The Man Who Bought My Shadow

I sold my shadow for money. That’s not a metaphor.

It was a real transaction.

Desperate, jobless, and drowning in student debt, I found the listing on a hidden forum:

“Sell your shadow. $50,000. No questions. Meet at midnight.”

I thought it was a joke. But I was too broke not to follow it.

He was waiting under a flickering streetlight — tall, pale, dressed like a funeral had just ended. He never said his name. Just pointed at a chalk circle and said,

“Stand inside. The contract begins with your silence.”

I laughed. “So… I just give you my shadow?”

He nodded. “And in return, you walk away wealthy — but weightless.”

I didn’t understand that part.

But I was desperate enough to sign.

He pulled a mirror from his coat — an obsidian thing that reflected nothing but your guilt.

He chanted something that made the streetlight explode.

And just like that… my shadow peeled off the ground like it had always wanted to escape.

At first, it was a dream.

Money wired instantly. Debts gone. Apartment upgraded. Designer everything.

But people stared.

They noticed before I did. My photos? Weirdly blank. My outline? Wrong. Kids cried around me. Dogs growled. I started avoiding sunlight — I looked... hollow.

People online called me The Negative Man.

I started seeing it again — my shadow.

Not attached to me.

Standing across the room. Watching me sleep. Following strangers.

It had a shape now — mine, but twisted. It whispered at night: “You abandoned me.”

I tried to get it back.

I found the man again. Same corner. Same streetlight, now always flickering.

“You lied to me.”

He smiled. “No. I said you’d be weightless. Isn’t that what you wanted? No guilt. No roots. No past.”

I fell to my knees. “I want it back.”

He leaned in. “You’ll have to chase it… and shadows run faster than regret.”

That’s when the murders started.

People who hurt me in the past — a bully, an ex, my corrupt boss — all found dead. Same pattern. Same mark scorched into the wall:

A black sun.

The same one that appeared on my chest in dreams.

I wasn’t just without a shadow. I had unleashed it.

It remembered everything I tried to forget. Every sin. Every suppressed scream. It hunted with purpose.

I tried to warn the police. They tested me. No prints. No presence.

Because what’s a man without a shadow?

A ghost.

I sleep now with lights on.

Because the darker it gets, the closer it comes.

I wake to footprints on my ceiling.

Whispers from inside my mirror.

And sometimes, I feel warmth at my feet…

Like something trying to crawl back inside.