Skybridge Shade

Field account

The skybridge crossed thirty floors above black water, glass on both sides and half the roof missing. Every tower below us appeared upside down in the panels. I saw the Shade there first, climbing the reflected street toward our feet. Above the floor, nothing moved. Then a hand came through the glass without breaking it and seized Cal by the ankle. The rest of the spirit followed: long coat edges, pale knuckles, a face missing wherever skyline showed through. It tried to pull him downward into an image of the city that no longer existed. I struck the panel with rescue foam. White spread across the glass, cutting off the reflected depth. The Shade released him and folded into the open wind, strips of its outline streaming toward the next tower. We crossed under smeared windows, never looking down. Behind us, clear handprints appeared one by one where the foam had not reached.

Observed behavior

A Skybridge Shade waits until travelers spread across a transparent span, then approaches through the city reflected beneath their feet. It seizes ankles, bags, or trailing hands and pulls toward an apparent drop that becomes briefly real. If confronted, the spirit sheds its outer silhouette into open wind and re-forms at another clear panel along the same sightline. It avoids low ceilings, opaque walls, and bridges whose glass has been thoroughly marked. The Shade is drawn to people carrying an unfinished destination: a letter not delivered, a promised meeting, an evacuation route abandoned. Speaking that destination aloud may make it choose the speaker over a weaker target.