There Are Winners and Losers

"Frightening... is it?"

She swallows. The grimy, black substance still sticks to the back of her throat, and after unsuccessfully vomiting it up several times, she has given up and decided to accept it. It will do nothing for her but make her uncomfortable.

And what is her answer? She has learned in the past few days that Red does not like it when she hesitates in answering.

Is it frightening, this whole ordeal? The kidnapping of children, the process of turning them into Shadows while wrenching the hearts of their families, in a plan to overtake humanity? Or is it so frightening that it has become a topic to be passionate about?

She sighs. With everything in her, she would like to stand up to him-- but clearly, everything in her is not enough. She only nods her head fearfully, shivering. The Shadows like the cold.

Red's eyes narrow to small crimson slits. She turns away when he looks down at her. I hate you.

"Do you understand why?"

Kloey blinks. The strange blue-chartreuse of her eyes flashes momentarily with confusion. "Whaddyou mean 'why'? There's no why. You and everybody else are just doing this because you're mean and evil, and there's no actual reason, just that you're cruel kidnappers and you're... and you want to take over the world." She folds her arms indignantly, lowering her head.

The Shadow sees through her facade like a wall of glass. "You do not understand."

She huffs. I understand perfectly.

Red clenches his teeth together, but he makes no mention of the 11-year-old's disrespectful thoughts. He grabs her wrist (gently, because the last time he did so, her wrist began bleeding because of his sharp talons and she whined like a toddler for hours) and guides her mind into a state where he can control what she sees. Demonstrations, specifically for a human with such a maladaptive imagination, work quite well in this state.

"In this life, human, there are winners and losers."

She blinks, trying to force herself out of his hypnosis. Unfortunately, the leader of the Shadows is-- surprisingly-- more powerful than a human child like her. "...And?"

"There cannot only be winners, can there?" Red looks to the floor, pondering. "If there are only winners, then there had been no one to beat, and therefore everyone is losers."

In control of her movements, she reaches up and wipes at her eyes. "M... maybe."

"Maybe?" He scoffs. She can hear him growling in the back of his throat. "Humans... have a terribly obscure idea of what 'winners' are, if they have taught you so badly."

Kloey defensively frowns. "Nobody taught me to be like I am," she mutters. "Nobody made me have my dumb imagination." Internally, like she always does, she narrates the situation; an action so uncontrollable that it has become a normal thing.

"I did not mean that." Still locking Kloey in the controlling trance, he leads her over to a rather obscure wall of the room, one drenched in paintings in gray colors representing the mindset of humanity. Or what the Shadows think of it. "I meant that no one has taught you what would be the consequence of always winning."

She stares mindlessly at the paintings, unable to see them, but seeing through them.

"Humans... have won over and over again every time. They have won the land, and the sea, and the sky. They have won the cosmos. They are always winning." He takes pause, considering how terrible it is to constantly win and to never have a worthy opponent. "I have been entrusted with causing the humans to lose."

"Why?" She raises a hand and touches the wall, feeling over the small lumps of dried paint and some chalky, red substance.

"Because if you are always winning, you become overconfident, and you begin to take over all opportunity for others to win." He straightens his back, the horns on his head glistening with resolve. "Humans cannot always be the winners-- and that is what I am doing. I am winning. The Shadows are winning. We are winning in this race to cast the humans away from Earth."

He looks at her. The paintings on the wall depict a bloody future. "Do you understand, now, why humans cannot always win? And why the Shadows must take their place?"

Do I understand? She hesitates, knowing that he hates hesitation, but doing so anyway. Does she-- will she, would she, should she-- understand? Does she understand why she had to be kidnapped in her room and forced to swallow Shadew, only to wake to discover that she is incapable of being made into a Shadow and must help the rest of them with their horrid plan? Will she understand why half the children in the world must be abducted and transformed in a disgustingly terrifying process?

Her head nods on its own. But secretly, by herself, to herself, she knows that she does not understand. And when-- or if-- the time is ever right, she will tell the Shadows the words that they need to hear.

You do not have to make the world wither to try and save it.