thousand feet, I think. Half our oxygen and food fell out when the plane broke, I don’t know that we’ll make it through another night.

So you have to help us. You have to figure out where we are. Because shit’s getting really weird.

July 8, 20 :: 05:10 :: Lat - 00.00° N, Long - NULL

Guys? This is transmission two of whatever it takes to get off this moun-tain. Can’t get a good shot of the peak yet. Still too dark. Stick around anyway. I’ll tell you a story. Not just any story.

I’ll come clean about the how and why of this trip. Even those of you who were with us in Namche Bazaar, waiting for the season to start, don’t know all of it. Maybe this will help you trust me when I say what’s happening is happening. This isn’t a stunt. We need help now.

Myerton found us in Namche, cleaning rooms to pay our hostel bill, which was pretty sad, and we’d kept it off the feeds. Our sponsorships had dried up a bit, and Namche—the darker part of it—was cheap and we could keep our altitude.

Bella and I kept posting old shots of our prize ascents, but word was getting out that we were hungry. Whoever sent Myerton our way probably thought they were being kind.

I mean, he looked like an easy job. Skinny, pale. Jumped at his own shadow. The kind of hiker who would follow directions, back down when the guides said it was better to wait. Bella and I had guided a lot of people like that since we took the Snow Leopard. But they’d just wanted to hike a few thousand feet and take a photo to send home. Myerton?

Friend, whoever sent that rec? It was thoughtful, but could you now do us the favor of sending a rescue plane?

Myerton raised an eyebrow when he saw us. “Peakbaggers. Just girls.”

“Best in the business,” I said. “And we’re both twenty-one. Not girls.”

He read off his phone, “Nicole and Bella Bourke. First siblings to take the Snow Leopard—first women too—in that one year when Russia opened up. You were fast. You grabbed Ismoli, Jengish, Korzhenevskoi, Ibn Sina, and Khan Tengri one after the next and filmed the whole thing. Got you a huge follower count and some decent sponsorships. But that was a whole year ago. What have you done lately?”

It was a ruthless question. We’d done a lot of climbing, but nothing as spectacular. We were hemorrhaging followers and sponsors. Our Helly-Hansen jackets were top of the line sponsor gifts, from last year. Still bright, though: mine orange with lime-green seams and zips; Bella’s blue with yellow accents.

Neither Bella nor I answered him. Once you started bagging peaks, you were always aware there was someone behind you, ready to take over if you slacked. His pointing it out was putting us in our place.

“I need guides.” He smiled a terribly thin smile. “Want to climb something no one else even knows exists?”

You bet we did. And we didn’t want anyone else to get in on it, or edge us out. So we didn’t say anything to anyone. Didn’t ask around.

After we cut the deal, we pulled our packs out of the greasy hostel before anyone else was up and hopped the next helicopter to Kathmandu, then a regular Druk flight to Paro. That went so smooth, we started to relax, and Myerton began to call the shots. A fully chartered AR42-500, for just the three of us. Loaded with instruments and gear that neither Bella nor I could figure out. And a knapsack he never let out of his sight.

The plane was white with blue detailing. Royal Bhutan Airlines had a few nice perks: I might have had a drink on the flight, even though I know better. Myerton was wound so tight it made me nervous.

Those questions we hadn’t asked back in Namche? I wanted to ask them on the plane but couldn’t figure out how. Like why did Myerton know of a mountain no one else had heard about? And why hadn’t he hired Bhutan-area guides?

Bella waved me off. “Don’t aggravate him. He’s paying. We’ll figure it out when we get back.”

As long as Bella wasn’t worried, I resolved not to be. She’s older, after all.

But when Myerton started whispering, “Do not be afraid,” right about the same time our plane cast a shadow against a cloud and then that shadow detached from the cloud and kind of became its own plane? My resolve shattered.

Bella’s did, too.

