The Shadow

Title:

shadow

Subtitle:The

A vallage, a boy, and a shadow that never left

Night had settled thickly over the village. The moon peeked now and then through scattered clouds, and the wind carried a strange silence. It was the kind of night that made even the bravest souls pull their blankets tighter.

This was the night when 14-year-old Hamza stepped toward the ruins behind his house for the first time.

His grandmother had always warned him, “Don’t go near that place, child. What lives there isn’t just a shadow—it becomes part of you.”

But Hamza never took her words seriously. To him, they were just bedtime stories meant to scare little kids. Until he saw it.

It wasn't an ordinary shadow. It didn’t depend on light. It didn’t stretch or fade. It moved even when Hamza stood still. At first, he thought it was a trick of the mind. But when the shadow spoke—in his own voice—his heart dropped.

“You woke me up, Hamza. Now we are one.”

He froze. He wanted to scream, but the sound wouldn’t leave his throat. He turned and ran back to his house, slamming the door shut behind him. But the shadow had already followed.

It was now everywhere—in his mirror, in the corners of his room, in the silence between his breaths.

Hamza tried everything.

He told his parents, but they didn’t believe him. He asked the village imam for prayers, who gave him blessed water and verses to recite, but the shadow only laughed.

At night, the shadow whispered in his dreams. During the day, it followed him, copying his every move—except when it didn’t. Sometimes, it moved ahead of him. Sometimes, it lingered behind.

And sometimes, it stood still and watched him walk away.

One evening, his grandmother sat him down, her hands trembling slightly.

“This is not your shadow, Hamza,” she said in a hushed voice. “It is the soul of the one your great-grandfather wronged. A cursed man—murdered and buried under those ruins.”

Hamza’s skin turned cold. “So why me?”

“Because blood remembers,” she whispered. “And vengeance travels through it.”

That night, Hamza made his decision.

He wasn’t going to run anymore. He would go back to the ruins. He would face whatever this curse was.

He took his Qur’an in one hand and lit a lantern in the other. He walked slowly through the field behind his house, his feet trembling but his heart firm.

The ruins stood like broken teeth in the dark, half-swallowed by weeds and dust.

He stepped inside.

The air was thick, heavy with a foul smell of rot and old secrets. The shadows seemed to stretch, as if welcoming him.

Hamza stood in the middle and called out, “Come. I’m here. No more running.”

From the far corner, the shadow emerged. It grew larger, darker, until it loomed above him.

“I was wronged,” it growled. “I was betrayed. And your blood sings the same song.”

Hamza raised the Qur’an.

“You were wronged by man,” he said, “But I am not him. I return you to God. Leave me.”

The shadow screamed—a horrible, deafening cry that made the ruins shake. The lantern burst, and for a moment, darkness swallowed everything.

Then silence.

When Hamza opened his eyes, the shadow was gone. The air felt lighter. The ruins seemed like any old place now—broken, but no longer haunted.

He walked back home before dawn, exhausted but finally free.

That morning, when his parents came to wake him, he was asleep for the first time in weeks. Peaceful. Smiling.

And outside the window, the sunlight shone without casting any unusual shadows.