I don’t like looking up at the city. I know it’s only been a few hours since I woke up, but there’s something about the impossible buildings that fills me with a deep sense of unease. They’re too big, too new, too bright. I like it a lot better when I look down; when I ignore the tall towers in favour of the comforting brick of the smaller structures, with their dark and welcoming shadows. It’s easy to slip in and out of them, at times almost flying through the darkness. It feels natural, it feels right, but I know it really shouldn’t.

Why am I like this? Was I born this way? Something about that doesn’t feel right, but who am I to say? Was I made? Is there anyone else like this? Anyone else like me? My mind is racing with thousands of unanswered questions, my thoughts travelling as fast as my body through the shadows. I can’t think of them right now. I jump out of the darkness onto a narrow balcony two stories up, seemingly abandoned and deep in shadow. My kind of place.

I spend a while with my arms, two of them, resting on the balcony while I watch the streets below. The shadows here are deep enough that all anyone would be able to see of me is three pairs of beady yellow eyes, giving me a comforting sense of anonymity. A couple of people stagger past, women in short dresses and men in dark suits, but none of them so much as glance in my direction. Part of me wonders if I should go down there and try to talk to them, but another part finds the whole idea repugnant. It’s not like they’d listen to someone who looks like this…

Something lights up the building opposite me, a bright blue light that flashes and shakes. Instinct drives me down behind the balcony as the harsh light gets brighter and brighter. I peer over the balustrade, just in time to see a boxy grey truck drive past, with flashing blue lights that send me reeling back from its intensity. A little further down the street it emits a keening wail that sets my teeth on edge as it forces its way past a couple of cars. Once it’s gone, I curl up underneath the edge of the balcony and try to fall asleep.

I still can’t manage it - something just doesn’t seem right - and pretty soon the rain starts up again. I don’t mind it as much as I feel like I should, but it’s still not an altogether pleasant experience. I try to move out of the rain by huddling up against the building, but it’s coming in at an angle. Water starts to pool on the balcony, draining away agonisingly slowly, and I reluctantly hop up onto the balustrade, before leaping off into the shadows. Something tells me I shouldn’t try that move when there isn’t a shadow to catch my fall…

The rain can’t touch me when I’m hiding in the darkness, but I can’t touch anything either. I can’t hide in the shadows forever, no matter how much I might want to, so I slip out of the darkness, and start to look for shelter. The night goes on, as people withdraw from the streets. I’m almost alone now, save for the occasional car that sends me scurrying back into the shadows. The streets are still lit by that ever-present electrical glow, but there are more than enough shadows for me to hide in.

Of course, just because the drunks have left the streets doesn’t mean they’re empty. I’ve been moving away from the glowing towers, heading out towards the smaller buildings that are much less well lit. There are people here, in small groups, standing on the street corners with wary looks in their eyes. A couple of them are even armed, with lengths of metal pipe, chains curled around their fists or even a few short handguns tucked into the belt of their pants.

I creep around these figures, slinking through the shadows behind them, clambering over the rooftops or ducking back through the drains and following the flow of water from the rain. Eventually, the number of armed men starts to drop as I leave what must be their territory. The buildings here are squat, with few more than three stories tall, and many are in disrepair, or have been demolished to make way for new growth.

One in particular looms over me; close to three stories of sagging brickwork, the right side of which has partially collapsed into a heap of bricks, concrete and steel. It’s ringed by a fence made from linked strands of steel, covered in signs warning the public of unseen dangers. I can read it, if I use my claws to pull my face up to the sign, but much of it is nonsense to me. ‘Severe Water Damage’ is easy to figure out, as is ‘Unfit for Human Habitation,’ but ‘Asbestos,’ ‘Seattle’ and ‘FEMA’ are complete gibberish to me. I guess I’m just lucky that I can read any of the language at all.

The fence proves no obstacle to me as I slowly slink through the shadows before reforming myself inside the building, well beyond the prying eyes of the city. It’s almost completely pitch black in here, and yet I can somehow see clearly. It’s not the same as seeing light normally, rather it’s like I can somehow make sense of the differing flavours of darkness, in a way that doesn’t quite make sense to me. I’d been seeing parts of it before, but this darkness is somehow clearer than the rest, as if the lack of nearby light makes it more visible to me, rather than less.

