Andre M. Pietroschek

Shadow-Friends - A Cyberpunky Story Of Doom

For those, who do not know Shadowrun: It was, as if `Blade Runner´ movie was intermixed with Dungeons & Dragons. Just, that original Shadowrun (before the death of Nigel Findley) also was our `young adult´ phase. Now, age 50, I barely remember the basics. 



Shadow-Friends

© Andre M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved


“Dark Mother, Kali-Ma, guide us!” The chant was habitual by now. Alphard Johnson intoned it with joy and conviction. The backroom was unlit. Sound-dampening padding attached to the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. A minor Refugio, a shabby sanctuary crafted for the magically awake among his flock. Alphard bathed in the darkness, drawing energy from it like a hungry vampire drains the lifeblood from its victims.

His sacrifice was not understood by his clientele, and Alphard had long accepted that it was a burden that only a handful of brethren and disciples even knew about it. It was the price he paid for the Dark Mother's supportive guidance, and he paid it willingly. Though sometimes he missed home and grew proverbially homesick.

Technically, the official  Meta-Magic-Theory made him one more  Shaman.  A  dangerous simplification. Alphard was a cultist, a special form of magic user and the Dark Mother was not his Totem, but his patron or deity. There were truisms about similar principles in the comparison of relationships for shaman to totem and cultist to deity. Yet, defining it via those too often resulted in mutually unwanted misunderstandings.

When Alphard had learned that beyond all the accusations and paranoid ramblings: Only the Dark Mother (in the Kali-Ma aspect) fought against Demons & Injustice, then Alphard had paid her sympathies & respect. From his perspective, she deserved it: A heroic and solitary Sacred Police Task Force against exceptionally dangerous criminals and abusers. Hellspawn, to use a western metroplex kinda simplification.

He had come to her after his third Shadowrun ever had culminated in utter catastrophe. His team had been sent against a coven of witches and warlocks serving the Adversary. The Advesary was the true patron or deity behind creatures like Satan, Shaitan, or Wendigo. Plus countless other guises, and heaps of disinformation.

Since his original magic had been burned out of him, Alphard believed in stuff like soul-eating & hellfire. His team had survived, crippled and scarred, because they were allowed to survive as a frightening example to scare other Shadowrunners. Seattle remembered it for several years. In the aftermath of it he had found help and healing where it was most unexpected. Still, the hags' prophecy haunted him. Barely recovered, freshly accepted as a child of the Dark Mother, he had encountered a messenger of the adversary. She had just come to talk that much was true. “Painstakingly will be your existence, and you will be murdered by the only family you have left!”

That was 24 years ago. It also made him run nicknamed `Anguish´. It was true that his scars, received from the dark ephemera encountered on that proverbially fateful run, had never fully healed. Recurrently he had days in anguish or outright agony. His will opposed the onslaught, even though his will was mortal while the hellfire was not. Twenty years ago, he had to leave the sacred temple. It was his start as a Mr. Johnson and cult-agent. Tasks he had learned to coordinate and execute quite well. Modern computers had allowed him to fund and support the cult, send Shadowrunners against enemies of the Dark Mother frequently, and prosper along with it. 

It had been a blessed time. At 46 years of age, he was a veteran mage of sorts. He had seen and experienced much in his life. He even got happily married for a complete decade. Just, that all their children were born dead, and that his wife had committed suicide, when it became too much for her. The Dark Mother was there, giving solace and healing what she could. Once again. But Alphard was a man of his time and he had not ignored any chance to evade or defeat the prophecy. He had failed time and time again. Even the Dark Mother had reassured him that the prophecy was verified and would inevitably come true. 

Alphard slipped into his Lined Duster armored coat. He wore the holy symbol of his new Family, stuck the Remington Roomsweeper (shotgun-revolver) into its holster and ensured that ammunition was sufficient. Slower than in his younger years he walked through those streets of Seattle. 

The smell of the city, the pulsing of its energy, is like lifeblood to a human body. The atmosphere he had learned to love. All those impressions that had accompanied his triumphs and routine throughout the years. It was a wonderful walk. 

When the alley before him deepened in darkness it was a spirit of fulfillment, and relief, which made him venture into it. He had been reborn in darkness and everything good in his entire adult life had been supplied by that darkness. Now, he had to be strong and regal, as it was the least he could do to show proper respect. The Shadow before him was so solid that any cultist gifted with dark sight would have stared at it in awe and admiration. Its female form radiated power, divinity, and solace. Alphard looked into the eyes made of blackness, like an infant who feels all nightmares banished, when Momma comes to give him a goodnight kiss.

“This is your wish?” The shades' voice was angelic to Alphard.

“Yes. I thank you for all of it!” Alphard barely saw the motion coming... The cultist barely felt the strike...

Before his head had fallen from his severed neck, Alphard was already reunited with the one essence he had ever found comfort in. It was a good, faithful darkling death to choose. 

“Dark Mother, I'm coming home!” his last faint echo of a chant on the Astral Plane...


End of Story.

The gloomy longing for death, not clinical depression, as the protagonist has to accept that what harms him
cannot be undone, shot, or fled from. Background world: The Awakened World of Shadowrun Roleplaying.
But, I was also thinking of the original `Hitman (47)ī movie. ;-)
Authors comment

All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Andre M. Pietroschek.
Published on e-Stories.org on 03/15/2023.

 
 

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