Skybridge Shade

The Shade climbed the reflected street toward our feet. We were thirty floors over black water, glass to either side, half the skybridge roof gone. The towers appeared upside down in the panels. Above the floor, nothing moved.

A hand passed through the glass and caught Cal's ankle. Coat edges followed pale knuckles; its face disappeared wherever skyline showed through. It pulled him toward an image of a city that no longer existed. I sprayed rescue foam over the panel. White closed off the depth. The Shade let go and shed itself into the wind, its outline streaming toward the next tower.

We crossed beneath smeared windows. Clear handprints appeared behind us where the foam hadn't reached.

It waits for travelers to spread across a transparent span. From the reflected city it catches an ankle or trailing hand, sometimes a bag, and pulls toward a drop that briefly becomes real. Confronted, it sheds its silhouette into the wind and forms again at a clear panel on the same sightline.

Low ceilings and opaque walls deter it. Thoroughly marked bridge glass offers no depth. An unfinished destination attracts it: an undelivered letter, a promised meeting, an abandoned evacuation route. Speaking that destination may draw it from a weaker target onto the speaker.