I made my way through the piles of rubble I assumed used to be buildings, being as careful as I could not to get scraped up by sections of stone and wood that jutted out in odd places. 

So far, I'd seen and heard absolutely nothing. No survivors, no Shadows. It felt too quiet. 

But, then again, I still had some land to search before I started heading back. The sun was close to being right over my head, which was when I had decided to start making my way back to the entrance. 

"Hello?" I called for what felt like the millionth time. "Is anyone there? I'm here to help you."

No response. 

I sighed. Maybe Darklox had made sure that everyone was dead before he left. He wasn't one to leave a job all the way unfinished, and he would only ever leave one. But countless people got away from the Kingdom, so he probably left no survivors here. I had already seen about ten dead bodies, and each one made me want to throw up. 

The whole situation was sick, and I could feel my desire to "take an ax to Darklox's face", as Jenna would say, strengthen by the second. 

But that wasn't an option anymore. It wouldn't be an option until we freed Skylar. There had to be a way to defeat him without killing Skylar along with him. There had to be. 

Snap.

The sound of footsteps behind me snapped me out of my thoughts. 

I whipped around, and a person was standing there. Her long hair matched mine in color, and her brown eyes seemed to look straight through me. She had a purple and white sweater that looked like something a child would wear, but I wasn't convinced she was innocent, yet. She looked to be around the same age as my father.

"Nice to finally meet you, Tyler." She said.

"Who are you?" I asked, stepping backwards.

"My name's Jess."

"I didn't mean your name, I meant what are you?" I said.

She tilted her head, a grin on her face. "You think I'm not human?"

"You wouldn't be following me, or know my name if you were human." I countered.

"Well, aren't you a smart one?"

"I've started to figure out what gives things away." I said. "Answer my question. What are you?"

"You've dealt with my kind before." She said, and with that, lifted the sleeve of her sweater to reveal a "S" seemingly carved into her skin with black ink.

I jumped backwards, looking back up to see her eyes were fully black for a split second before flashing back to a normal brown.

"You."

"Me." She smiled.

I put my hand to my chest, willing for my sword, but nothing happened. Typical.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you." I said. Even without a weapon, I had to keep her from scaring me.

"Number one, you don't have anything to kill me with." She said. "Number two, you need me."

"Yeah. Need you dead." I said, glaring at her.

"I know that fancy tracking compass of yours is smashed." She said. "I know you're all completely lost. You have no idea where to start looking for her. You've been trying to get information out of other Shadows. Killed quite a few of them."

She paused for a moment. "You do know you can't keep that a secret forever, right?"

"Shut up." I didn't meet her eyes. "What does that have to do with needing you?"

She grinned. "I can take you to her. To him."

I felt frozen in place. A Shadow was offering to help me. This had to be a trick.

"What makes you think I can trust you?"

"You think all Shadows are mindless soldiers?" She asked, giving me a look.

"You were made by him."

"Be that as it may," She continued. "There are some of us who despise him. He's not exactly deserving of a 'World's Best Boss' mug."

"Just because you want a pay raise doesn't mean I trust you." I said.

"Doesn't the phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' mean anything to you?" She said.

I didn't say anything, and she sighed.

"Listen, kid, I've been following you for the past twenty minutes or so. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now. We Shadows don't like wasting time with tricks. Much easier to catch you by surprise and snap your neck."

I didn't want to admit it, but she had a point. Every Shadow I'd met was either under orders from Darklox to mess with a town or went for the kill. And there wasn't exactly a town left to mess with here.

"Alright." I said. "Say I decide to trust you. Say I let you take us to him. What's in it for you?"

"You help me take him down. And the Shadows on my side go free." She said.

"No. No way." I said. "You're still Shadows."

She sighed. "Oh my god, Tyler, don't be racist. Just because most Shadows are evil doesn't mean they all are."

"Fine." I said. "Prove it." 

She grinned, and snapped her fingers. 

At that moment, I heard the sound of a Creeper dying about ten paces behind me. I turned to see a pile of gunpowder on the ground. 

"That one was headed straight towards you." She said. "Would've killed you if you hadn't noticed it before it got close enough to explode."

I couldn't believe it. A Shadow, what I considered to be one of our greatest enemies, just saved my life. 

"Could have just let it kill you, y'know." She said. "Is that enough proof for you?" 

I turned back to face her. "Fine. You take us to Darklox, we'll let the Shadows on your side go free." 

"Great." She smiled. 

"But I'm warning you now," I said. "If you try to pull something, anything at all, I'll kill you myself."

"Alright, geez, kid." She said. "Shake on it?" 

"You'll burn me." I said. 

"Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting. No wonder you people don't like us." She said. 

I looked at the sky to see the sun was right above my head. "I have to start heading back. I'm guessing you want to meet the others, Shadow?" 

"That'd be great." She smiled. "Don't want to keep this arrangement a secret. And my name is Jess, in case you forgot." 

"Right." I said. "Jess."

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No art was sent to me this week :(