What we were seeing had to be altitude. Bella asked the pilot to go lower. She used gestures that could only be interpreted as “airplane” and “down.” Myerton and I mimicked her for emphasis, our hands outspread, tilting and dipping lower, lower, to make sure the cockpit had enough oxygen. The whole time, that shadow plane kept up with us. So close, I could see its registration numbers in white on its tail: the reverse of our own.

The pilot did what we asked, shaking his head at us. Soon, we were rewarded with clearer skies and clearer heads.

The shadow plane disappeared, but we emerged below the clouds, shaken. We’d both seen the thing. And Myerton had seen it, too. That was too coincidental for oxygen deprivation.

I had just shaken off Bella’s cautioning hand to ask for an explanation when a sheer, dark cliff rose up before us and Myerton began shouting, Not here, never here! Get out of the shadow!

He pulled on a parachute and ran for the plane door.

And then it was all darkness and noise.

July 8, 20 :: 06:45 :: Lat - 999.99° N, Long - 0101.00° E

Oh crap, you guys, I can hear that dark plane circling above us in the clouds.

The noise shakes the ridge we’re on. Bella whimpers whenever the wreck moves with the vibrations. And the wind picks up, that low howl.

This is bad. It’s so bad. It’s going to come into view. Right now.

And it’s gone again. You have got to believe me. It just circled out of sight. I don’t think it’s coming to rescue us. I don’t know what it’s doing. It’s the exact same plane we saw before the crash. I keep yelling at it for help anyway, until it disappears.

This is transmission three of number “get us the hell off this mountain now.” Seriously send a plane. Send a helicopter. We can pay.

If you don’t believe me about the dark plane, our own plane’s wreckage is real enough. Sharp and still smoking. Smelling like burnt plastic. A chemical assault on the pristine peak.

When the plane went down, Bella and I got tossed around pretty bad. And the pilot—who’d been nice to us—hit the windshield.

Bella’s over there—you can sort of see her. She doesn’t want me to come closer with the camera. She hates looking weak. I’ve been going through Myerton’s packs in between melting snow for drinking water so she won’t get dehydrated. Sorry, that was a wide shot. Don’t enlarge it, okay? Bella would hate it. Look over here, at the mountain.

The sun’s up pretty high now, so I can show you the peak. Can you get a good angle on it?

The shadow coming off the peak is still there, faded in the sunlight, but there. I don’t know how that’s happening. Maybe it’s an optical illusion. Or ice crystals in the air.

If I turn in the right direction, where the clouds come up to the cliff, my shadow does the same thing—forms a giant, dark version of me. Sometimes there’s a glow around it.

And there’s the dark plane again. Can you see it? Maybe this is hypoxia. Or a concussion. If you can’t see it—the plane, or my shadow—maybe it’s my brain cells, dying.

No, I’m not going to think that way. I’m going to keep it together. For Bella. For everyone. Wait. I think I have a good image of the peak. Good enough you can use it to find us. I’m going to let you worry about rescuing us, and just keep sending video.

We have a lot of other worries to handle while you do that. Myerton’s off in the snow a ways. The pilot’s still in the plane. Bella’s stuck. And I can’t find more than two days’ worth of food in the wreckage. And the flares are all spilled down the cliffside. Two are still burning, barely, sending more smoke into the clouds and making the light and shadows really weird.

It feels deliberate. Can shadows be deliberate? I don’t think we’ll survive up here long, which is a relief. I wouldn’t want to have to think about what else we could eat to survive.

It’s hard posting these, not knowing if you see them. We’re so used to feedback. To likes and shares and reposts. Now, the silences are terrifying.

I’m going to go sit with Bella for a bit until I can stay calm. I’ll be back.

July 8, 20 :: 09:20 :: Lat - NULL, Long - 1° E

Okay, a bunch of things just happened all at once. I dropped the handset, running. Found it again. I hope it’s still working.

Bella doesn’t care anymore whether you see her or not. I brought her Myerton’s pack and she got it open. Found all his papers and files. Some were soaked and ruined already. Some, when we pulled them out, the wind or something started howling and almost swept them out of our hands. That’s when I dropped the handset. Thank God I got it back.

