“THE SHADOW THAT NEVER LEFT”

Before you read further, I’ll give you the same warning I gave myself years later:

If the lights in your room are off… turn them on.

If there’s a shadowy corner behind you… don’t look at it yet.

Because once you know this story, you might never feel alone in the dark again.

And if you have a mirror in the room…

don’t stare into it.

Some people claim that when the story of a hamzad is told, reflections stop belonging to you entirely.

What you are about to read… is not fiction.

Not imagination.

Not a superstition whispered by elders.

It is my life.

I am Enzo.

A name only a few close friends ever heard.

The rest know me by a different name — a name I can never write here.

This is Chapter 1 of the nightmare that began when I was a child, in 2017…

A nightmare that followed me, breathed behind me, and eventually learned to stand beside me.

The First Sign — The Day My Shadow Saw Me

It began in our village during harvest season.

I was young, innocent, and unaware that the world isn’t just made of humans.

That day, like always, I took lunch to my family working in the fields.

I delivered the food, parked my bicycle, and sat under a tree near the small stream.

The silence was unnatural — too still, too heavy.

As if the entire forest had stopped breathing.

And then…

I felt it.

Someone standing behind me.

Not touching, not speaking… just breathing cold air against my ear.

I didn’t see anything when I turned, but I felt the presence. So close it almost touched my skin.

When I picked up the empty utensils to return home, pain stabbed through my stomach so violently that I collapsed on the ground.

A twisting, clawing pain — not of sickness but of something unseen gripping me from the inside.

For a whole month, the pain continued.

Tests were done. Medicines were taken.

Doctors found nothing, understood nothing.

And then…

as suddenly as it came, the pain disappeared.

No cure.

No explanation.

Today, when I look back, I know it was not an illness.

It was the first touch of the shadow that would follow me for the rest of my life.

Winter Nights — The Visitors Nobody Saw

Winter arrived, and with it came nights that still send chills crawling across my skin.

I slept alone in my room.

The house was quiet.

But around 3 a.m. every night, I heard it:

The sound of the water jug being lifted.

Then the clear sound of water being poured into a glass.

I told myself it was the wind.

Or imagination.

Until one night…

I opened my eyes.

The jug was still in its place.

But the water level… was lower.

Someone had drunk it.

Someone who wasn’t human.

The cold in the room thickened.

I felt movement — small shapes, two or three figures emerging from the corner of the dark room.

Short. Silent. Watching.

And for the first time in my life, I understood fear that seeps into your bones.

The Man Who Knew My Name Without Asking

Months passed. I learned to live with the invisible.

Then one day, a spiritual practitioner — an Aamil — visited our relatives in the village.

The moment he saw me, he stared… long, deep, as if he could see something standing behind me.

But he said nothing.

Later, I approached him myself.

His name was Sheikh — (I cannot write the rest).

The moment I sat down, he spoke:

“Enzo…”

My entire body froze.

Only a handful of my closest friends knew that name.

No one else.

He leaned closer and whispered:

“There are many beings around you. They have been with you since childhood. They do not harm you because they want you.”

The memories rushed back —

The harvest day pain.

The water is being drunk.

The silent figures.

I asked him the question burning inside me:

“Sheikh… I want to speak to them. Control them. Become powerful.”

He exhaled slowly, eyes darkening.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking for… but if you insist, I will take you as my student.”

And that was the moment my fate changed forever.

The Ritual — Where Darkness Learned My Name

Sheikh told me the method:

• 40 nights

• A pitch-black room

• One candle

• No leaving

• Strict purity

• Prayers, isolation, and silence

• And a heart strong enough not to break

I prepared everything.

The Chilla began.

The first few days were filled with faint whispers, trembling candlelight, shadows stretching unnaturally on the walls.

But on the tenth night, it happened.

I was reciting when a voice whispered directly behind my neck.

Cold breath touched my skin.

I turned…

And saw myself standing in the corner of the room.

Same face.

Same features.

But with white eyes and a dead, twisted smile.

My Hamzad had arrived.

Night after night, the horrors intensified.

On the 20th night, the house beams cracked.

Footsteps ran across the roof.

Objects moved.

Whispers crawled under the floor.

And then came the 40th night…

The night the shadow tried to take me completely.

But through sheer desperation and Sheikh’s training, I survived.

I succeeded.

My Hamzad accepted me.

And that night, my life split into two pieces:

Before the ritual… and after.

Power — The Beginning of My Fall

At first, the powers felt divine.

I could sense lies.

Feel intentions.

See shadows move.

Lift myself into the air on pitch-dark nights.

Hear secrets whispered behind closed doors.

I healed people.

Solved conflicts.

Found lost things.

Helped those who feared the dark.

But then…

Power whispered to me.

Tempted me.

Told me I could take more.

And slowly…

I stepped into the same darkness I once feared.

I used my Hamzad to influence people.

Change their thoughts.

Control their desires.

Force a girl to like me.

Terrify men until they obey me.

Expose secrets never meant to be heard.

I told myself each time:

“Just once. Nothing will happen.”

But once turned into twice.

Then it became a habit.

And one night…

I crossed a line I can never erase.

I ordered my Hamzad to harm a girl — only because she ignored my message.

That was the moment I stopped being human…

and became something dangerously close to a monster.

Not because of my Hamzad’s darkness —

but because of my own.

The First Sign of the End

One night, I called him.

But he didn’t come close.

He stood far away… staring at me, as if seeing me for the first time.

I called again.

He didn’t move.

That was the first sign —

that the bond was breaking,

that the terms had shattered,

that the power I abused had started abandoning me.

And when Hamzad distances himself…

something else takes his place.

Something darker.

Something uncontrollable.

Something hungry.

My story does not end here.

This was only Chapter 1 — the beginning of the curse.

⭐ If you want Chapter 2, just say: “Continue Chapter 2.”

I will write it in the same professional horror-novel style.