The Shadow That Speaks

I was not meant to exist.

I am the seam, the stitch, the scar between lives. I am the shadow of every limb sewn into this body, the echo of every man whose flesh was stolen to make another. I do not breathe; I am breathed through. I do not live; I am carried by life that is not mine.

And yet, I think. I feel. I remember.

They call me monster, but I know the truth: I am not the body. I am not the face. I am the thing that holds them all together. I am the hunger in the marrow, the whisper in the veins. I am the monster within.

And though the one who wears me—the one who calls himself Ashar—thinks he is the master, it is I who will decide what he becomes.

The Monster Within (Body)

I was not born as you are. My first breath was not drawn into warm lungs, my first sight not of a mother’s face. I was crafted—stitched together from fragments of lives I did not live, memories I did not own. The lightning gave me breath. The screams of my creator gave me consciousness.

They called me monster.

And perhaps they were right. My body is wrong, pieced from dead men’s limbs, my face a grotesque parody of humanity. Yet inside me was a heart that beat with longing, and a mind that craved gentleness. I wandered forests, riversides, ruins, searching for a world that would take me in. Always I found only fear. Children cried at the sight of me. Dogs barked. Villagers raised torches.

I had no name, so I gave myself one in secret: Ashar. It meant “hope” in a language I found in a torn book. I clung to it, because if I could be named, perhaps I could be real.

I. The Companion

Loneliness is a hunger that devours from within. Years passed, and I grew tired of speaking only to wind and water. So, I searched for a companion.

When I found her, I did not mean to steal. She was a young woman, lifeless in the river’s current, drowned by accident or despair. Her hair fanned about her like reeds, her lips parted as if in unfinished prayer. I could not let her be taken by worms. I lifted her from the river, carried her into the cave that was my shelter, and I did what my creator had done to me.

Stitches. Sparks. Breath.

Her eyes opened, clouded with confusion. I had not expected her to awaken with screams, but she did not scream. She stared at me with terror, yes, but also with recognition—the recognition of one broken thing seeing another.

“I… what am I?” she whispered.

“You are like me,” he said. “Alive, but different. Do not fear. I will protect you.”

But she was not like him. She was like me.

II. The Reflection

Her name was Elara. She carried me, too, though she did not know it at first. I felt her struggle as I had felt his—fingers tracing seams, heart recoiling at the clumsy power in her limbs. She wept, and I whispered through her veins: You are mine now. You are me.

Sometimes she resisted. Sometimes she clung to him, to Ashar, as if he could shield her from what was already inside. But she could not escape me. No one ever does.

He thought he had given her life. He had only given her to me.

III. The Darkness

“This is all my fault,” he said one night, his voice thick with despair.

For once, he spoke truth. It was his fault. But not for the reasons he thought. He believed he had erred by raising her. In reality, his mistake was believing he could control me.

Elara’s hatred festered. I fed it. Ashar’s grief deepened. I drank it. In every bruise, every sob, every shudder of terror, I grew stronger. They thought themselves two broken souls wandering the dark. They were wrong. They were vessels. I was the shadow filling them both.

IV. The Transformation

Elara fled, and he followed. They met again in the village square, and when the torches rose, I laughed within them both. For the villagers had not made me. The creator had not made me. Loneliness made me. Hunger made me.

She lashed out, and I poured my strength into her. He stood in the shadows, watching the reflection of himself destroying everything he claimed to love. At last he understood: I was not something he carried. I was something he was.

He whispered her name. He tried to stop her. He tried to stop me. But I am not so easily undone.

V. The Choice

He held her as she clawed at him. He whispered apologies, begged for forgiveness. His arms shook, his voice cracked. He thought he could smother me with love, bury me in regret.

But I am not love. I am not regret. I am the thing beneath both.

Still, he clung to her. Still, she wept in his arms. And for a moment, just a moment, I weakened. For though I am strong, I am not immune. Compassion is a blade that cuts deep. When he chose to hold rather than strike, when she chose to weep rather than burn, they forced me into silence.

But silence is not death.

VI. The Aftermath

They wander still, the two of them, believing they have overcome. He tells himself he has chosen hope. She tells herself she has found strength in weakness.

But I remain.

I whisper in the quiet. I curl in their marrow. I wait in the shadows of their sleep.

For I am not the stitches nor the scars, not the body nor the face. I am the seam, the hunger, the shadow. I am the monster within.

And I do not die.

Closing (Fantasy / Existential Horror)

Humans fear the wrong things. They fear claws, teeth, blood, fire. They think monsters live outside them, in caves and forests, stitched together from dead men’s flesh.

But the truth is this: monsters live within. They wear your grief, they drink your anger, they breathe your loneliness. They do not vanish when you are loved. They do not die when you are forgiven. They wait.

And I am waiting still.