When I died, my shadow decided it would take over.

It knew that for the survival of the body, we needed someone stronger than me. Someone more connected to the darkness. Someone who would do what it took to survive.

And when my shadow delivered upon its promise to finally save the body from the hell it was in, we knew it was safer if the darkness continued to protect us. We would never go back to that place, even if it meant pushing away those close to us and killing those against us.

“Amaris this isn’t you!”

“Amaris you’ve changed!”

“The old Amaris would let someone help her!”

“I want the old Amaris back!”

“When is the old Amaris coming ba-?”

I swept a variety of papers and glass onto the floor, the piercing sound of shattering cutting my dear friend’s words short. She flinched backwards as I stepped towards her, the coldness in my eyes translating to a twisted sort of fear in hers.

“I will only say this once. The ‘old’ me is dead. She is gone. I am nothing but a shadow of her now, and if I hear you ask for the ‘old Amaris’ one more time, it will not only be the glass that is breaking.” The darkness wrapped around my words, snaking and worming it’s way into the trembling ear of my friend.

Whilst I would do anything to protect her, I could not stand the constant wailing for the ‘old’ me. For this me, my shadow, kept me alive and this friend could only ever imagine the strength it took.

I found myself remembering back to the fiery pit I had found myself in after having been manipulated, mutilated and abused at the hands of what I could only describe as the devil. Slowly suffocating every inch of my being, the darkness was ever closing in on me. And as the light was extinguished, I knew I would never make it out alive. The torturous place I was in would kill me.

And so when I died, when my soul could no longer take what I was enduring, my shadow took over. Even if I wanted to return back to the ‘old’ me, I wasn’t sure I could for my soul had been shattered into more pieces than any glass ever could.

I turned and left my friend with only a whisper of my name from her lips to protest. My only goal was to find the devil who had pained me so, and destroy him as he destroyed me.

I wanted to see pain and suffering, and the darkness I had grown so familiar with was going to take me there.