Here, look. You have to see what we’re seeing so there’s a record. All of this has to do with Sovyagi Pass. As much as it has to do with anything.

Goddamn Sovyagi Pass.

If you’ve climbed outside of the Americas over the past thirty years, you might know what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ve seen some of the pictures, before and after. The happy hikers. The torn apart tents. The bodies, what was left of them. You’ve heard no one really ever found out what happened. A story meant to scare hikers into playing it safe.

Well, Bella found a photo. An original “happy hiker” before photo in Myerton’s stupid knapsack. Except Myerton’s in this photo—he’s in it! Wearing a lab coat.

Bella found a lot of other stuff, too. Things that are just freaking us out. We don’t want to be anywhere near this kind of thing. We’re just climbers? We’re not—we don’t—I mean, shit. What’s in those documents? It’s all experiments on people, and I have to tell you: I think we were next. Seriously. He brought tools.

Wait—I have to remember to number the transmissions. Social feed will get this out of order and no one will come. And that will be bad. This is transmission four, I think. Or five. Of number holy shit get us out of here.

If this is the first of these you’re seeing, please, someone find a way to locate us.

First we freaked because we found Myerton’s papers. Lots of folders stamped TOP SECRET and ULTRA SECRET in red. And SHADOW, in a shimmery black.

“Check that out.” When Bella flipped the folder back and forth in the noon light, it cast its own shadow. At least I think it did.

Then the wind started to howl. Or the shadows did.

Now, we’re kind of losing our minds up here, so humor us—we’re trying to survive.

“There’s a whole folder on the Sovyagi Pass,” Bella said. “I’ll be damned.”

Everyone talks about the Sovyagi Pass—a bunch of people claimed recently they knew what had happened, finally, but given what I know now, I seriously doubt it. Still, that’s part of why a few ascents near Gangkhar were shut down. The Bhutan Royal Family was so alarmed they declared the whole area off limits, not just Gangkhar.

I can’t think about the details. Not how the one female hiker was found frozen, clutching a fistful of teeth—not hers—by the fire. Not that her eyes and tongue were missing. Or that reports said she’d bled to death from the sockets. Not the four others discovered a half mile away. Wearing only long johns. They’d dug a pit, too? Their bodies were splayed in a circle around it, fingers and feet touching. No eyes there either. The sixth hiker was never found.

Oh, God, don’t let us go like that, okay?

I hate to think if the sixth was Myerton, but the photo Bella found sure looks that way.

The thing about the four bodies they recovered? They had no shadows. That was all anyone talked about. No shadows, even in the bright lights of the morgue. Somewhere along the way, one of the reports in Myerton’s pack said, “The shadows were expurgated from the bodies.”

The reports made that seem like a success.

Bella’s pouring through the pages. “These wackos thought shadows were separate beings. Something called symbioses?”

“Symbiotes,” I correct. I’m the one who studied biology in school. She took sports and business classes.

I promised her that I’d keep the camera away from her as much as possible, but I’m shaking so hard. And she can’t shake much. She has to stay calm. So I have to stay calm. The way the plane’s trapped her, the metal and fiberglass maw grasping her too tight to free her but not enough to kill her. Unless it moves. Or she moves.

She takes a deep breath. Reads some more. “Symbiotes. And the file says they came out on the mountain. Near the pass. At least by the GPS data.” She pointed to the other side of the mountain. “That they were here because of the way the local light intensified shadows . . . It says that the wind in the bowl may produce some infrasound, or else there’s radiation? Something that makes the shadows detach from their hosts and become—It’s blacked out. Nicole, the researchers were trying to call them . . .” She reads farther down the file as the low hum from the wind pitched higher, making me pull at my painful ears. “Into service? What the fuck does that mean?”

Look: You can see, too! Read the documents. See all the stamps? This is the evidence everyone wants, right? So figure out how to come get it, and us, too.

