WARNING: Includes instances of child abuse and human experimentation
Name: Daniel Van Mersing (Nicknames: Shadow, Shade, Shady)
Age: 17
Birthday: November 8[sup]th[/sup]
Gender: Male
Species: Human (meta)
Category: Student
Class: Age wise, Shadow is a High schooler, however his educational level is elementary/early middle school level
Grade: Remedial Education
Appearance Description:
Shade is scarily thin and has little healthy muscle to him. He has a sharply bony face with little expression at all. His green eyes are dead and deeply set, surrounded by dark circles. They are dull and haunted, often looking but not seeing. His expression can make some people thing he’s not even aware of the situation, which, in some cases, they are correct, but even if he is, he doesn’t care to correct them. His hair used to be thick and brown, but it has been shorn close to his scalp and he likes to wear a black beanie because it’s warm and it makes him feel safe. He’s not sure what he will look like if his hair grows. He’s average in height but tends to try to minimize anything that might bring him to attention so he appears much shorter than he actually is. Shadow has a small tattoo on his inner forearm ‘010025357’, he doesn't like to talk about it.
Whenever possibly he is dressed in a comfortable black sweater and equally dark jeans. He doesn’t know how to match colors, in part to the fact that he is colorblind, but also because he’s never had to learn and never had to rely on buying his own clothes. As such he sticks to neutral colors. Shadow wears too big shirts and he prefers longsleeves, because like the beanie, it makes him feel safe. Anything that allows him to hide just a little bit, like a hoodie or baggy sweatshirt, he loves it. He prefers to avoid attention and the baggy clothes serve a dual purpose as it also hides how unhealthily skinny he is. Shade likes his shadows and it’s not unusual for there to be moving shadows around him and around his hands.
Personality Description:
Shade is highly skittish, he doesn’t know how to act around people and he is often frightened by adults. Especially those of authority. That being said, it would be easier to list what he is not afraid of. He is good at hiding and will find the darkest place he can and just sink into the shadows if he feels threatened. He has established a very calming and peaceful inner mind, to which he often retreats. Shadow has been alone so long that he lacks the normal social interaction. He is a strange combination of having grown up fast from his experiences that he is numb to the world, yet he is also strangely childlike, filled with curiosity and wonder about the new world around him. Everything about this world is new to him, but as much as he wants to learn he’s afraid of a lot of it.
It follows that Shadow is shy, often scared of new people, even people he’s seen before. His trust is very limited, and his fear is high. Changes don’t go over well, unless introduced very slowly and calmly. It doesn’t take a lot to frighten Shade, loud noises, bright lights, people, new things, are likely to get a fleeing response from him. Shadow barely speaks, choosing in many cases not to. His opinion and thoughts have never been valued and often met with a harsh punishment, so he keeps it all to himself, leaving his outward appearance as an emotionless shell. Speaking to authority is rare, but speaking to his peers is unheard of. His formal education stopped when he was eleven and as such he has an elementary reading and writing level and when he sees his peers he is overwhelmed by how far behind he is and so he doesn’t speak, because he’s embarrassed by his perceived ignorance. That being said, Shadow is a very clever boy. He excels at puzzles and problem solving. He’s got quick reaction times (though his usual reaction is to not react). He’s thoughtful and observant, he entertains himself by watching the world around him and the is little that escapes his notice.
Shadow doesn’t understand anything materialistic, he doesn’t own a lot of things and the concept of having to get things himself just doesn’t occur to him. He was lucky that the people claiming to be his parents bought him some new clothes and that the lost and not found at was well stocked. His room his bare, with just dark gray sheets, spares from the school. Starlight Academy is so different than anything else he’s know, the idea of having his own key is foreign and he doesn’t understand a lot of things. He fears he is being judged by his peers, the strange new kid, he’s never interacted with people his age and he’s afraid he doesn’t fit in with them. He is embarrassed every time he doesn’t understand what to do. The concept of eating when he wants is new, even using the bathroom without permission is something he had to get used to.
Species Abilities: Human abilities, additional abilities by meta human, see Powers for more details.
Powers:
Darkness Manipulation: Shadow can bend shadows and darkness to his will. His power depends on whether or not shadows are present, (i.e. he cannot create shadows out of nothing). It is strongest at night and weakest during the day, but he can get by in the early morning of twilight when the shadows are long. He has excellent night vision and actually has a little bit of trouble with light during the day. Light is actually detrimental to Van, in extended exposure to light he is physically weakened and struggles to use his power. Because they are natural opposites, darkness flees the light and Shade flees it as well. Solar light is what he is weakest too, but an overhead fluorescent or incandescent light will also cause him problems, depending on how bright, for instance a flashlight isn't going to do much to stop him, but a brightly lit room would be a challenge.
Shadow can collect shadows around him and make them physical, basically limited by his imagination, the amount of shadows available, and his pysical strength. For instance he can make a knife out of shadows, hold it and cut someone with it. The limitations of this physical manifestation depend on the amount of shadows, for instance at night he can make large structures, but nothing he himself wouldn't be able to carry, so he can make a large shield if he rests it on the ground but he could not lift it and move it around, and it would also drain his energy very quickly. Oppositely, during high noon when shadows are limited he can only create small objects. He mostly uses this in a defensive manner, but he can make small daggers and 'throw' them. The strength of the Shadows again is dependent on his physical strength, for instance he could use shadows to move a book or open a door if he really wanted to, but he could not for instance push a locked door open because he could not do it normally. These physical shadows are as physical as anything in the real world, solid and cold to the touch. They are stark black, a black that seems to steal the light from the room, like a blackbox that emits no radiation. In a visible or infrared image these shadows will be invisible because they do not emit. It needs a source and so there is usually a small tether of power linking it to its source and when Shadow releases it or cannot hold it it dissolves in the light back to it's origin, this has a strange sense of 'stealing a shadow' from an object, such that Shadow cannot continually keep pulling on the same shadow (i.e. no infinite sources). Another limitation of this is cutting off his sources, shining light on his sources will destroy his physical shadows, but on the other hand he can quickly switch his source (within the distance of a room). He uses his own energy to sustain these physical shadows, but he can also pull energy from shadows, the same way something may pull energy from sunlight.
