Shadow Worlds and Chaos Lights

THE MORNING passed without the interference of any more mysterious happenings, but Heedan still found it hard to concentrate on his schoolwork. His mind kept coming back to the mysterious messages; why had they come to him? Was it only a coincidence that he had found a message, in a book he was reading, and then just by some freakish twist of fate, had found almost the same message in his very own morning paper? Well, he didn't think so; it was too much of a coincidence to be simply a coincidence.

"...Therefore it's important to study the problem from different perspectives..." the professor's voice penetrated his thoughts, and Heedan guiltily looked down at his notes; at the top of the paper he had written the word 'Psychology' with fluent handwriting, but the rest of the paper, where he was supposed to have taken notes about the subject the professor was talking about, was empty. In fact, he had been too deep into his own ruminations to even know what the subject of today was, much less why it was important to study it from different perspectives.

Heedan sighed and let his eyes sweep over the classroom. All of his fellow students either had their eyes on Professor West as she was drawing a complicated mind-map on the whiteboard, or they were bent over their own notes, scribbling eagerly.

His gaze fell on the young man he had talked to earlier that morning, Eoli. He was also taking notes, worrying his pen between his lips during the pauses between sentences. The sun was shining through the window and made the man's hair look like it had strands of gold woven into it, soft golden strands. Blushing, Heedan quickly pulled himself from his train of thoughts. Why on earth was he thinking about how the sun made Eoli's hair glow like gold? And why on earth was he blushing? He sighed again and tried to focus on what Professor West was saying.

As soon as the bell rang, Heedan rose from the chair and left the classroom. He had had enough; he would solve this mystery once and for all, coincidence or not; then he might be able to focus on school again.

Without any hesitation, he went to the computer room, dropped his backpack on the floor, sat down at the computer and turned it on. It took forever for the system to boot, and Heedan suddenly was filled with an unexplainable nervousness, bordering on panic.

He shook his head to get rid of the feeling. He was here to do research, nothing illegal, so there was no reason whatsoever that he would need to feel this kind of unease. Finally, Windows' steel-grey login box appeared against the background's green meadow and blue sky, and Heedan let out a sigh from relief, and then realised that he had been holding his breath.

"You're so stupid," he scolded himself, logging into his user account and accessing the internet.

The rainbow-coloured letters of the Google-logo shone against him from the screen as he tried to remember what the paper had said except a lot of "Help us! Help us! Help us!", he knew there was no reason to search for that.

Ag-something, Id-something Idun? maybe, Something, Tana, Mu'atsu; at least he thought it was with an apostrophe. Was it latin? The more he thought about it, the more sure he became that it was more like names than latin words. He typed 'Mu'atsu' in the search field and pressed enter. The results came up, but Heedan soon realised that none of it was relevant to what he wanted to know. Most of the pages were in a language he did not understand, and even if it said 'mu atsu' several times in the text, the lack of apostrophe between words and the fact that it was written in lower case told him that it did not have anything to do with the name 'Mu'atsu' even if he did not understand a word of the rest of the text.

Maybe he missspelled it, he tried some other spellings and searched on the other names, but always with the same result, or lack thereof. With a sigh of equal parts disappointment and irritation, he logged out and turned off the computer.

Of course he hadn't really expected to find anything, but the whole situation made him frustrated, and he felt tears start to rise in his eyes. Why were they toying with him like this; why didn't they simply show themselves to him like they had when he was younger? Didn't they understand how much he wanted them, how much he needed them, or was it all like a sick joke to them?

A sick joke? That thought made Heedan think about something else. What if it indeed was a joke and nothing more?

"William!" Heedan mumbled to himself. "Of course, why didn't I think if that?"

William Noel was Heedan's closest neighbour, and even though they weren't exactly friends, they shared the fascination for the paranormal and had had some really interesting discussions on the subject. However, Heedan also knew that William had a sick sense of humour and loved playing practical jokes on people.

When the electricity had failed, William had come over with some candles and matches for him, and the book Heedan had been reading had been on the table the whole time. Slipping a note into it wouldn't take but a second. The same with the newspaper; William worked as a janitor at the city hospital and often left for work before Heedan was even awake. The newspaper had been lying outside his door, probably for hours, before he had gone to get it. So it would have been easy as pie for William to continue his practical joke by putting another note in that on his way to work. To make Heedan think that there was something supernatural about the messages when it probably wasn't at all.

"Ha-ha!" Heedan laughed a joyless laugh. "Very funny, Will!"

"But what about the blackouts?" said a small voice of reason, or more like the voice of insanity, inside his head. "The hour that disappeared yesterday? The scrapbook you made in some kind of trance? You can't blame that on William can you? How do you explain those?"

