When My Shadow Walked Away

When My Shadow Walked Away
By [Rehan khan]

I always thought your shadow was something that followed you.
That it had no choice.
That it belonged to you.

But I was wrong.

The day my shadow walked away, the sun was soft in the sky—its light tired, not golden. I remember the warmth on my skin. I remember the coolness beneath me as I sat on the cracked concrete steps behind my apartment. And I remember the moment I noticed: I was alone.

No outline stretched behind me.
No shape mirrored my movements.
Just me. And absence.

It took me a while to realize what was missing.
I lifted my hand, waved it in front of the sun. Nothing. No silhouette. No dark double. Just the air.

I turned slowly. Looked behind me.

And there it was—my shadow. Standing a few feet away. Still shaped like me. Still connected to me somehow, but no longer bound to follow. It had moved, deliberately, and now it stood still. Watching.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. What do you say to your shadow?

Instead, I stared.

It stared back.

Then, it turned and began to walk.

I stood quickly, stumbling over my own thoughts. “Wait,” I whispered.

It didn’t.

It walked—not with menace, not with malice, but with decision. Like someone who has stayed too long at a party they hated, finally leaving the noise behind.

And I let it go.


---

The days that followed were strange. People didn’t notice. They still smiled at me in the street, still nodded politely, but no one said, “Where’s your shadow?” Not even children. It was as though the world refused to acknowledge it. As though it had been invisible to them all along.

But I noticed. Every moment.

I walked lighter, somehow. And heavier, too.

The mornings were the worst. I used to dread waking up—there was a specific kind of ache that came before the alarm: a quiet, bone-deep sadness that lived under my skin. I had worn it like a second soul. My shadow had always been there in those moments, curled on the bedroom wall, sinking with me beneath the covers. Its weight pressed into mine.

But now, the mornings were hollow. My bed felt too wide, the silence too clean. I didn’t cry anymore. But I didn’t laugh either. I simply… existed.

Friends noticed that part.
“You seem better,” they said.
“You’re glowing,” they said.
“You’ve changed,” they said.

And maybe I had. Without my shadow, there were no sharp dips into despair. No sudden black waves pulling me under. I slept. I ate. I answered texts.

But I also felt unreal.

I couldn’t write. I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t listen to music without feeling like an imposter. As if the melodies had once belonged to someone else—someone heavier, messier, sadder. Someone real.


---

One night, I found myself walking in the same direction I’d last seen my shadow take. I don’t know why. Maybe I missed it. Maybe I was trying to prove I didn’t. The streetlights flickered above me, casting no outline from my feet.

I turned a corner, and there it was.

Sitting beneath a tree in the park. Still shaped like me. Legs crossed, head bowed. It looked tired.

I stepped closer.

It didn’t run.

I sat beside it. My shadow didn’t move, but somehow, I felt it breathe.

“I thought I’d feel better without you,” I said softly. “I thought you were the thing holding me down.”

It didn’t answer. But I knew it was listening.

“I hated you,” I admitted. “You were always there. In every mirror, every corner. Every time I tried to escape myself… there you were.”

And still, it said nothing.

“But I think I get it now,” I whispered. “You were never trying to hurt me. You were just showing me the parts of myself I didn’t want to see.”

The wind rustled above us. A branch creaked. I watched as my shadow shifted, turning toward me. Slowly, it leaned forward… and merged into mine.

Like returning home.


---

Now, I wake up and my shadow is there again. It follows me. Sometimes it lingers. Sometimes it stretches long and dark behind me like an echo. But I don’t flinch from it anymore.

I’ve made peace with the weight it carries. The sorrow it reflects. I know now that my shadow doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m human.

And sometimes, just sometimes—when the light hits me right—I swear I see it smile.