Shade’s ability extends to allow his to blend into shadows, by pulling them around him becoming more or less invisible inside them. This isn't a physical shadow, people can still touch him, this is more of a visible effect and as such takes much less energy to do. This can all be countered by strong light, particularly solar lights. For instance if he's hiding in a dark room and a light was turned on, if there were no shadows left he would have no where to hide. Or if there were a few shadows around he could theoretically hide in them, but it would be rather useless being a large black smear in an otherwise bright room.
Dimensional Shadow Phasing: In limited capacity he can travel short distance through shadows, only if they are connected, like two dark rooms together where the shadows are connected under the door, he could get through those shadows. The technical way this works is that Shadow pushes through the darkness into a parallel dimension. So he temporarily leaves the real world, but he can see it as if he were a spirit. He can travel through shadows only if they are somehow connected, which can work in tandem with his darkness manipulation, but takes a great deal of effort. This is limited to short distances (i.e. room to room) and lights can create physical barriers, for instance if he was in a dark room and the hallway outside was light, he’d be stuck, however, if he was clever and lucky he could sneak into through the air ducts to a point where he could emerge. That being said because he’s at the mercy of shadows, theoretically he could be trapped in the other realm until someone turns off a light. Because it is a dimensional passage its not an easy thing to do and if Shadow can get by with just sneaking around he will. He has to expend a lot of energy to travel, and he's also got to walk wherever he's going, which can take time.
Biography:
Father: Daniel Mersing, a strong and laidback man
Mother: Anastasia Mersing, a stern and loving woman
Brother: David Mersing, Protective and silly older brother
It began when the Alexiev family, escaping Soviet rule, fled to the US at the end of WWII. With them they brought a baby girl, Van’s grandmother. Behind them they left siblings and friends, expecting to never see them again. This baby girl grew up in the US and eventually married another first generation Russian immigrant. They had a daughter named Anastasia. Anastasia had no desire to be a stay at home wife like her mother and went to New York to be an actress. While there Anastasia met Daniel Mersing, a native New Yorker whose family had come over way back in the colonial times. Despite her parent’s disapproval, Anastasia fell in love and her and Daniel were married two years later. Not long after they married did she get pregnant with their first son, David Mersing. And two years later along came Van. Van was a bright and adventurous kid, playing rough with his brother and excelling in school. They were a proud couple.
Shortly after Van turned nine his great grandmother passed away, it hit them all hard, she had told them so many stories about Russia and they were proud of their heritage. Her grandmother, who hadn’t been in Russia since she was a baby had a great deal of interest in seeing the homeland and so she planned a family visit and so, when Daniel was eleven they traveled to Russia to visit their distant relatives and see what had become of the old village his great grandmother had spoken so lovingly about.
It was a fun visit, Van got to practice his Russian and get to know his cousins and family he never knew he had. Things were great, he was experiencing a significant part of his culture and seeing so many amazing things. He loved his family there and they made promises to visit again and for them to come visit them in the US. It was one night when he was strolling with his brother and older cousin that something strange happened. Van had always been colorblind, but he had never been able to see very well in the dark, but it was like it was lit up and his brother remarked that Van’s eyes looked very weird, reflecting light like a cat’s eye. Van thought he was joking, so he didn’t think much of it. Until the shadows around him started moving. Van panicked, and that only made the shadows act more erratic.
Nothing David could do would stop them and Van was so afraid that he started running. David and his cousin chased after him but soon lost sight of him in the dark. Panicked Van kept running, he didn’t know where he was or what happened, Van just remembers a stinging in his neck before everything went dark. When he woke up, he thought he was in the hospital, he was in a gown and sensors were taped all over him. Terrified he called out for his brother and his mother and father. They were nowhere to be found. Instead a man came and he did something and everything got all muddled. Van tried to get away but they caught him and punished him severely. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening. They asked him to use his power and a harsh instructor led him through a grueling set of tasks.
They took blood and did xrays and scans. Van fought back at first, desperate to get back to his family. After he refused to calm down about it, the instructor explained that due to his meta powers his parents had left him here with them. The instructor was even rarely comforting and convincing and Van believed him. He cried a lot at the beginning. Every now and again that strange man Van had met on the first day would come and things would get muddled again. Soon he started to forget things, he forgot about his family, he barely remembered anything about them except that they weren’t looking for him, so he let them go. If they didn’t want him, well then he didn’t want them either.
Meanwhile, the Mersing family was beside themselves with grief. Their extended family joined the search and they worked closely with Russian Authorities, but they came up empty. The trail went cold within weeks with no sign and the harsh Russian winter was setting in. With vast expanses of snowy nothingness in the Russian wilderness, the Russian Authorities said it was unlikely that they would find him, dead or alive before a wild animal got to him. Months passed and his family was forced to leave Russia due to Visa laws and the Russian Authorities, with great regret were forced to declare him dead, since there was no evidence he was taken and no one could survive the winter in the wilderness.
