"Is the dark part the substance, and the light part the void? Or is it the other way around? I’m still not sure.

When I was a child, corner stores didn’t check for ID. I was maybe five or six when I started running to the shop each evening after dinner and confidently asking, “One pack of Blue 88, please.” Without hesitation, the shopkeeper would toss me a pack of cigarettes. I liked the routine of it.

The short, ten-minute walk back home was a stretch of night path perfect for running. I ran not for fun, but because my own footsteps scared me. At night, they sounded louder, faster, too close. The more I ran to escape the sound, the quicker it followed. My shadow chased me too. So I came up with a spell: “It’s too dark for the shadow to see me. I’m invisible.”

And when I said it, I truly felt gone—as if only my footsteps remained in the world, and a shadow with no owner. Even now, when I find myself in uncomfortable situations, I still whisper silently: “I’m not here.” Like a ninja, I slip behind my shadow.

Am I the shadow? Or is the shadow me?"