The building has obviously seen better days. The walls are cracked and sagging, and the floors are uneven, partially rotted in places. I don’t know what this building was before; maybe it was used for offices, maybe it was a factory or mill of some kind. What matters is that most of the rooms still have all four walls, and the second floor gets me off street level. It might be a nice place to wait out the day, before sneaking off to eat at night. I know I shouldn’t be happy about squatting in an abandoned building, and I shouldn’t enjoy planning nightly raids on general stores, but I’ll take what I can get.

The second floor is largely open plan, with a gaping hole in one end where the building has collapsed in on itself. I stay away from that half – whatever dangers that sign was warning me about are probably over there – and instead pace over to the office on the opposite side. The door has long rotted away, but all the walls are still here and there’s even some glass left in the window. It’s almost a palace!

I spend the night going through the building, room by room, dragging down soft wood scraps and bits of loose canvas until I’ve build myself a passable bed in the corner, deep enough that I can hide in the shadows amongst the scraps if I need to and large enough for me to curl up on top of it. It takes the rest of the night to drag everything down and, by the time I’m done, the first glimmers of sunlight are streaming through the window. I block out the sun with the last scrap of tarpaulin, nailing it into the walls with a few twisted iron rods I found in the next site over. I’m not particularly strong, but the walls here are soft and flaky.

Once the sun’s up, my motivation seems to drain away from me, and I curl up on top of my makeshift bed, pointedly ignoring the way it pokes and prods at me, and drift off into sleep as the tarpaulin over the window keeps the worst of the sun at bay. My dreams are filled with fleeting images that seem to slip away as I try and grasp at them. They are filled with sunlight, but it doesn’t seem so harsh in my mind.

The rotten door creaks and I bolt awake, instinctively slipping into the shadows beneath my bed. It’s not yet dark, but the harsh glare of daylight has been replaced by the fading orange of the evening. I’m well outside the glow, moving about in the shadows of my heap and hoping that nobody saw me.

“Who’s that?”

Drat.

Somebody steps into the room, and my first thought is that he needs a doctor. His face is gaunt, almost skeletal, and his hair is matted and clumped across his head, with a wispy excuse for a beard dusting his chin. He’s dressed in layers of coats and gloves, each worn and ragged, and he’s brandishing a long thin knife in front of him, as his eyes dart madly around the room.

“Don’t fuckin’ hide from me. I know you’re in here!”

He’s stepping closer, and I know he’s going to start tearing up all my hard work to try and find me. He’ll rip the canvas off the window and smash my bed to splinters! I pull myself to the edge of the shadows, and materialise six beady eyes right where he can see them. He stops dead as I start to pull myself after the wood, hoping to scare him off or something. That knife looks sharp – and I really don’t want to get into a fight – but if I can scare him away then maybe he’ll leave me alone?

It works, and he quickly stuffs the knife back into his pocket, raising both his hands up to his head.

“Ah shit! Sorry! I didn’t know you were living here! Don’t hurt me! Please!”

I’m fully formed now, perched on top of my heap, and I glare at him for a few moments before speaking. Shouting, really.

‘Go away!’

That’s not what comes out of my mouth, though. It’s loud, but it doesn’t sound anything like words. It’s halfway between a screech and a snarl, and it breaks my heart to hear it. I can’t talk. I bring my hands, my claws, up to my mouth, pawing and pulling at it as if I can somehow force the words to come out right, force this horrible beak to make some semblance of speech. I don’t want to be alone!

At some point I curl up into a ball, sobbing as I try to rip my jaw off with my bare hands. I think about sinking back into the shadows and never emerging, but then I spot the man still standing on the other side of the room, confusion dancing in his eyes. I look up at him like a little girl with her hand caught in the cookie jar, my hands frozen mid-scratch.

“L-look, I don’t wanna step on any toes here, but I got nowhere else to go. Triad ran me out of my last spot, and this is the only other place I could think of. Either this or Lynnwood, but I ain’t that suicidal. Not yet, at least.”

His mouth cracks open in a strained grin, exposing yellowed and decaying teeth, and I know he’s not afraid of me anymore. If I want to get him out of here, I’d need to fight him. I don’t think I can do that, not to someone I don’t know. I let out a long, drawn out, sigh – at least I can still do that – and nod my head.

“God bless you,” he says, sitting with his back against the wall. “Name’s Mike. You got a name?”

I scowl at him, and he seems to get the hint.

“Right, ‘course not.” He sighs, drawing his knees up into his chest. “I got to say, this has to be about the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had while sober.”