Slowly, Daniel Van Mersing died. All the while they were testing him, pushing the limits of his power. Constant prodding and pain was eventually greeted with numbness on Van’s part. After so long wishing someone would miss him, wishing that someone would come for him, Van started to wonder who they were. What did they look like? He forgot about his family and his family forgot about him, so he unconsciously scorned the name they gave him, for one of his own making. Shadow. It was all he was anymore, it was his happy place, his hiding place and his peaceful place. The doctors let it slide, with small punishments. By the time Shade was thirteen, he wasn’t anyone other than Shadow.
It wasn’t until his second year of captivity that Shadow learned he was in Siberia, when he was allowed out in the sun for the first time. He was excited at first. Outside! Sunlight! Flowers! In his imagination the world was beautiful outside of this concrete and steel prison. He was in high spirits, they were giving him a rare treat. There was snow everywhere and it reflected light everywhere. The rare moment of joy turned quickly to pain as the light struck him like a poison. He tried to run back inside, blind and disoriented, but the door was locked and nowhere Van could find was there a shadow or any relief from the harsh light. When twilight fell he had to be carried back inside the facility because he was too weak to move. It took him days to fully recover and in that time he was kept in a dark cell. He used his powers when they told him and found comfort in the darkness. It was Shadow’s treat. The farther he was from people and their prodding the happier he was.
Occasionally, he’d see another, ‘subject’. Life became simple, use his power, learn to use it and learn its limits. He got three meals a day, unless he failed at a task, or refused. He resisted for a long time, but his disobedience got him locked in a brightly lit room with no shadows. For years he was poked a prodded, injected with things that made him feel strange, locked in rooms and told to get himself out. Doctors were always putting sensors on him, testing his physical limits as well as his power limits.
Their tests left him often times sick and weak. He stopped resisting and found peace in his mind like he did in the darkness. His relationships were void of anything affectionate, a very clear punishment and reward system. He stopped speaking unless asked a direct question. New things were frightening to him, because he didn’t know what new trick it was or how badly it would hurt. They had a tight enough hold on him that he would wake up, eat, do what they wanted from him, eat, perform a test and depending on if he failed or not, he may or may not eat a third time. Night and day were confusing and the only thing he knew was that it was time to sleep when he was in the cell.
They kept him as isolated as possible and new tests were challenging and he started failing more and more. He was being pushed beyond the limits of his power and all the while they were testing his physical limits. His third night without food, he was dizzy and had to be carried back to his cell. Hunger drove him to try to sneak out that night. He felt the shadows and Shade pushed. Something changed, a cool medium over his hands and he drifted into the shadows, but the shadows didn’t end like usual. It was completely dark, but Shadow could see as though it were day. He passed from shadow to shadow, he wasn’t in the real world anymore, he was in the world of shadows and wherever the darkness went he could follow. His only desperate task was finding food. He crept about the compound, terrified by every little noise, but driven still by hunger.
It was the first time he found the window. He didn’t at first comprehend that he was looking at the outside world. It was night and the stars glinted like tiny spirits in the sky and the snow was unbroken and beautiful in the darkness. The mysterious outside. Darkness was there too, he could feel it. He didn’t linger long, pushed by hunger. Shadow found a small store room and he started stuffing himself with as much as he could find. He was caught in the store room. The light snapped on and Shadow shied away from it, cowering away from it. He was dragged away from the store room, kicking and screaming to the light room. Shadow desperately pulled his shirt over his eyes to try to relieve the agony of being in that timeless room. He cried and a rare pitiful thought glanced across his mind. Didn’t someone miss him? He must not have not been important to them.
The little shadows that his shirt caused were enough to keep him from going completely mad, and when they finally let him out they demanded to know how he got out of his cell. He didn’t have an answer for them and so he was beaten and thrown back in the bright room. This repeated until Shadow made something up. He lied and told them that the shadows had unlocked it. They moved him then to a different cell. This one had a key pad lock. Something had snapped in Shadow that he didn’t realize. He stayed in the darkness, recovering and recharging. Then he slipped out again. He made a mistake in his timing and turned back in fear of the sun. The second time, it was night and he used the shadows to slip out of the building. High on adrenaline and pushed on by fear of punishment, Shade ran and kept on running.
And he ran faster when the alarms sounded. The shadows saved him that night and he found a supply truck and hid inside. He was terrified and as soon as he was still and hidden he started to panic. What had he done?! They were going to kill him! He wrapped the darkness around him more and more tightly and his fear did not still as the crate started moving. They had experiment and pushed his power and he had gotten good at it. So he entered the world of shadows again and he watched them come into the truck and search for him. They patted the shadows and Shade merely fell through the shadows to the other side, stepping past unnoticed. He breathed a sigh of relief when they left, but that soon also turned fear when the crate started moving. After a few days of hiding out, he decided he needed to investigate or starve. He slipped out of the crate and stood in the frigid air of the Northern Pacific Ocean. Quickly he retreated back into the crate to look around.
He found a crate of raw grains and despite their bland and frankly disgusting taste, it kept him from starving and in the darkest of nights water collected in his shadows and he could drink the rainwater. He lost track of how long he had been in the crate and lost all sense of it especially when it seemed to keep swaying. After a few weeks Shade was starting to believe this was another one of their tests, laying in the darkness to weak to even use his power. Imagine his surprise when he was jarred awake by a quick movement. Then for the first time in… well Shade didn’t even know how long, the door of the truck opened. But that wasn’t the most startling thing. Those voices weren’t speaking Russian, but English! He couldn’t even remember the last time he heard that language. He’d almost forgotten how to speak it. Shadow was equally as startled to see a man’s face as the man was to see Shadow. The police were called and Shadows was eventually coaxed out of the crate by kind words and food.
