The Shadow Aspect

“We all have a shadow side, the less it’s embodied in our conscious life the more dangerous it is.”


I was a ticking time bomb; I just didn’t know it yet. I ignored all the signs, along with everyone else and all it took was someone to light my fire.

It started all at a very young age; I fit into society like anyone else. Yet I never felt like everyone else. There was emptiness inside, I couldn’t trust people, nor did I understand most of them. Little did I know that someone would one day exploit my emptiness and fear.

My fear of trusting people started much before the incident, yet the incident made me fear everyone for a very long time. A boy named as no more than Anonymous, for the purpose of the story.

Anonymous was the first person to really ever take advantage of me. He took advantage of me in his own way, a way that would scar me for life. He took my innocence and the little bit of humanity I seemed to have left in me. Anonymous to this day is my greatest fear. However, I still find it so hard to be angry at Anonymous.

Once that night was over and I was left to wallow in my own self-pity and misery. My greatest fear was that he would tell people, the people that I cared about. However I could not trust that they would take my side. It was his word against mine.

So instead I did the only thing I could think to do, I ran. Luckily for me my parents were already planning on moving far away. I had no objection, the further away I was the safer I felt. I ran far and fast, trying never to look back. From time to time however, I couldn’t help but to look back at what might have been. Better safe than sorry.

Once I was far and away and felt safe I promised myself to never tell the story of that night. Breaking that promise was a mistake that didn’t go unpunished. I soon found that my sanity might be a casualty to that mistake.

As two years passed, my memories fade, and as I pretended to be part of humanity again I felt like I was more a part of humanity. The shadow within me seemed to fade along with time.

I made the mistake all to soon. I told a boy, a different boy named R. He made me trust him. He made me feel as if I didn’t, I would pay for it. I soon realized I was just a marionette playing with fire. My wood soon began to catch fire and all that was left was ash. After a dispute he promised to ruin me. He didn’t I ruined myself.

I did it by trusting him with the secrets of the incident. The secrets that he knew were the only thing that could hurt me. He knew as word spread my shadow would swallow me whole and I would slowly become invisible, the life being sucked out of me.

I knew he was manipulative after he turned my friends against me. Yet there is a certain amount of good that you believe every person has to have. He was lacking that amount of good hidden deep within, and I was naïve to believe it existed. I should have known that the good didn’t live inside all people, after all, Anonymous had taught me that.

Surprisingly enough, he exploited my secret and me. Suddenly the whole world seemed to know. However, unlike many of the stories I told my parents this was not an exaggeration. People who I only knew from memories of the crowded hallways were asking me. I didn’t even know these people’s names and yet they were asking me for my most intimate thoughts and memories. I was suddenly different. People were tiptoeing around me as though I would crack at any moment. The funny thing is that the longer people believe you are broken; you begin to become broken.

Suddenly I was falling apart, and my shadow swept away the individual pieces. I decided to put an end to the talk and confront him. I was determined to be strong and rise against. When I confronted him in public with witnesses I had unleashed a whole new monster. R’s own shadow then became apparent. He had no mercy, he knew I was already down and he gave no pity with his harsh blows, I defended myself as best as I could. But even Shakespeare knows going into battle with a pen will not suffice to defeat a dragon unlike a sword.

The moment I pulled out my sword the world turned against me. I wasn’t invisible. I was seen by all for what he had painted me to be by the hundreds that did not know me. I could not return to school, how could I.

One day after the dirty looks and whispers the battle was finally over, however I didn’t give R the pleasure of allowing his shadow to engulf mine. So my shadow and I made one final decision. We took ourselves out of the battle. I was no longer able to win this battle, so instead I pulled my own trigger before he could pull it. Finally the fire had been smothered and I disappeared along with old memories and flames.