He turned out the lights but the one.
After folding up his dinner table and tucking away his chair against his pull out bed still inside the wall, Vorg stood directly under the hanging bulb and looked down at the darkness he cast at his feet.
He sounded them out as he heard them, but the words were thick and clumsy in his mouth like a rock tumbler. "Shadow Boxing".
"Imagining your opponent is good, but sparing at nothing, eh, it's really not the best." his trainer told him in broken but appreciated Russian,"A person isn't air you know? A shadow gives him, er, form, shape. As if close enough to touch."
Vorg stepped forward from under the bulb and watched it spread across the cracked linoleum and up the peeling wallpaper. Stopping within distance to strike with out hitting the wall he noticed the shape was smaller than he, this was good.
He raised his fists and took stance. Close, compact hooks. Uppercuts. Body, head, body. The smaller shadow danced with every swing. Bobbing through punches, weaving the hits. Every fist he threw never once touched the shadow. How could it.
Vorg's sneakers squeaked on the floor, his sweat falling and pooling around him. His body quickened not noticing he was inching forward desperately, cautiously trying to reach the small shape in front of him. Smiling, unknowingly, all the while.
He hit the wall and recoiled from the shock, realizing was no longer where he thought he was: Amidst a crowd, in a ring, in another land where few could really speak with him. The building began it's low rumble signaling the coming L train. As it charged past the bulb above tossed about, throwing random shadows across the small apartment. Seeing this Vorg admitted where he was.
The tremor subsided and so did the light's shaking. Stepping slowly towards the wall Vorg stretched out a hand until the tips of his fingers made contact with the distorted dark body. He closed his eyes and remembered his trainer's words, " So you can't see his face, you can still fight him."