The Shadow
Shade was walking as usual.
There was nothing worth noticing on his way. The same streets, the same faces, the same familiar noise that filled the city without giving anyone a real reason to listen.
He walked with his head slightly lowered, letting his footsteps carry him without caring much about where they were taking him.
The air was mildly cold, and the city had begun to slip into that hour when the movement of the day slowly blended into the quiet of evening.
He wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.
Until he felt it.
A gaze.
For a moment, his sense of the world seemed to stop.
It wasn’t a sound. Not a movement. Not anything he could immediately identify.
Just the unsettling feeling that someone was watching him.
Shade slowly raised his head.
He looked ahead.
Nothing.
He turned around.
Passing faces. Cars. Closed doors. Windows. Sidewalks.
No one was looking at him.
He remained still for a few seconds, silently observing his surroundings.
Then he felt it again.
This time, it was clearer.
Someone was there.
But he couldn’t see them.
His eyes narrowed.
He searched the area around him, trying to find anything out of place.
Nothing.
Then his eyes fell to the ground.
His thoughts stopped.
The light.
And the shadow.
It wasn’t an ordinary shadow.
For a moment, he felt that there was something connecting the light stretching across the ground to the shadows it created.
A connection that shouldn’t have been visible.
He stared at it.
Then he felt something else.
There was a shadow.
The shadow of a person.
But the person herself wasn’t there.
He couldn’t see a body.
He couldn’t see a face.
He couldn’t see any clothes.
He could only perceive her presence through that shadow.
He slowly raised his gaze.
And somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain, he felt another gaze.
The girl was looking at him.
It wasn’t fear.
Nor hostility.
Nor caution.
It was something else.
Something he didn’t understand.
Pity.
Shade remained silent.
He wasn’t used to being looked at that way.
And he didn’t like it.
He fixed his eyes on the place where he sensed her presence.
Then he spoke.
“Who are you?”
There was no answer.
Nothing moved.
He remained standing.
At the same time, his mind began working.
Distance.
Angle.
Possibilities of an attack.
Where could she be?
How could he reach her?
What was the fastest way to end this?
He didn’t know who she was.
And that alone was enough.
Then, for a moment, the connection disappeared as if it had never existed.
There was nothing.
The shadow was gone.
The feeling was gone.
The gaze was gone.
Shade raised his head and looked around.
Then at the ground.
Then behind him.
Nothing.
He turned again.
Everything was as normal as it had been moments ago.
He stood there motionless.
“What just happened?”
He had no answer.
He continued staring at the place for a few more seconds before finally walking away.
This time, his head was lowered even further.
He no longer cared where he was going.
His mind was trapped on a single question.
Who—or what—had she been?
And how had he been able to sense her?
He hadn’t seen her.
Yet he knew she had been there.
He even knew she had been watching him.
How?
He tried to replay the moment in his mind.
The light.
The ground.
The shadow.
The connection.
He stopped himself.
He didn’t even know how to describe what he had felt.
He kept walking.
Lost in his thoughts, he collided with someone.
The man took a step back.
“Watch where you’re going, kid!”
Shade raised his head.
He looked at him.
He said nothing.
His stare was enough.
The man’s expression changed.
The anger vanished from his face as if someone had suddenly ripped it away.
He took another step back.
He stared at Shade, then at his eyes, as though he had realized something he hadn’t expected.
The man said nothing.
He turned around.
And ran.
Shade remained where he was.
He watched the man disappear into the distance.
Then he turned his attention back to the road.
He didn’t care.
He continued walking.
Shade entered a restaurant.
It wasn’t particularly crowded.
He walked inside, ordered his food, then looked around for somewhere to sit.
He chose a table in a dimly lit area.
He sat down.
He felt comfortable there.
Bright light could be irritating sometimes.
Darkness wasn’t.
It was quiet.
Comforting.
His food arrived.
He began to eat.
But his mind wasn’t with the food.
The person was still there.
Inside his head.
Who was she?
He took another bite.
How had he been able to sense her?
Silence.
Where exactly had she been?
He stared into the empty space in front of him.
Had she been within his field of vision?
He paused.
Then the same question returned.
Why had she looked at him that way?
Why pity?
He could understand fear.
Hostility.
Curiosity.
Even hatred.
But pity?
He couldn’t fit it into the picture.
And every time he tried to remember the moment, he came back to the same thing.
The shadow.
He didn’t know why.
But he felt that there was something unnatural about that shadow.
Something he didn’t understand.
He continued eating in silence.
As time passed, exhaustion began to weigh on his body.
He finished his meal.
Left the restaurant.
And returned home.
The questions followed him.
From the road home.
From the front door to his room.
Even after he sat down.
Even after he tried to stop thinking about it.
He couldn’t.
He closed his eyes.
The image of the event appeared before him.
He felt that same gaze.
That gaze of pity.
He opened his eyes.
It wasn’t there.
He looked around the room.
Silence.
Then he lay down.
He tried to sleep.
But his mind kept returning to the same moment.
The light.
The shadow.
Its disappearance.
And finally, exhaustion overcame him.
He fell asleep.
Shade found himself somewhere else.
He didn’t know where he was.
The place wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.
And that was what made it even stranger.
There was something familiar about it.
Something that resembled his world.
But at the same time...
It wasn’t his world.
It was different.
Not merely in the shape of things.
But in something deeper.
Something he couldn’t put a name to.
He looked around.
He felt that the world he knew and the world he was standing in weren’t completely separate.
As if they were connected somewhere he couldn’t see.
Built upon the same foundation.
Yet something stood between them.
Something invisible.
A veil.
It wasn’t a veil he could touch.
or a wall he could see.
But it was there.
Shade didn’t know how he knew.
He simply knew.
He stood there, staring ahead.
He didn’t understand what he was seeing.
And he didn’t know why the place felt real.
It wasn’t like a dream.
It wasn’t hazy.
It wasn’t distant.
It was clearer than it should have been.
So clear that even sleep itself seemed like the wrong explanation.
Then...
He woke up.
His eyes opened suddenly.
He remained still.
He stared at the ceiling of his room.
His heart was calm.
But his mind wasn’t.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t say anything.
He simply tried to remember.
The dream.
The place.
The feeling.
Everything was clear.
Unnaturally clear.
Shade slowly lifted himself.
He sat on the bed.
He looked ahead.
He didn’t know why, but he felt only one thing.
That hadn’t been a dream.
It was something he had experienced.
Something that had actually happened.
But where?
And how?
And why?
He remained sitting in silence.
Then he returned to the question where it had all begun.
.The person
And he knew nothing about the world he had seen.
But he was certain of one thing:
There was something he couldn’t see.
And something...
had begun to see him.