I tilt my head in confusion, but he just waves me off. At least we’re communicating, kind of. Maybe I can take this further? There’s plenty of dust on the floor, so I reach over and try to copy the letters I saw outside. I’m pretty sure I know how to write, but it takes a second to figure out how to make the correct symbols with my claws.

‘where we?’

He leans over, tilting his head to read the letters. I’ve written them from my perspective, which means they’re upside down to him, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out.

“Where are we?”

I nod.

“I think it was a clothing factory?”

I tap the words twice, before pointing towards the covered window.

“Oh, shit. You really don’t know?” My stare speaks for me, “Guess not. This is Seattle.”

I draw my finger through half of my statement, before quickly writing another word.

‘where we? that?’

He brings his fingers up to his chin, scratching at his wispy beard.

“Washington State?”

I tap the words again.

“The USA?”

Another tap.

“Earth?”

My taps are more desperate now.

“You’re not an alien, are you? ‘Cos that’s about as big as it gets.”

I bring my hands up to my head again. Not a single flash of recognition, not one stray memory or vague feeling of familiarity. I don’t recognise anything about it, which means I really am lost. I slip into the shadows again, peering out of the somewhat-soft mass of rotten wood and canvas I’ve been using as a bed, which sends Mike scampering back again. He can’t manage it, not when he was already leaning against the wall, so his fear slowly turns into curiosity, as I peer out of the shadows at him.

“Damn,” he sighs, “you have to be the weirdest cape I’ve ever seen.”

I push an arm out of the shadows, reaching over to my scribbled words.

‘what where we? that?’

“Capes? Capes are… Capes are people, I guess, who can do extraordinary things. They can build things, or shoot balls of gas from their arms, or grow enormous stone fortresses. Heh. Or merge into shadows.”

So I’m not alone! It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, but I still need to be sure. I reach out with my hand, one more time.

‘people like me?’

“Not quite.” He winces, and my heart breaks all over again. “They still look like people. I’m sorry,” he says, as I form my beady eyes to stare him down, “but it’s true. There are a few capes who look a little odd when they’re using their power, but nobody like you. Sorry.”

None of us speak after that, not like I have a choice in the matter. Eventually, Mike steps out of the makeshift office, dragging his sleeping bag to some other part of the old factory. I wait until the sun goes down, occupying myself by doodling idly in the dust, before crawling out into the night yet again.

This time I stay away from the city centre. From ‘Seattle.’ I stick to the side streets and alleyways, watching from the shadows as people go about their daily lives. I spot a fistfight on the side of the street, two burly men going at each other with bare knuckles, but I just ignore it and walk away. Conversation pours from bars so full that the drinking has spilled out onto the street, and more drinkers arrive for every one that leaves. At one point, another one of those grey vans drives past, following a pair of light-blue cars with a white stripe along their side, and blue and red flashing lights on top.

The light of one of these cars passes over my shadow, and I am instantly forced back into my physical form, panting heavily as I slink off deeper into the city. Women in absurd clothing make passes at passing cars, outside a section of the city bathed in a deep red light that creates absolutely marvellous shadows. There are a lot more fights in that part of town, as burly men in black shirts cooperate to drag a myriad of drunken people out of the area. I spot two of them flanking a man in a neatly-pressed suit with a violet shirt and tie, talking to a strangely-dressed woman in a tight-fitting black and orange outfit, with an orange mask across the top of her face. She seems to have the respect of the man, and something else that could be fear or awe.

Eventually, I find my way to another well-lit general store, and creep in through the shadow underneath the door itself. I sneak myself food from the entire shop, more sandwiches and drinks and loose fruit, until I’ve eaten my fill. I’m about to sneak out again, until I remember how gaunt Mike looked. I double back, retrieving a few things, and push the door open rather than slipping under it. Nobody sees me this time.

I find him in a room on the first floor of the warehouse – he seems to have written off the whole second floor as my territory – curled up in a sleeping bag on top of a bed made from a couple of steel tables he’s pushed together. He’s still awake, so I rest my claws on the table to pull myself up and use my hands to place my haul in front of him. He smiles at me, eagerly consuming the sandwich and bottled drink, but I have to pointedly tap the apple before he pays any attention to it.

“An apple a day, huh? Look at you” -he smiles- “thinkin’ of my health.”

I wait pointedly for him to finish, before letting myself drop to the floor and slinking off to the doorway.

“You know” -I pause and look back at him- “I think this is that start of a wonderful partnership.”

I don’t really know what he means, but it feels nice to know there’s someone here who won’t scream and run when they see me. I smile, as I slink back out into the night.