You liken me to some whom you've met, some who you've heard of. Shadows, replicas, fragments. That's what you think I am, huh?
Go on, keep believing that. It'll make it harder on you in the long run, because the truth will scare you out of your wits.
Because I'm not like them.
They're there for glimpses of time. Existences that flick by within a year, or less, or a little more in some cases. And they're real, palpable for that time, but then they're gone just as quickly.
I have always been here. Not always by your side as I am now. But you and I, we've been in tandem with each other.
It's hard to say who came first, but I suspect it was me- before I became 'you'. But my existence truly began in that moment, too- so easier said, we have been here for as long as each other.
And I was still here, once my palpable existence faded, on the very outskirts of your being. Just a murky stain. The light wasn't bright enough, not yet.
But the Keyblade reached out to you and that light glowed fiercely, and I wasn't a wisp any longer. A shadow that came off the floor, rising to meet you at each turn.
And thus I have, and you blindly stumble forward into the light, refusing to turn back and face your shadow, ignoring how close it looms. How close I am.
Doesn't it just terrify you? I can feel it like a second blood stream, pumping through you whenever I shift close to the surface of your skin, whenever I reach through that crack in your heart and possess you for a split second. That crack you widen every time you reach downward, seeking the power to attain your goals, to survive another battle.
But you don't tell anyone. Are you scared? Scared they'll leave you or look at you differently, once they know what you're capable of, what lurks within your heart? How dark your shadow truly is now?
You were warned, weren't you? All that time ago, within the depths of your heart. Before you faced it for the first time. The shadow, the penumbra of you and who you are. Your darkest aspects incarnate. You were told, but you have a distinct habit of not listening.
The closer you get to the light, the stronger your shadow becomes.
I am your shadow.
The sky stretches above us, either star strewn and inky black, or blue, wide and empty. What's there to the sky? There are clouds that appear and disappear slowly, but after all that, after the last cloud is gone, the sky remains empty.