Shadow woke much later, in a hospital, and panicked. He cowered under a table, fearing the punishment sure to come for running away. To his surprise, the lights turned off and he quickly gathered the shadows around him. He flinched away from them when they tried to coax him out from under the table, so they let him stay there and a police officer and nurse with a smile sat on the floor with him. When asked his name, he replied, “Shadow.” After a long silence. They exchanged looks but let that go. He didn’t know how old he was when they asked, he didn’t know the year nor the president, not even the country he was in or where he had come from, just the snow fields of Siberia. He did learn though, that in his desperation to hide from those he thought would punish him, he inadvertently stowed away in grain cargo container, on a shipping barge that crossed the Pacific.
The language was comfortable for him, a pleasant change and stirred long dead memories. Memories of people he couldn’t quite make see in his mind’s eye. They took pictures of him and checked missing persons reports. With numb indifference he let the doctors take his vitals. He obeyed in silence, stepping on a scale and standing by this wall. He followed their instructions so exactly that they had to be more specific than usual. Nothing came back in the police reports and his picture was circulated among police departments. It was a snowy evening in New York when his picture appeared in the missing persons there. They guessed his age to be between fifteen and eighteen but the doctors weren’t sure because of malnutrition.
There was much arguing about what was to be done with Shadow. He was a person of interest to the police and government as he had no documentation, however his state made them hesitant to turn him away, so they called him a minor and put him under the protection of the state of Washington. All the while his picture circulated in the missing persons reports. It was agreed that the only think logical to do was to send him to Starlight Academy where they had people able to deal with his meta-powers, however the doctors and nurses put their foot down and prevented his discharge until he was strong enough. It was a wonderful couple of months, Shadow had a warm bed to sleep in, they never made him turn on the light and he could eat as much as he wanted. All the while Shadow’s eyes were dead, he looked straight on without any sign of comprehension, his mind far gone thinking about the family he must have. Somewhere… but they didn’t miss him.
During his tenure at the hospital, the missing persons photograph of Shadow caught the eye of a small upstate New York precinct. On a hunch he looked through the papers, thinking this boy looked an awful lot like his daughter’s fiancé, if he were starved and deathly looking. After a dinner he asked David to talk and asked him if he had any siblings. David winced and told him that he had a brother, but he had disappeared long ago.
Not wanting to get David’s hopes up, he decided to call up the police in Washington on his hunch. On his request the officer went to the hospital and questioned Shadow further, once dropping the name “Daniel,” in conversation. Shadow stopped in his tracks an expression of surprise on his otherwise neutral face. Darkness swirled around him and his expression descended into confusion. “My name is Shadow,” he said softly, his mind digging up long suppressed memories, but the officer knew he’d gotten something. “Daniel Van Mersing?” The darkness swallowed Shadow and he fled, scaring a nurse as he emerged from the shadows. She was able to recover and catch hold of him in an embrace before he was able to run away again. Shadow was in such a state of distress and confusion that they were forced to sedate him.
With a name confirmed, they had an age and a birth date. It was then that Shade learned he was 17. It was a strange feeling to know. The doctors and nurses protected Shadow as best they could, not wanting a repeat of his panic attack. However, Shadow’s parents and brother would not be kept away. So with tears flowing the Mersings got the news. David and his parents rushed to Washington. They demanded to see Daniel, but the hospital resisted for as long as they could, but legally because of Shade’s minor status, they could not be kept away. They decided to let the meeting happen in a controlled environment, they met with Shade’s parents ahead of the meeting to brief them on the state of their son. They warned them not to expect much and to keep their distance.
They didn’t want to push Shadow, but he wouldn’t meet them otherwise. So they brought them to Shadow, letting him decide if he wanted to come out or not. Despite himself, he was curious and when they told him that they’d found his family, he wanted to see the people who’d given him up. As he laid eyes on them the dead expression didn’t change. He didn’t recognize them, they were just any other woman and man. They meant nothing to him, seeing them didn’t stir his heart in love or anger, there was just… nothing. The woman cried out to him, holding out her hands as if she wanted to run to him but thought better. Shadow stood, numb across the room. Shade didn’t reply to her call his name and let the shadows eat him again as he disappeared back into his room. The woman’s crying stirred something in Shadow. Something old yet unfamiliar.
The nurses tried to console the woman, telling her to give him time, they still didn’t know where he’d been or what happened to him. Shadow leaned against the door listening. He felt pity for these people. Whoever this Daniel was that they missed, it wasn’t him. His family didn’t miss him. He’d know if they were his parents… wouldn’t he? He hugged his knees to his chest, he wished someone would miss him like these people missed their Daniel.
Before he had had too much time to think on it, Shadow’s life was again turned upside down. Finally healthy enough to travel, they sent him off to Starlight Academy, promising him he would be safe there. Everything is so new and overwhelming, Shadow hasn’t really worked up the courage to leave his room yet. Shadow is wary of the people who have taken him in and keep thinking they are going to want to experiment on him. He lives in fear that he will eventually be sent back. The people he met who claim to be his family keep sending him letters and packages. He keeps all the letters in a desk drawer but never replies to any. There are stories in them, stories he's lived in his dreams, stories that sooth him to sleep. He wished he could find their Daniel for them, he seemed very loved. Shade doesn't know how to feel about these people, the emotions are confusion and so he doesn't deal with them.
Additional Information:
Shade has severe colorblindness called Tritanopia a type of yellow-blue colorblindness where he can only perceive long and medium wavelengths. This means that he has trouble deciphering shades of red and yellows appear in lighter shades of red. He cannot distinguish blue from green and purples appear gray. It is unclear if this colorblindness was caused by his mutation or not.
