The Shadow Within

Darkness Is Not Always the Enemy — Sometimes, It's You.


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No one saw the shadow leave the boy's body. Not even the boy.

Elias had always been quiet, the kind of child who watched rather than spoke, listened rather than acted. He lived in a grey town, beneath grey skies, in a grey house where whispers seemed louder than words. But something changed on the day he turned seventeen.

It started with the dreams.

Every night, Elias saw himself walking through a world without sound — a world bathed in ash and fog, where his own reflection followed a step behind instead of ahead. In the beginning, he thought it was just a trick of the mind. But the reflection began to act... differently.

It smiled when he didn’t. It tilted its head when he looked straight. And eventually, it began to speak.

> “Let me in.”



At first, Elias tried to wake himself when he heard the voice. He'd jolt upright, heart racing, only to find his room shrouded in shadow, cold as if someone else had just left. But he told no one — not his father, who buried himself in old books and broken clocks, nor his classmates, who already thought he was strange.

Then things began to shift in the waking world.

He started forgetting small moments — where he walked, what he said, how he got home. A teacher accused him of staring too long during class, eyes glassy and dark. A neighbor said they saw him standing outside their window, just watching.

But Elias had no memory of it.

And then came the mirror.

He noticed it on a Thursday — the smallest of delays. When he turned his head, the reflection lagged, like a video buffering. It only lasted a second, but his blood turned to ice. He approached the glass. His reflection stared back — but the eyes weren’t quite right.

They were... smiling.

> “You can’t keep pretending I’m not here,” the voice echoed in his head that night.



> “I’m not your nightmare. I’m your truth.”




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One stormy evening, Elias found himself in the attic. He didn't remember going there. Dust danced in the flickering bulb above, and cobwebs clung to his skin. In the center of the room stood a tall, cracked mirror — one he didn’t recognize.

In the reflection, he was not alone.

His shadow stood beside him. Taller. Stronger. Smiling.

> “Why are you afraid of me?” it asked, stepping forward inside the glass.



Elias backed away. “You’re not real.”

> “I am what you buried. Your anger, your rage, your desire to be seen — I am the part you denied.”



> “Let me in... and I’ll give you everything they’ve kept from you.”




---

He refused. For a while.

But the world grew colder. People treated him like a ghost. His father stopped seeing him entirely, too lost in grief for a wife long gone. Elias started to feel like a hollow echo. Like he was the shadow.

One night, he stood before the mirror again. The storm raged outside, thunder shaking the roof.

> “What do you want from me?” Elias whispered.



The shadow raised its hand to the glass.

> “A home.”



And Elias, weary and numb, lifted his hand to meet it.

The moment their palms touched, the mirror shattered. A wind, howling and unnatural, swallowed the room. And the shadow stepped out.


---

When Elias awoke, he felt… lighter. Stronger. A clarity sharpened his mind. He began to speak with conviction, walk with purpose, look others in the eye.

At first, people noticed. His father smiled at him for the first time in years. A girl from his literature class started sitting beside him. For once, he felt like he belonged.

But something else came too.

When someone mocked him behind his back, that boy later fell down the stairs — said he was pushed, though no one saw it happen.

When a teacher accused him unfairly, she found her car vandalized, windows cracked like spiderwebs. No evidence. No suspects.

But Elias knew.

It was the shadow.

Or rather, it was him.

Because they were no longer separate.