The camera’s shaking—sorry about that—because I’m shaking— maybe even panicking—so hard. “They believed they could separate shadows from people? Why the hell would anyone want to do that?”

Bella reads: “In order to gain the best possible stealth advantage, all attempts must be made.” She pauses, gasping for breath. “Nicole, they sent an entire unit of scientists out here to attempt to make shadow spies? Five researchers, plus one—Thaumaturge? What the hell is that?”

I look at the date on the file. “That’s D&D stuff. Why are Cold War guys talking this—”

“What’s a thaumaturge? How do you know this?”

I wrack my brain—I’d played the game at base camp a few years ago. One of the guides wanted to be a Thaumaturge. “It’s a worker of Miracles. It’s just a hopped-up word for magician. Myerton the Magician. Oh, my God, Bella, what the hell. These people.”

The wind picks up and I grab a crisp sheet of new paper: a research proposal dated this year. New results, more experiments needed. Failure not an option.

We absolutely should have asked more questions.

“Magicians? Working for the government? Which government?” The wind tears at the papers again, getting fighty. I fight back. Half the folders bear NSA stamps. United States. Another third are MI5. Britain. “Probably working for whomever would pay. Just like us.”

“Sounds like they didn’t fare so well.” Bella sounds scared of everything. Serves her right. She’d wanted to come more than I did.

“Just like us, maybe.” It’s mean.

She begins to cry then, softly. Bella, Bella, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. We just need to get out of here. Out of this wind. Down from this altitude. Away from these shadows.

The sun moves like the small hand on the clock. Even though it’s higher now, it’s heading inexorably for the dark side of the evening. We’ll freeze then. Or the shadows that are already flickering on the edges of our crash site will come get us. Or we’ll go to join them, if the Sovyagi Pass stories are to be believed.

Hurry. Someone. Anyone.

July 8, 20 :: 13:10 :: Lat - parameters not defined, Long - NULL

You have to be seeing this. Are you seeing this?

The shadows, on the peak? They’re getting longer, wreathed with lights.

Especially near where Myerton’s body lies. The ones over by him bend together like they’re whispering.

The ones near Bella’s feet reach for her, then draw back.

The sun’s past noon. Shadows shouldn’t be this long now. Not ever.

I know what’s happening when the mountain throws a shadow like that. Or when I did, when I was standing near the edge. People talk about it at base camp. It’s an optical illusion. That’s all. Called an anticorona. A mountain specter.

Doesn’t make them any less spooky.

And what the hell do you call them when they’re not attached to anything? And they’re creeping around your sister?

Bella’s still all right, though. I prop the emergency lights all around her and the shadows pull back. She’s breathing okay. Just trapped. She’s going to be okay. We both are.

Except I can’t move the plane to get her out. And there’s no one here to help. And these shadows are everywhere.

I hope you’re coming, some of you. This is transmission eight, I think. I hope. Eight of maybe nine? Maybe just eight.

“They did experiments? Tried to separate people from their shadows using chemicals?” Bella’s still reading. She keeps kicking at the shadows, and eventually they quit trying to get around the lights. The shadows turn their attention to Myerton’s body.

“They tried terrifying the researchers. Invoking the shadows, using pain? Amplifying the wind noise until the shadows separated out? Sometimes through the eyeballs? Nicole, they tortured those hikers. Myerton did it. He did it right here.” She holds up a set of clamps edged with nails and a set of pliers that look like they came from the dentist. “I found these in the snow.”

She couldn’t have. Could she? Maybe from Myerton’s pack.

Now the shadows around Myerton’s body just keep getting darker.

“What did you do?” I hiss at his corpse. The shadows seem to hiss back.

“Worse, what was he planning to do? Bringing us up here, our bags stuffed with his cash, no time to deposit it. He was just going to leave us here, and take it all with him back down again?” Bella’s fury seems to fan the shadows. Shhh Bella no.

