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Iris, quite frankly, detested walking home alone, especially any time after dark. It had nothing to do with fear of the boogeyman, not anything of the sort. In truth the red head had absolutely horrendous spatial awareness, and it was bad in a well lit environment. Needless to say, trying to navigate her way through dimly lit streets was far from ideal. Lamps flickering on and off above her head - seriously, someone needed to get those fixed - and the soft glow of the moon when not shrouded by clouds provided little help in her endeavours.All of a sudden her heel sank through where the ground should be, catching in the grating of a drainage system, sending her stumbling forward. To her utter dismay a loud crack rang out through the empty street, echoing off the walls of nearby houses. Trying to regain balance began to prove difficult too, now with only one functioning shoe it took Iris a little more time than was necessary to steady herself. Trying to look on the bright side she could say at least she didn’t fall, however it was only a matter of time at this rate.To many the disheveled girl in a shirt too short to be suitable for this sort of situation and broken heels would seem like a drunken mess. Truth be told Iris was far too sober for this right now, perhaps had she been a little tipsy this whole situation would be funny, instead she just ended up looking down at her broken shoe in disdain, wishing she had remembered to book a taxi, or at least appoint a designated driver among her friends. But she had never been someone to plan ahead of that far.With an air of indifference she simply learnt against the nearest building, slipping off her heels, or what was left of them, letting them dangle loosely from two fingers before continuing in barefoot, not being anymore the careful. She could only hope dog walkers had remembered to clean up after them.Her apartment wasn’t far from the centre of nightlife in the city, it was perhaps only a twenty minute walk, but at this time of the night - or perhaps morning - it seemed like a arduous journey home. Iris was far too tired at this stage to really want to walk another step, but what other choice did she have. Her friends were far too drunk to even consider her situation, besides they had become insufferable only an hour into the night, getting their hands on whoever and whatever they could find. No doubt drunken mistakes had already happened.Iris let out a sigh into the crisp autumn air, thinking that she should really get herself some better friends. Or at least some better drinking buddies. A night of drunken debauchery now consisted of finding any given man and waking up in his bed the next morning, not knowing his name. Iris tended to try and avoid taking the walk of shame home the next morning.Not that walking home alone in the dark past 2am with no shoes on wasn’t a walk of shame. But at least it was peaceful enough, and no one was around to see it. Or at least she thought so for quite some time, until she could have sworn a shadow in the distance moved, slinking into a nearby alleyway.Iris tried to put it off as drunken paranoia however she wasn’t one to suffer such symptoms. The red head had always trusted her intuition and not once had it led her astray. After careful consideration she was sure she had seen something, whether or not that something was an issue for her was yet to be discovered. She kept her guard up but tried not to think any more on the event.That really didn’t last long, only moments later did she watch a small figure hurry into the alley after whoever she had first seen. Whoever it was had been quite scrawny looking, they couldn’t have been taller than her so Iris quickly decided they must be a child. Briefly she wondered if she should investigate before deciding it was none of her business.Trying as best she could she continued to walk on, pushing the thoughts of curiosity out of her mind. What did it matter that a kid was out this late? It really had nothing to do with her. Once a the loud clatter of bins being capsized filled the night air she decided she just couldn’t complacently walk away, it would probably eat at her for the rest of her life. What if they kids body was found, then she would have to give a statement and that was another whole ordeal.Turning on her heel she retraced her steps, turning the corner and heading towards the alleyway she had seen the suspicious behaviour occurring. At this point she decided it was dark enough down the small street that she should use the last ten percent of her battery life, tapping on the torch.Peering down the alleyway she thought perhaps she had been imagining things until the slightest flicker of movement caught her eye, gaze landing on a boy, peeking his head over the top of the upturned bin. He seemed to be hiding, she hoped she hadn’t startled him, that would just make things more difficult.“Hey, kiddo,” she called out, trying to project her voice loud enough for him to hear but quiet enough to not wake anyone. Not that the loud clattering hadn’t already done that, “You lost back here or?”Only now did she realise how raw her voice had become, straining her throat with every word. She had been screaming over the music all night, apparently that was how you communicated in a night out nowadays.Upon realising he had been discovered the boy ducked back under the bins and seemed to make an attempt to crawl to a new form of cover, failing miserably as Iris watched him with an eyebrow raised.“Hey listen, I get it,” she explained with a shrug, “A weird woman comes up to you in an alley, don’t talk to strangers and all that, but being out here alone at night is more dangerous, I only want to help.”He seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, glancing up at her before continuing to crawl behind an old sofa that someone had apparently just left outside their appartement, god knows what was living in there now. Perhaps this kid was homeless. All he wore was tattered clothes and a funky looking hat, similarly to Iris he was shoeless as of now.Moments later the boy has resurfaced, his back turned to Iris as if completely ignoring her. Upon watching him a few seconds more, he looked almost like a cat ready to pounce, leaning forward, eyes clearly focused on something. And pounce he did, diving between two black rubbish bags, almost head first into the wall that they were supported against before sitting up dazed. Hurriedly Iris rushed to his side, not wanting a dead body on her hands.“Shit, you alright? You’re not hurt? God, please don’t be hurt I don’t know any first aid,” she carefully helped him up as he rubbed his head, still seeming a little out of it before seemingly snapping back into reality, jumping back from her grasp and giving her what could only be surprised as a look of disgust.“I’m fine,” he insisted in a rather stubborn manner, turning his body away from her and folding his arms defensively, “I don’t need any help from an adult!”