Age: 17
Birthday: November 8[sup]th[/sup]
Gender: Male
Species: Human (meta)
Category: Student
Class: Age wise, Shadow is a High schooler, however his educational level is elementary/early middle school level
Grade: Remedial Education
Appearance Description:
Shade is scarily thin and has little healthy muscle to him. He has a sharply bony face with little expression at all. His green eyes are dead and deeply set, surrounded by dark circles. They are dull and haunted, often looking but not seeing. His expression can make some people thing he’s not even aware of the situation, which, in some cases, they are correct, but even if he is, he doesn’t care to correct them. His hair used to be thick and brown, but it has been shorn close to his scalp and he likes to wear a black beanie because it’s warm and it makes him feel safe. He’s not sure what he will look like if his hair grows. He’s average in height but tends to try to minimize anything that might bring him to attention so he appears much shorter than he actually is. Shadow has a small tattoo on his inner forearm ‘010025357’, he doesn't like to talk about it.
Whenever possibly he is dressed in a comfortable black sweater and equally dark jeans. He doesn’t know how to match colors, in part to the fact that he is colorblind, but also because he’s never had to learn and never had to rely on buying his own clothes. As such he sticks to neutral colors. Shadow wears too big shirts and he prefers longsleeves, because like the beanie, it makes him feel safe. Anything that allows him to hide just a little bit, like a hoodie or baggy sweatshirt, he loves it. He prefers to avoid attention and the baggy clothes serve a dual purpose as it also hides how unhealthily skinny he is. Shade likes his shadows and it’s not unusual for there to be moving shadows around him and around his hands.
Personality Description:
Shade is highly skittish, he doesn’t know how to act around people and he is often frightened by adults. Especially those of authority. That being said, it would be easier to list what he is not afraid of. He is good at hiding and will find the darkest place he can and just sink into the shadows if he feels threatened. He has established a very calming and peaceful inner mind, to which he often retreats. Shadow has been alone so long that he lacks the normal social interaction. He is a strange combination of having grown up fast from his experiences that he is numb to the world, yet he is also strangely childlike, filled with curiosity and wonder about the new world around him. Everything about this world is new to him, but as much as he wants to learn he’s afraid of a lot of it.
It follows that Shadow is shy, often scared of new people, even people he’s seen before. His trust is very limited, and his fear is high. Changes don’t go over well, unless introduced very slowly and calmly. It doesn’t take a lot to frighten Shade, loud noises, bright lights, people, new things, are likely to get a fleeing response from him. Shadow barely speaks, choosing in many cases not to. His opinion and thoughts have never been valued and often met with a harsh punishment, so he keeps it all to himself, leaving his outward appearance as an emotionless shell. Speaking to authority is rare, but speaking to his peers is unheard of. His formal education stopped when he was eleven and as such he has an elementary reading and writing level and when he sees his peers he is overwhelmed by how far behind he is and so he doesn’t speak, because he’s embarrassed by his perceived ignorance. That being said, Shadow is a very clever boy. He excels at puzzles and problem solving. He’s got quick reaction times (though his usual reaction is to not react). He’s thoughtful and observant, he entertains himself by watching the world around him and the is little that escapes his notice.
Shadow doesn’t understand anything materialistic, he doesn’t own a lot of things and the concept of having to get things himself just doesn’t occur to him. He was lucky that the people claiming to be his parents bought him some new clothes and that the lost and not found at was well stocked. His room his bare, with just dark gray sheets, spares from the school. Starlight Academy is so different than anything else he’s know, the idea of having his own key is foreign and he doesn’t understand a lot of things. He fears he is being judged by his peers, the strange new kid, he’s never interacted with people his age and he’s afraid he doesn’t fit in with them. He is embarrassed every time he doesn’t understand what to do. The concept of eating when he wants is new, even using the bathroom without permission is something he had to get used to.
Species Abilities: Human abilities, additional abilities by meta human, see Powers for more details.
Powers:
Darkness Manipulation: Shadow can bend shadows and darkness to his will. His power depends on whether or not shadows are present, (i.e. he cannot create shadows out of nothing). It is strongest at night and weakest during the day, but he can get by in the early morning of twilight when the shadows are long. He has excellent night vision and actually has a little bit of trouble with light during the day. Light is actually detrimental to Van, in extended exposure to light he is physically weakened and struggles to use his power. Because they are natural opposites, darkness flees the light and Shade flees it as well. Solar light is what he is weakest too, but an overhead fluorescent or incandescent light will also cause him problems, depending on how bright, for instance a flashlight isn't going to do much to stop him, but a brightly lit room would be a challenge.
Shadow can collect shadows around him and make them physical, basically limited by his imagination, the amount of shadows available, and his pysical strength. For instance he can make a knife out of shadows, hold it and cut someone with it. The limitations of this physical manifestation depend on the amount of shadows, for instance at night he can make large structures, but nothing he himself wouldn't be able to carry, so he can make a large shield if he rests it on the ground but he could not lift it and move it around, and it would also drain his energy very quickly. Oppositely, during high noon when shadows are limited he can only create small objects. He mostly uses this in a defensive manner, but he can make small daggers and 'throw' them. The strength of the Shadows again is dependent on his physical strength, for instance he could use shadows to move a book or open a door if he really wanted to, but he could not for instance push a locked door open because he could not do it normally. These physical shadows are as physical as anything in the real world, solid and cold to the touch. They are stark black, a black that seems to steal the light from the room, like a blackbox that emits no radiation. In a visible or infrared image these shadows will be invisible because they do not emit. It needs a source and so there is usually a small tether of power linking it to its source and when Shadow releases it or cannot hold it it dissolves in the light back to it's origin, this has a strange sense of 'stealing a shadow' from an object, such that Shadow cannot continually keep pulling on the same shadow (i.e. no infinite sources). Another limitation of this is cutting off his sources, shining light on his sources will destroy his physical shadows, but on the other hand he can quickly switch his source (within the distance of a room). He uses his own energy to sustain these physical shadows, but he can also pull energy from shadows, the same way something may pull energy from sunlight.