The darkness gathered by her feet shimmers and elongates more. I can almost see features: stretched, dark silhouettes of the people in the old photo. The happy hikers. Or what’s left.

Shadows can’t do this at noon. Or at all.

I’m going mad. This is too much.

But the shadows pull away from us, and for a moment, I can breathe. They’re gathering around Myerton now. They flicker and billow, like a dark fire. All we can see are his feet.

A storm’s building over the peak. Clouds, big dark ones. We don’t feel the cold yet, because our gear’s turned up, but I shiver anyway.

Myerton’s foot moves a little. Not a lot. Just jerks a bit as one of the shadows pulls back. Another shadow stretches up the length of his body and covers his mouth.

The corpse shakes again, then lies still.

I have to— I can’t hold the camera steady.

I’ll be back, I promise.

July 8, 20 :: 14:10 :: Lat -NULL, Long - parameters not defined

Are you seeing this? Oh, God. I’m recording so there’s no doubt.

It’s real if you record something, right? Or only if others see it, too?

Trying to upload as fast as I can.

Myerton’s sitting up. His eyelids are open. It’s so creepy. I’d closed them after the wound on his neck bled out. Reached out and pushed the lids down over his glassy blue eyes. My sleeve had been crimson from all the blood. It’s rust brown now.

And now Myerton’s eyes are definitely open and black as pitch. Shadowblack. No sclera. No iris. Just black. His tongue is black, too. He’s speaking—at least, his mouth is moving. There’s no sound.

Shadows don’t talk.

Is this what happened to the Sovyagi Pass hiker? Black eyes? A shadow tongue? Did someone—Myerton? —take them for research?

Our lights are wavering. The wind is too much.

Myerton cocks his—its?—head as if it can hear me screaming.

As if it can understand what I’m saying to you.

Where are you, with your rescue plane?

Oh, God, it’s crawling.

July 8, 20 :: 16:00 :: Lat - , Long -

Hello?

This is broadcast ten. I’m pretty sure. We’re still alive. I’m mostly sure.

We survived because we turned all the lights on Myerton. Held them fast against the wind. And he quit moving toward us.

We saved ourselves a little bit. You have to fucking do the rest, okay?

Sorry. Sorry for cursing.

You can see him over there, barely. Even in the dim storm light, he’s holding his hand in front of his eyes. Trying to cast enough shadow around himself for comfort.

My throat’s raw from screaming. Bella’s chest hurts. We’re fighting as hard as we can. I don’t know if the last couple clips hit the satellite or not? We’re using all our light up.

And, now, the body’s talking. Myerton? Maybe. Whatever it is. Making sounds.

“We can help you.” Its voice—I don’t know if you can hear—sounds like snow blowing over rocks.

We turn the lights back on it. Drive it away from us.

But the more we have to turn the lights away from Bella, the more other shadows encroach here. They’re whispering. Wordlessly.

We keep fighting. Bella kicks. I yell. We’re battling together, against cold and darkness and whatever Myerton did here before.

If you’re sending rescue planes, you’d better hurry, damn you.

The heating elements on our Helly-Hansens are losing charge. So cold now. Not just at the edges of our goggles or our facemasks. In our bones. We lost our backup chargers in the crash. Our Helly-Hansens are powering down. There’s nothing left. Bella upends Myerton’s pack to see if he had any batteries. None.

One last thing falls out of the pack. A gold brick.

“What the fuck is this.”

“It’s for us,” the thing that used to be Myerton whispers. It’s close now. Too close. We weren’t watching enough.

Go away. Go away.

Don’t be afraid, Bella.

It keeps whispering. “Our payment for our research. He gave it to us before we hit the Pass.” It laughs, dryly. “Then he took it back once we were—this. As if gold would make up for decades of shadow existence. We take what we want now.” It lifts its hand, looks at it. Makes a fist.

When it speaks, its tongue is black. Dark as the shadows above and all around us now.

