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Day Five: The shadows were worth avoiding before, but now it's almost impossible. Sometimes when you walk through a shadow, you feel your heart beat so loudly in your head that it's all you can think about. You may step into one shadow and step out of another completely across town. Or, at least, it feels like it. There is no way of going back or predicting which shadow you will wind up coming out of, but the news is reporting a wave of fatigue, confusion and stress as having odd effects on its citizens. No one has any recollection of the travel between one shadow and the next, and all passing of time seems warped. Travel is instantaneous regardless of the distance through Destiny City.
Mamertine had to balance a busy life; he had his full time job, weaving in and out of the public eye, and Shiloh to take into consideration first and foremost.
But then, this.
Powering up late into the night was an escape from all of it. It was pure, absolute freedom--but it came with a price. This wasn't fun freedom, this was simply a necessity to distance himself from the work he did in the office, in the court, and true justice.
It had burned him earlier, to watch a man walk on charges he should have been sentenced to life in prison for. To death for, honestly, but Destiny City was too lenient. It was a technicality; a faulty system and overworked employees struggling to do the best they could.
They couldn't convict everyone.
But justice was not yet dead. Not while he still lived.
The hardest part about any of it was creeping through Destiny City unnoticed--made more difficult by the fact that the city was covered in darkness that seemed to lead to other darkness. Twice already he had stepped through one shadow and walked out of another, and Mamertine was too stubborn to think that it was a sign that he should have backed off.
He did not believe in divine influences. He believed in justice and in all the times he'd done this before, he'd never had such hardships. It just made him angry. Destiny City was working against him and all he wanted to do was serve her.
He was tired. His body was sore. He could feel the stress eating away at his stomach.
But nothing would stop him. The law was set to protect the innocent. It wasn't a perfect system. There were limitations to what the Court could extract.
But why else would he have been given this power if not to do what the law couldn't?
Stubborn, determined to see this through, he forced away the questions about what was going on--about how the shadows were working, about what was in him. About why he always felt like he was being watched.
He'd read the reports, he knew that something strange was amiss in Destiny City.
It didn't matter, though; something was always amiss in Destiny City.
The shadows seemed to stretch endlessly; it was an hour later than he'd intended and he had only just now reached the address on file. The lights were on. The music was blaring. It was well past the sound limit for this time of night, of course, which only made Mamertine feel compelled to be here even more. He could practically smell the alcohol from across the street.
Anger broiled in the pit of his stomach, feeding into the stress he already felt.
Celebrating, after what he'd done?
The pages of accusations, of witness statements, of photographs, of medical reports.
And he was celebrating?
Mamertine might have--might have--gone easy on him if he'd shown some manner of guilt, of repentance.
But creatures like him weren't capable of understanding the weight of their crimes and the damage they caused.
Mamertine summoned his hammer and looked into the window once more.
Sometimes, true justice could only come in the form of equivalence--an eye for an eye.
He was here for both of them.
