#ProjectShadowStory

The Dwindling Escapist

Isn't That Right, 'Me'?

Well hello guys, and welcome to a very... 'special' short story, shall we say? Yes, from what you may have seen in the description, this story is indeed going to revolve around a specific Shadow – my own; the Shadow that lingers inside me. I have always thought about what my dark side would be, and after a long while of introspecting, I'm ready to tell you the nature of my inner Mr. Hyde. Everyone has a Shadow, but no one knows mine better than me. So, here it is... the story of my Shadow. Thank you to Urter for the inspiration for this one-shot.

The Reversed Star Arcana (XVII)

definition: Lack of faith, despair, discouragement, detachment from reality, a search for distraction or relief, engaging in fantasy

My head felt heavy, my mind was numb and without clarity. But was it sleep? Or something beyond my comprehension? Though, without a doubt, I knew that something was off; the air was cold, my body struggled to move from the awkward position it laid in, and even more so, my bed felt slightly more hard on my chest that it usually did. But then my eyes opened to see what made the changes, and a whole new fear struck at my heart with a petrifying jolt. Wha...?! What is this?! Shit!

Though scared, I was completely exhausted, unable to find the energy to react to such a god-awful sight. There was nothing but fog, and the skies around me emitted a sickly green light that could unsettle the firmest of souls. This has to be dream... it has to be... so I kept telling myself. But then again, why was I conscious of it? A lucid dream perhaps? Or maybe... was it the real thing? Could I have been awake to see this nightmarish landscape? These were the questions asked when my eyes were first cast onto this 'anomaly'; but then again, how am I this conscious enough to ask them? It must've been a clearer dream than I had first anticipated.

But on that night, my worst fears were realised. It was only a matter of time before I would even consider believing what I had just seen.

Before I picked myself back up to my feet, I allowed my mind to clear, trying to take in all that I was seeing. The panic was still there, and so was the feeling of isolation I felt when I looked around me. No one was there; it was only me. There was no sound whatsoever, and the silence was so quiet that I could hear my own pulse. Even that sound was disturbing to listen to, hearing my bloodstream rush faster and faster the more I paid my attention to the quiet.

"Hello?"I called out into the fogginess, listening to my echoes as they travelled into the surprisingly far distances of... well, wherever the hell I was. No response. So I tried again, and still no answer. And after another few cries out into the vastness of the area, there was still no one to heed my call. I was truly all alone; with no one there with me and with no way out of this place, I feared the worst. Am I... Am I going to die here?

That was the last question I asked myself before I noticed something approaching me in the distance.

Surrounded by fog, all I could see was an outline hiding in the shadows. But as I squinted to look past the cloudiness, I could just make out a figure walking towards me; it seemed like the person was a male, and he seemed to have his hands in his pockets, slouching his back as he walked in short strides. At first, I thought I was saved, that I had a chance of leaving this hellish place before anything could potentially lead me into a fate I don't deserve.

But when this person finally came into view, that was exactly how this was all playing out. All the features were there, and when I looked at him, my hope was suddenly shattered and my mind sought nothing but despair; I couldn't believe my eyes, and my suspicions of this all being a dream convinced me to believe it to be a nightmare which I couldn't release myself from.

His medium-sized hair was jet-black, and the fringe was swept to one side along with smoothed down hair at the sides coming to the front. His skin complexion was that of an olive brown colour, and it blended with the clothing he was wearing; he wore black skinny-fit jeans along with ankle-high sneakers that were striped with murky grey and orange colours. He donned a dark-brown military-styled jacket which was open at the chest, and underneath it was a v-neck shirt.

Everything I was witnessing at that moment was completely unimaginable, and the more I looked at him, the more I couldn't believe the image I was beholding. And at that moment in time, I was robbed of my speech from the sheer shock within me, unable to speak of what was happening right in front of me. The hair, the skin colour, the clothes... they all belonged to me... this guy looked just like me. No, he looked EXACTLY like me. But the eyes... instead of them being their usual dark brown colour, they were glowing with a yellow light that illuminated around the pupils, making his glare at me make him look very deranged.

When he stepped out of the fog, he greeted me with a smile with an inhumane crookedness about it. It was a grin even I couldn't pull off, and those two yellow dots staring at me made me fear everything about him. But all features about him were everything I didn't want to believe.

"Wh-who are you?" I asked the figure, frightful just by the sight of him, "Where am I?"

"Hahaha... is that a trick question?" he replied, sniggering with raise of his eyebrows. That voice was just chilling to hear. It was like hearing chalk scrape against a blackboard; the sound of the two merged tones in his voice-box resonated with a sound that made me wince and cringe with a shiver up my spine. "Trick question? You think this is a joke?!" I yelled out of him, but only with so much courage.

Again, he only just chuckled at my attempt at bravery. "It's no laughing matter for you, I'm sure," he replied with a calm, yet evil tone, "but... it's just ironic isn't it?" I didn't know what he was talking about, especially when he uttered that word 'ironic'. Ironic? What does he mean by that? I knew at that moment that this guy liked to talk in very ambiguous ways. But I didn't expect anything less from him; he had the eyes of a creep and the grin of a madman, and to have the riddles of a criminal would be the complete set.