Shade’s ability extends to allow his to blend into shadows, by pulling them around him becoming more or less invisible inside them. This isn't a physical shadow, people can still touch him, this is more of a visible effect and as such takes much less energy to do. This can all be countered by strong light, particularly solar lights. For instance if he's hiding in a dark room and a light was turned on, if there were no shadows left he would have no where to hide. Or if there were a few shadows around he could theoretically hide in them, but it would be rather useless being a large black smear in an otherwise bright room.
Dimensional Shadow Phasing: In limited capacity he can travel short distance through shadows, only if they are connected, like two dark rooms together where the shadows are connected under the door, he could get through those shadows. The technical way this works is that Shadow pushes through the darkness into a parallel dimension. So he temporarily leaves the real world, but he can see it as if he were a spirit. He can travel through shadows only if they are somehow connected, which can work in tandem with his darkness manipulation, but takes a great deal of effort. This is limited to short distances (i.e. room to room) and lights can create physical barriers, for instance if he was in a dark room and the hallway outside was light, he’d be stuck, however, if he was clever and lucky he could sneak into through the air ducts to a point where he could emerge. That being said because he’s at the mercy of shadows, theoretically he could be trapped in the other realm until someone turns off a light. Because it is a dimensional passage its not an easy thing to do and if Shadow can get by with just sneaking around he will. He has to expend a lot of energy to travel, and he's also got to walk wherever he's going, which can take time.
Biography:
Father: Daniel Mersing, a strong and laidback man
Mother: Anastasia Mersing, a stern and loving woman
Brother: David Mersing, Protective and silly older brother
It began when the Alexiev family, escaping Soviet rule, fled to the US at the end of WWII. With them they brought a baby girl, Van’s grandmother. Behind them they left siblings and friends, expecting to never see them again. This baby girl grew up in the US and eventually married another first generation Russian immigrant. They had a daughter named Anastasia. Anastasia had no desire to be a stay at home wife like her mother and went to New York to be an actress. While there Anastasia met Daniel Mersing, a native New Yorker whose family had come over way back in the colonial times. Despite her parent’s disapproval, Anastasia fell in love and her and Daniel were married two years later. Not long after they married did she get pregnant with their first son, David Mersing. And two years later along came Van. Van was a bright and adventurous kid, playing rough with his brother and excelling in school. They were a proud couple.
Shortly after Van turned nine his great grandmother passed away, it hit them all hard, she had told them so many stories about Russia and they were proud of their heritage. Her grandmother, who hadn’t been in Russia since she was a baby had a great deal of interest in seeing the homeland and so she planned a family visit and so, when Daniel was eleven they traveled to Russia to visit their distant relatives and see what had become of the old village his great grandmother had spoken so lovingly about.
It was a fun visit, Van got to practice his Russian and get to know his cousins and family he never knew he had. Things were great, he was experiencing a significant part of his culture and seeing so many amazing things. He loved his family there and they made promises to visit again and for them to come visit them in the US. It was one night when he was strolling with his brother and older cousin that something strange happened. Van had always been colorblind, but he had never been able to see very well in the dark, but it was like it was lit up and his brother remarked that Van’s eyes looked very weird, reflecting light like a cat’s eye. Van thought he was joking, so he didn’t think much of it. Until the shadows around him started moving. Van panicked, and that only made the shadows act more erratic.
Nothing David could do would stop them and Van was so afraid that he started running. David and his cousin chased after him but soon lost sight of him in the dark. Panicked Van kept running, he didn’t know where he was or what happened, Van just remembers a stinging in his neck before everything went dark. When he woke up, he thought he was in the hospital, he was in a gown and sensors were taped all over him. Terrified he called out for his brother and his mother and father. They were nowhere to be found. Instead a man came and he did something and everything got all muddled. Van tried to get away but they caught him and punished him severely. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening. They asked him to use his power and a harsh instructor led him through a grueling set of tasks.
They took blood and did xrays and scans. Van fought back at first, desperate to get back to his family. After he refused to calm down about it, the instructor explained that due to his meta powers his parents had left him here with them. The instructor was even rarely comforting and convincing and Van believed him. He cried a lot at the beginning. Every now and again that strange man Van had met on the first day would come and things would get muddled again. Soon he started to forget things, he forgot about his family, he barely remembered anything about them except that they weren’t looking for him, so he let them go. If they didn’t want him, well then he didn’t want them either.
Meanwhile, the Mersing family was beside themselves with grief. Their extended family joined the search and they worked closely with Russian Authorities, but they came up empty. The trail went cold within weeks with no sign and the harsh Russian winter was setting in. With vast expanses of snowy nothingness in the Russian wilderness, the Russian Authorities said it was unlikely that they would find him, dead or alive before a wild animal got to him. Months passed and his family was forced to leave Russia due to Visa laws and the Russian Authorities, with great regret were forced to declare him dead, since there was no evidence he was taken and no one could survive the winter in the wilderness.