"I don't know," Heedan replied to the voice. "Stress maybe?"

"In that case," the voice continued, "Will couldn't have known that you would react in that way to some pieces of paper, so what was the practical joke about?"

"Great! I'm arguing with myself," Heedan mumbled and picked up the backpack from the floor. He was just about to leave, when something under the desk caught his attention. It was a piece of white paper, and on it he could see something written with red ink. All the blood in his body rushed to his stomach in a hot, aching lump that left the rest of his body as cold as ice.

"Try to blame this on Will!" the voice in his head said smugly as Heedan crawled under the desk and reached for the paper. The handwriting was the same as on the earlier one, and even if the words were new, they were very familiar.


Heedan, we need you!
The world needs you!
We can't stop him!
He is too strong
Please!
Help us! Help us! Help us!


Heedan almost didn't have time to finish reading those words before black spots started to dance in front of his eyes. They grew in number until it covered his field of vision and his ears were buzzing from the sound of his rapidly beating heart.

Somewhere, inside his head, or outside, he wasn't sure, he thought he could hear voices, but they were weak and distorted, almost like when one can hear a radio show through the static noise on a nearby frequency. Heedan felt with his whole being that the voices were important, that they wanted to tell him something, but the more he strained to hear what they were saying, the farther away the voices seemed to be.

"No!" he wanted to yell. "Don't disappear; don't leave me!" but he couldn't make a sound.

"Heedan? Are you okay? What happened?"

The soft tone of a voice and the steady touch of a hand on his shoulder called Heedan back to consciousness, and he gazed into the worried eyes of Eoli Anaya.

"How are you? You're not epileptic or something, are you? Do you want me to get the nurse?" the questions came faster than Heedan could reply, so he simply raised his hand.

"I...I'm fine...I just..." he croaked, shocked because his voice sounded sore and hoarse as if he had been screaming out loud, which was weird because he had indeed tried to scream, but then he hadn't been able to make a sound, or had he? He knew about people talking and even shouting in their sleep, but he hadn't been sleeping; this wasn't a dream, at least not a normal one; he knew that now. He looked at the other man again and realized that Eoli still was waiting for an answer.

"I'm fine," he began again then went silent; what was he supposed to say, that he had just had a blackout, and apparently had lost consciousness from the text on a paper he had found on the floor? That this paper was connected to mysterious messengers in his apartment; that he was scared because Will really was innocent this time?

"You wanted this," the little voice in his head mocked. "You wanted it – you begged for it to start again, for them to come back, and now when you finally got what you thought you wanted, you whine like a child because it scares you."

"Heedan?" Eoli said softly, sounding even more worried now.

"I'm fine," Heedan began for the third time. "Really...I am...I think...Maybe...I just want to go home..."

"Do you want me to call someone?" Eoli smiled kindly.

Heedan shook his head. "There is no one to call. My mom and uncle live in another town; no need to upset them."

Eoli nodded. "I see."

He picked up a fancy-looking cell-phone and dialled a number. After a short explanation about a friend that wasn't feeling well, he hung up and put the phone back into his pocket. "There... I explained everything, so they're coming to get you."

"Who?" Heedan asked, half-joking and half-worrying. "The men in white coats?"

He wouldn't have been the least surprised if that had turned out to be the answer, but Eoli just laughed softly and shook his head. "No, my family. I sent after someone to give you a lift home," he glanced at his wristwatch. "The car will be here anytime soon."

Car, Heedan realized, as he more or less dragged himself out of school with Eoli's arm around his waist for support, was an understatement; it wasn't at all the kind simple passenger car he had expected, but a full scale limousine with shaded windows, an exclusive interior and personal chauffeur in the driver's seat.


"Heedan, we need you!"


Heedan shook his head. "Excuse me, what did you say?"

Eoli smiled, but he couldn't keep a worried frown from passing over his features. "I said, call if you need me."

He gave Heedan a business card and opened the door to the limousine. "I'll tell the professor you weren't feeling well, so don't worry about that."

He helped Heedan get in, and then leaned over him, for a second or two almost looking like he was going to give Heedan a hug, before he simply told the address to the chauffeur, who then nodded.

"Take care!" Eoli said with a final smile and closed the door.

As the limousine started to drive the familiar way home, Heedan was suddenly filled with an eerie feeling. Something wasn't right here, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was; something was wrong with this whole situation. Eoli had been nothing but sweet and kind towards him during the whole day but still, Heedan couldn't shake the feeling that, well, he didn't even know what feeling it was that he couldn't shake. He must have been even more exhausted than he had first thought.

He wasn't sure how he had gotten out of the limousine, up all those stairs and into his apartment, but as he collapsed on the bed, just before sleep claimed him, Heedan realised what had been wrong.

"How did he know where I live?"