"Look, I just want to get home..." I said, almost in surrender to the guy's evil disposition, "... I don't know why you think any of this is 'ironic' and I don't care to know... but just point me to the way out and there'll be no trouble."

"HA! No trouble?! You're already in it, mate!" he yelled back at me, widening his grin to the point when the corners of his lips were up to nose-level, "I know that you're trying to be ignorant of the situation, but that's just who you are isn't it? Am I right? Or am I right?" I knew what he was trying to get at, but at the same time, I couldn't help but find some truth in what he said. However, at that time, I just didn't want to listen; all I wanted to do was get back from this place and just forget everything that happened, even the guy that was still smirking away at me. Then again, seeing that grin on his face probably would take some time cast out of my mind.

"Is the way out this way?" I asked, somewhat ignorant at the time. I admitted to myself that this place had very unnatural fog, and that the lighting was extremely discomforting, but I had no idea of the reality of the situation. I turned my back to the figure, only to hear his chuckle of contempt again. "That's so like you... running away from your problems as always." he said in a lower tone. And at that moment, something about what he said just made me stop in my tracks, and a little jolt in my stomach alarmed me to turn back round to him.

"Wha...?" I muttered aloud, disbelieving every word of his sentence. I watched as he took a few steps forward towards me, coolly pushing his shoulders back as he made his way over to me. "Don't say that you don't," he remarked, tilting his head lower to reveal the menace in his eyes, "I know that you can't face your own problems because you can't stand to come out of your own comfort zone. You simply lack the faith in yourself to do anything, and as a consequence, you disconnect yourself from reality, trying to find a distraction or even some kind of fantasy to alleviate yourself from the harshness of the real world."

Just listening to all of those things he said to me was like being hit by a freight train. My mind was caught between believing and disbelieving those words, but the weak feeling in my heart pushed me to choose the latter option. It was almost as if my head and my heart were opposing one another, and the conflict between them gave me an unsettling sickly feeling in my abdomen. "Wh-what the hell are you saying?!" I yelled at him, revealing a angered look that hid my cowardly expression, "I don't need to listen to this!"

"My point exactly!" he shouted back to me, opening his arms in a proud gesture. Strangely, his mockery only made me stay in my spot rather than letting me find my own way back to my room. "All you want to do is just bury your head in the sand, hoping that all of your problems and your insecurities will eventually disappear. You indulge yourself in a fantasy world, following a story that isn't yours, taking pleasure in the fictional world that isn't really there. All the while, your problems stay with you, and you don't want to do anything about it; you discourage yourself from doing anything that could otherwise benefit you in life. It's the sad truth, isn't it?"

"You know what? You're full of shit!" I yelled again, hoping that my attempts at defending myself would stop him from putting his words in my mouth, "How are you to say those things about me?! You don't even know me! The only one knows me better than anyone else is me!" When I had my say, however, some part of me thought that my words didn't ring true at all. In fact, for a moment, I thought that HE knew my own problems better than I did. But of course, at that moment, I wanted to refrain myself from thinking that at all costs.

"Of course, of course. No one knows you better than you do..." he said with a lift of his head, which only confused me when he told me what I had just said, "... but the thing is, all of what I said was true. And to ignore that would just prove my point even more. You wanna know why?" He couldn't have possibly known what my true feelings were; he'd have to be in my shoes to know the real me. But that was the scary thing about him. He was in my shoes, let alone actually owning my shoes. Upon posing his rhetorical question to me, I didn't have it in me to answer it; I had a bad feeling that he was already one step ahead of me to answer it on his own.

"Because..." he breathed with his smile growing even wider than his previous crooked grin, "... well... I am you."

Just as he said those three words, his figure stepped right out of the fog, revealing all that he had to offer to give me that petrifying shock. It was then that any doubt I had before was completely dispelled from my mind. His hair, the clothes he was wearing, the body posture; all of these things, except for those yellow eyes and that manic smile, were all mine as well. Us both were exactly the same, both physically and supposedly mentally; but even that was the last thing I wanted to think when he stepped out of the darkness.

As my eyes widened to this sudden realisation, the other 'me' folds his arms, staring me down with his pupils acting like sinister candle flames shining through dusty lanterns. "No... y-you can't be..." I stammered, unable to find the words to say. I was completely speechless, almost to the point when I started to believe that all of this was a dream... no, a nightmare. But this scary feeling... this ominous, overwhelming feeling of helplessness was real. Any heart-attack would've woken me up by now, but my emotions at that moment could undermine anything like that. At this moment in time, everything had changed dramatically. The atmosphere of the fog, the feeling of being completely lost, and even the sight of the 'me' in front of me... all of these things had just turned a lot of frightful.

"That's right... I am your other 'you' created from your repressed anxieties. And like I said, all the things I said were true. I am everything you tried to hide away... and just like your problems, I was, am and still is something that you hoped would just vanish out of thin air. I am a Shadow... the true self... the very thing that shows you how far you've strayed away from your aspirations and goals... OUR aspirations and goals that WE struggle to achieve because of the temptation for distraction," he introduced himself with a cocky sense of confidence in his pride, "... Isn't that right, 'me'?"