The small circle of our emergency lights shrinks. The power’s nearly gone. The light’s going with it.

My sister and I are survivors. We always have been. Now, though? I’m not sure.

But Bella’s the dealmaker. She’s the one who asks, “What is it you want now?”

Myerton’s body grins. “They wanted us to infiltrate, to spy. To go where no one else could go. Instead, they left us here. When things went wrong. Left us alone, when they should have stayed. We learned. Many things. We want more now.”

More shadows—I count them: five distinct shades and voices, including the one that had taken Myerton—hiss in agreement. “More.”

“We can be as many as we want. Watch.” Five shadows split into ten. They stretch. They reach. Around us.

There’s a creaking sound from the plane as the pilot’s body begins to move.

I am curled tight around my sister, holding our last light against the darkness.

When you find us, I hope you find enough of our records to see this. To know it really happened. Not just to us, but to the Sovyagi Pass hikers. The ones we thought were dead, but who have been stuck here for decades.

The shadows are reaching for us. I don’t want to let them. I’m turning the light up all the way, knowing it will only run out faster. Shit.

Can you hear it? The engine sound?

Is that you? The plane?

It’s a plane, Bella. That sound is propeller chop echoing against the mountain side.

Look at the way the ice and snow shakes off the peak and rains down on us. On the broken hull of the Druk Air turboprop. Which starts to creak and shift.

I grab for Bella as the shadows grab for us.

July 0, 20 :: 0:00 :: Lat - 0 , Long - 0

The rescue plane is dark. Too dark to give you a good angle on the peak below us, which looks white and pristine above its blasted bowl.

We’re okay now.

We’re riding with a very quiet crew, but at least they’ve pulled us off the mountain. Bella and me. And Myerton, too. The pilot doesn’t seem to mind what we do up here. The copilot, the one who flew our old plane, barely notices us.

The new plane is filled with shadows. They tend to Bella and ignore me, except to brush gentle dusk-filled fingers across my face. It’s oddly comforting.

They seem to take great interest in Myerton, however. As if they all know him well, and do not like him. I tried to film the ways they’ve been twisting and bending his body, trying to make his shadow come out. But they’re moving too fast to get the shot, so I can’t catch it.

Is something real if there’s no record?

What I noticed, when they landed, was their twin-prop plane shaking the mountainside and tearing my world apart as the wreckage slid over the cliff, and I held on to Bella. Is it real? Is she really here? Am I?

I’m not sure. I’ve always wanted proof that things are happening. Broadcasts, photos, footage. But proof will have to wait until we land. If we land.

How many shadow agents are there with us? More than the five original hikers from the Pass. Many more. Myerton would have been pleased that his research bore out.

If you’re still getting my broadcasts, this plane is the dark one that pursued us through the clouds. The one that circled, waiting, until Myerton was taken. We’re okay. We’re going to be okay.

I know you’ll be looking for us still. Wanting answers. We have them.

We can see all your replies now. On the posts that made it through. We’re so grateful for you. We want you to meet us when we land.

Yes, Bella and I are coming back to you. All—oh wow, look at that—one hundred thirty-five thousand of you now.

Bella’s eyes are dark now, and she’s not speaking much, but she’s a survivor and I am, too. Sometimes she turns to me and smiles. She still looks like my sister when she does that.

We are going to make it back. We have more peaks to climb. All of us. We want you to follow us there, too.

What I’m learning, on the plane, is that the shadows can divide, and stretch through the equipment. They’re doing that now, through our broadcasts, reaching out. Finding new places to be. Helping us access our media feeds. Helping us to connect with you.

We’re rescuing ourselves from Myerton’s plans. It’s clear he was going to make more shadows of us. And he has, somewhat. Just not in the way he wanted.

We’re coming back to you, to our fans. And we’ve got so much to tell you. So much to teach you.

We’re so glad you downloaded all our data. That your screens are directing you to our landing point. Where we’re going to meet you all. We’ve learned to appreciate the shadows. We’ll show you how.