Slowly, Daniel Van Mersing died. All the while they were testing him, pushing the limits of his power. Constant prodding and pain was eventually greeted with numbness on Van’s part. After so long wishing someone would miss him, wishing that someone would come for him, Van started to wonder who they were. What did they look like? He forgot about his family and his family forgot about him, so he unconsciously scorned the name they gave him, for one of his own making. Shadow. It was all he was anymore, it was his happy place, his hiding place and his peaceful place. The doctors let it slide, with small punishments. By the time Shade was thirteen, he wasn’t anyone other than Shadow.
It wasn’t until his second year of captivity that Shadow learned he was in Siberia, when he was allowed out in the sun for the first time. He was excited at first. Outside! Sunlight! Flowers! In his imagination the world was beautiful outside of this concrete and steel prison. He was in high spirits, they were giving him a rare treat. There was snow everywhere and it reflected light everywhere. The rare moment of joy turned quickly to pain as the light struck him like a poison. He tried to run back inside, blind and disoriented, but the door was locked and nowhere Van could find was there a shadow or any relief from the harsh light. When twilight fell he had to be carried back inside the facility because he was too weak to move. It took him days to fully recover and in that time he was kept in a dark cell. He used his powers when they told him and found comfort in the darkness. It was Shadow’s treat. The farther he was from people and their prodding the happier he was.
Occasionally, he’d see another, ‘subject’. Life became simple, use his power, learn to use it and learn its limits. He got three meals a day, unless he failed at a task, or refused. He resisted for a long time, but his disobedience got him locked in a brightly lit room with no shadows. For years he was poked a prodded, injected with things that made him feel strange, locked in rooms and told to get himself out. Doctors were always putting sensors on him, testing his physical limits as well as his power limits.
Their tests left him often times sick and weak. He stopped resisting and found peace in his mind like he did in the darkness. His relationships were void of anything affectionate, a very clear punishment and reward system. He stopped speaking unless asked a direct question. New things were frightening to him, because he didn’t know what new trick it was or how badly it would hurt. They had a tight enough hold on him that he would wake up, eat, do what they wanted from him, eat, perform a test and depending on if he failed or not, he may or may not eat a third time. Night and day were confusing and the only thing he knew was that it was time to sleep when he was in the cell.
They kept him as isolated as possible and new tests were challenging and he started failing more and more. He was being pushed beyond the limits of his power and all the while they were testing his physical limits. His third night without food, he was dizzy and had to be carried back to his cell. Hunger drove him to try to sneak out that night. He felt the shadows and Shade pushed. Something changed, a cool medium over his hands and he drifted into the shadows, but the shadows didn’t end like usual. It was completely dark, but Shadow could see as though it were day. He passed from shadow to shadow, he wasn’t in the real world anymore, he was in the world of shadows and wherever the darkness went he could follow. His only desperate task was finding food. He crept about the compound, terrified by every little noise, but driven still by hunger.
It was the first time he found the window. He didn’t at first comprehend that he was looking at the outside world. It was night and the stars glinted like tiny spirits in the sky and the snow was unbroken and beautiful in the darkness. The mysterious outside. Darkness was there too, he could feel it. He didn’t linger long, pushed by hunger. Shadow found a small store room and he started stuffing himself with as much as he could find. He was caught in the store room. The light snapped on and Shadow shied away from it, cowering away from it. He was dragged away from the store room, kicking and screaming to the light room. Shadow desperately pulled his shirt over his eyes to try to relieve the agony of being in that timeless room. He cried and a rare pitiful thought glanced across his mind. Didn’t someone miss him? He must not have not been important to them.
The little shadows that his shirt caused were enough to keep him from going completely mad, and when they finally let him out they demanded to know how he got out of his cell. He didn’t have an answer for them and so he was beaten and thrown back in the bright room. This repeated until Shadow made something up. He lied and told them that the shadows had unlocked it. They moved him then to a different cell. This one had a key pad lock. Something had snapped in Shadow that he didn’t realize. He stayed in the darkness, recovering and recharging. Then he slipped out again. He made a mistake in his timing and turned back in fear of the sun. The second time, it was night and he used the shadows to slip out of the building. High on adrenaline and pushed on by fear of punishment, Shade ran and kept on running.
And he ran faster when the alarms sounded. The shadows saved him that night and he found a supply truck and hid inside. He was terrified and as soon as he was still and hidden he started to panic. What had he done?! They were going to kill him! He wrapped the darkness around him more and more tightly and his fear did not still as the crate started moving. They had experiment and pushed his power and he had gotten good at it. So he entered the world of shadows again and he watched them come into the truck and search for him. They patted the shadows and Shade merely fell through the shadows to the other side, stepping past unnoticed. He breathed a sigh of relief when they left, but that soon also turned fear when the crate started moving. After a few days of hiding out, he decided he needed to investigate or starve. He slipped out of the crate and stood in the frigid air of the Northern Pacific Ocean. Quickly he retreated back into the crate to look around.
He found a crate of raw grains and despite their bland and frankly disgusting taste, it kept him from starving and in the darkest of nights water collected in his shadows and he could drink the rainwater. He lost track of how long he had been in the crate and lost all sense of it especially when it seemed to keep swaying. After a few weeks Shade was starting to believe this was another one of their tests, laying in the darkness to weak to even use his power. Imagine his surprise when he was jarred awake by a quick movement. Then for the first time in… well Shade didn’t even know how long, the door of the truck opened. But that wasn’t the most startling thing. Those voices weren’t speaking Russian, but English! He couldn’t even remember the last time he heard that language. He’d almost forgotten how to speak it. Shadow was equally as startled to see a man’s face as the man was to see Shadow. The police were called and Shadows was eventually coaxed out of the crate by kind words and food.