“Okay… okay… if you’re sure… you should probably go home,” she suggested, unsure if he really had a home, it was more a question to see if her observations about this boy being homeless were true.“You can’t tell me what to do!” he snapped back, reminding Iris of how much she hated children, “Besides I can’t go home. Not until I find my shadow.”She bit back a sigh of exasperation, reminding herself to never ever have a child before focusing on the task at hand. At the suggestion she could at least believe he had a home and wouldn’t have to deal with the crushing guilt of leaving a boy who could be no older than thirteen out in the street.“Right, your shadow,” she nodded, trying to appease him, she could perhaps pretend to find it then make sure he got home, how was one supposed to ‘find’ a shadow anyway. It was a silly notion, at least she thought it was until her eyes absentmindedly cast over where his shadow should be.At first she once more decided it must have been the drink. There was no way in hell the light wasn’t casting a shadow at the boys feet. She flicked her phone about a little, perhaps it was just the angle.Once determining it was not, in fact, the angle, nor was there an issue with her torch - every other object in they alley seemed to cast a shadow – her ultimate decision was that this boy must have been a ghost, it wasn’t that Iris necessarily believe in the supernatural, she had been a skeptic all her life. There just had to be some reasonable explanation for this. The only real way to find out was by asking the boy himself.“How do you lose your shadow?” she questioned, hoping for some sort of explanation, doubting she would get one. She doubted this boy was even real, the more she looked at him the more his pixie like features seemed like it was some figment of her imagination, perhaps she was tripping on something that had been slipped into one of her drinks. At the moment, that seemed like best case scenario.“It ran away, of course. Are you stupid?” he stated rather matter of factly, because yes, of course, that was the only logical explanation, why hadn’t she concluded that earlier. There was no way in hell she was believing something as ridiculous as a shadow ‘running away’ and was about to point out to the kid that shadows don’t move of their own accord before she was quickly cut off.“There,” he hissed out quietly as if this shadow could hear, eyes training on the far end of the alleyway, against a large dump bin. At this point Iris may as well have been going insane, because by god she saw it too. It wasn’t one of those foggy figures often shown in ‘real’ recordings of ghosts. No, this was a clear, focused shadow, identical in silhouette to the boy she stood next to. It was surreal and rather hard to describe. It stood flat against the dumpster, almost as if someone had stuck a piece of black paper to the bin, except it moved. The only good way to describe it would be an anti projection. While projected images came from light it seemed to do the exact opposite, create a darker area. Exactly like a shadow.“You have to help me catch it,” the impish boy insisted, pointing at the shadow frantically. Apparently Iris was just going along with this now, accepting it as if it were something normal. She supposed she was still in a stage of shock, questioning everything she had believed about reality and general laws of the universe. Because this sure as hell didn’t follow the norm.“I thought you didn’t need help from adults, but whatever you say,” she muttered in a sort of dazed fashion, surprised she was still able to function at this point. She didn’t remember taking anything but supposed acid had to be involved somewhere throughout the night because this just was not possible.“I don’t need your help I just want it,” the boy pouted, folding his arms across his chest and turning his nose up in her direction, “You just distract it and I’ll jump it.” “Right. Right, whatever you say,” Iris sighed with a shake of her head, not really sure how to distract a shadow but she didn’t really get time to think about that, watching in shock and horror as the boy zipped over her head, perching himself on the outside light of one of the buildings. So he could fly. She was glad she had that cleared up, at least she knew this was the strangest acid trip she had ever experienced. “I’ll just distract a shadow, sounds good,” she grumbled under her breath, cautiously approaching the dumpster machine. Everything about this went against the laws of physics and reality but who was she to turn down a flying boy who had lost his shadow. “Uh… hey… shadow!” she called out, unsure exactly how this was working, it wasn’t exactly the most conspicuous way of doing so but she didn’t think shadows were all that smart, they didn’t have any space for a brain. The shadow, despite having no physical features, let alone ears, seemed to notice her presence and whipped its head around to face her. It probably would have been confused by this situation too, being faced by a strange woman although not nearly as she was. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the boy glide over her head, still not really sure how she should really be taking this situation, she was surprised at her own acceptance. She just did what was asked of her, drawing the shadows attention to her while the boy prepared to pounce. Without any real warning he dropped from above onto the silhouette, somehow managing to grab a lack of light between his hands and pin it to the ground. Out of pure curiosity Iris felt herself slowly tip toeing forwards. The boy had pulled a needle from his pocket along with a small spill of thread. He held the shadow down with one hand and in the other he was poorly attempting to thread the needle which was proving difficult with only one hand. “Having difficulty?” Iris asked in an amused tone watching as he held the needle between his forefinger and thumb and thread between his middle and ring finger. Should she really be so calm about this, here he was sewing on a shadow. “No,” he snapped back, clearly not happy with this situation, nor was Iris to be honest. “Whatever you say, kid,” Iris shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation, unsure what to really do. Should she just leave now, or stick around to make sure the kid got home. It seemed a decision was to be made for her, the boy seeming confident enough to let go of his shadow to make an attempt to thread the needle. However this was a mistake on his part, the shadow darting out of his grasp and up into the air. “Get it!” he cried, trying to catch it as it flew away from him to no real avail. Without even thinking Iris reached out, surprised she came into contact with a solid leg, grabbing on to it as it continued to fly up, lifting her into the air along with it. She could no longer reach the ground, feet dangling in the air as it tried to shake her off, speeding back and forth. There was only so long she could hold on for, eventually her grip slipping the speed of the shadow sending her flying forward, right towards the dumpster. The last thing she felt was a dull pain in her head and a loud thud before her vision went black.