The Shadow of the Soul

From a very young age, I could always see two shadows on either side of every person I met. Mom always said I had a vivid imagination, but I knew it was much more than that. Each of these shadow pairs had a strong presence around them, as if exerting pressure on their surroundings. But I was the only one who seemed to sense it.

Mom always said it would all disappear as I grew older, but they never did. I still felt those strange presences even when I reached my early teens. I brought it up with her again, but she was quick to dismiss the topic, saying I should just ignore it. From then on, I decided to never speak of it to anyone, but I still wouldn’t give up trying to understand exactly what those beings were.

I observed my classmates’ behaviours and saw if there was a connection between their actions and the shadows. At first, I didn’t see anything significant, but as time passed, I came to understand that the shadows were in fact swaying the decisions of their hosts, be it for better or for worse.

It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I was able to hear them. In some cases, one shadow would push their host to make rash decisions, while the other would be too indecisive; in other cases, one would demand the person to be more assertive, while the other would ask that they avoid conflict. In all these scenarios, however, the shadow that received prominence was often the one that grew darker and wrapped around the host more.

When I finally understood my abilities, I returned to Mom with the topic to address something about it that had long plagued my mind: I asked her if she knew anything about my abilities, because I could see shadows beside everyone around me except myself. She resisted the topic at first, but since I persisted, she finally opened up to me about it. Mom said we were among the few people in the world who could see the war of the soul that waged in each individual around us. She said neither shadow was fundamentally good or bad, but that they would battle each other for the soul of their host.

I asked her what the shadows were, but she said there was no definitive answer. There were often religious parallels of the shadows being the good and evil sides of a person influenced by angels and demons, and then there were others who believed that they were spirits that sought to syphon human souls. I asked her why I saw no such shadows attached to me; Mom said my father was the same. He had lied about who he was, and one day, before I was even born, he had vanished without a trace.

Weeks after my discussion with Mom, I noticed that my abilities were evolving to levels that had not been documented in the past. I found that I could not just sense the shadows—I could also intervene in their actions. Mom urged me to act with caution as these were unfamiliar waters. I agreed with her and took small steps, persuading my classmates and friends every now and then to make decisions that lay outside what the shadows were asking of them. I saw that, with enough intervention, some shadows would eventually abandon their hosts. Mom had her doubts on whether I was creating unwarranted ripples, but although I could not explain it, my instincts told me to keep pushing forward.

This led to me becoming a psychiatrist, and in my line of work, I found many people with shadows so dark and great that it was as if they were determined to wring the very life out of them. The process was strenuous and slow, but I managed to drive out the shadows that latched themselves to many patients I met.

One day, I met a peculiar patient. He was the same age as Mom, and it was his first appointment with me. I was surprised to see that he was just like me. I asked him what his true intentions were and he said he was simply there to see his daughter. I sat there speechless, my mind racing through many questions yet my jaw remaining locked in place. The man apologised for being so late to reunite with me, saying that he did what he had to at the time to ensure that I remained hidden from the eyes of Soul Lords. He said he used to be a Shadow, and that without doing his duty of snatching the human soul after the person passed away, he instead took possession of the body and pretended to be the original human instead. He said he wanted to know what it was like to live and not just simply exist—to have a name, to have dreams, and to explore the many things he could always see but never truly experience.

I asked him why he abandoned Mom and me, and he said it was because the Soul Lords had caught wind of his treachery. However, he assured that after having lived for so long as a human, the presence of his former Shadow self was no longer traceable. Dad apologised once again for abandoning Mom and me; I hugged him and told him how glad I was to finally meet him. I drove him home to meet Mom that same evening. Our family was finally reunited after thirty years.