Shadow woke much later, in a hospital, and panicked. He cowered under a table, fearing the punishment sure to come for running away. To his surprise, the lights turned off and he quickly gathered the shadows around him. He flinched away from them when they tried to coax him out from under the table, so they let him stay there and a police officer and nurse with a smile sat on the floor with him. When asked his name, he replied, “Shadow.” After a long silence. They exchanged looks but let that go. He didn’t know how old he was when they asked, he didn’t know the year nor the president, not even the country he was in or where he had come from, just the snow fields of Siberia. He did learn though, that in his desperation to hide from those he thought would punish him, he inadvertently stowed away in grain cargo container, on a shipping barge that crossed the Pacific.
The language was comfortable for him, a pleasant change and stirred long dead memories. Memories of people he couldn’t quite make see in his mind’s eye. They took pictures of him and checked missing persons reports. With numb indifference he let the doctors take his vitals. He obeyed in silence, stepping on a scale and standing by this wall. He followed their instructions so exactly that they had to be more specific than usual. Nothing came back in the police reports and his picture was circulated among police departments. It was a snowy evening in New York when his picture appeared in the missing persons there. They guessed his age to be between fifteen and eighteen but the doctors weren’t sure because of malnutrition.
There was much arguing about what was to be done with Shadow. He was a person of interest to the police and government as he had no documentation, however his state made them hesitant to turn him away, so they called him a minor and put him under the protection of the state of Washington. All the while his picture circulated in the missing persons reports. It was agreed that the only think logical to do was to send him to Starlight Academy where they had people able to deal with his meta-powers, however the doctors and nurses put their foot down and prevented his discharge until he was strong enough. It was a wonderful couple of months, Shadow had a warm bed to sleep in, they never made him turn on the light and he could eat as much as he wanted. All the while Shadow’s eyes were dead, he looked straight on without any sign of comprehension, his mind far gone thinking about the family he must have. Somewhere… but they didn’t miss him.
During his tenure at the hospital, the missing persons photograph of Shadow caught the eye of a small upstate New York precinct. On a hunch he looked through the papers, thinking this boy looked an awful lot like his daughter’s fiancé, if he were starved and deathly looking. After a dinner he asked David to talk and asked him if he had any siblings. David winced and told him that he had a brother, but he had disappeared long ago.
Not wanting to get David’s hopes up, he decided to call up the police in Washington on his hunch. On his request the officer went to the hospital and questioned Shadow further, once dropping the name “Daniel,” in conversation. Shadow stopped in his tracks an expression of surprise on his otherwise neutral face. Darkness swirled around him and his expression descended into confusion. “My name is Shadow,” he said softly, his mind digging up long suppressed memories, but the officer knew he’d gotten something. “Daniel Van Mersing?” The darkness swallowed Shadow and he fled, scaring a nurse as he emerged from the shadows. She was able to recover and catch hold of him in an embrace before he was able to run away again. Shadow was in such a state of distress and confusion that they were forced to sedate him.
With a name confirmed, they had an age and a birth date. It was then that Shade learned he was 17. It was a strange feeling to know. The doctors and nurses protected Shadow as best they could, not wanting a repeat of his panic attack. However, Shadow’s parents and brother would not be kept away. So with tears flowing the Mersings got the news. David and his parents rushed to Washington. They demanded to see Daniel, but the hospital resisted for as long as they could, but legally because of Shade’s minor status, they could not be kept away. They decided to let the meeting happen in a controlled environment, they met with Shade’s parents ahead of the meeting to brief them on the state of their son. They warned them not to expect much and to keep their distance.
They didn’t want to push Shadow, but he wouldn’t meet them otherwise. So they brought them to Shadow, letting him decide if he wanted to come out or not. Despite himself, he was curious and when they told him that they’d found his family, he wanted to see the people who’d given him up. As he laid eyes on them the dead expression didn’t change. He didn’t recognize them, they were just any other woman and man. They meant nothing to him, seeing them didn’t stir his heart in love or anger, there was just… nothing. The woman cried out to him, holding out her hands as if she wanted to run to him but thought better. Shadow stood, numb across the room. Shade didn’t reply to her call his name and let the shadows eat him again as he disappeared back into his room. The woman’s crying stirred something in Shadow. Something old yet unfamiliar.
The nurses tried to console the woman, telling her to give him time, they still didn’t know where he’d been or what happened to him. Shadow leaned against the door listening. He felt pity for these people. Whoever this Daniel was that they missed, it wasn’t him. His family didn’t miss him. He’d know if they were his parents… wouldn’t he? He hugged his knees to his chest, he wished someone would miss him like these people missed their Daniel.
Before he had had too much time to think on it, Shadow’s life was again turned upside down. Finally healthy enough to travel, they sent him off to Starlight Academy, promising him he would be safe there. Everything is so new and overwhelming, Shadow hasn’t really worked up the courage to leave his room yet. Shadow is wary of the people who have taken him in and keep thinking they are going to want to experiment on him. He lives in fear that he will eventually be sent back. The people he met who claim to be his family keep sending him letters and packages. He keeps all the letters in a desk drawer but never replies to any. There are stories in them, stories he's lived in his dreams, stories that sooth him to sleep. He wished he could find their Daniel for them, he seemed very loved. Shade doesn't know how to feel about these people, the emotions are confusion and so he doesn't deal with them.
Additional Information:
Shade has severe colorblindness called Tritanopia a type of yellow-blue colorblindness where he can only perceive long and medium wavelengths. This means that he has trouble deciphering shades of red and yellows appear in lighter shades of red. He cannot distinguish blue from green and purples appear gray. It is unclear if this colorblindness was caused by his mutation or not.
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