Dream of the First Shadow
She dreamed of a night that had no beginning.
The air was still and endless, a mirror turned inward. Shadows moved not as the absence of light, but as living thoughts murmuring, coiling, remembering. When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing at the edge of a forest where every tree was her own reflection. Their branches reached toward her with quiet curiosity, as if asking whether she remembered who she was before she began to dream.
She did not.
The ground shimmered faintly under her bare feet, each step creating ripples that spread across the darkness like whispers on water. The stars above flickered, rearranging themselves into patterns that seemed to spell out forgotten words. Somewhere, far off but also very near, she heard a heartbeat steady, deliberate, patient. She did not know if it was hers.
In the clearing ahead stood a small house, dimly lit from within by a color that did not exist in waking life. It was both red and blue, both warm and cold, a contradiction that hummed softly. She approached, and the door opened of its own accord, revealing a single candle burning inside a glass jar. The flame bent toward her, as though recognizing its maker.
On the table lay a shadow not cast, but placed shaped like a person sleeping. She leaned closer. The shadow stirred, its edges trembling like breath on frost. Then, with a sound like pages turning, it spoke: “You left me behind once. Do you remember?”
The voice was hers.
Memory unspooled in fragments: a childhood room, the sound of rain against paper walls, a promise whispered to no one. She recalled that once, before she learned to dream of light, she had been the keeper of her own darkness the one who understood the language of absence, who listened to the silence between heartbeats. But as she grew older, she began to fear the quiet and sought brightness instead. And so the first shadow her shadow was left behind, forgotten but not gone.
“You are what was lost,” she said softly.
“I am what keeps you whole,” the shadow replied.
The candle flickered violently, and for a moment, the walls of the house dissolved into the same endless dark that surrounded everything. Stars burst and died like thoughts too brief to name. She reached out, and her hand passed through the shadow’s chest, where she felt warmth instead of cold. It was her own pulse returning.
The forest began to fade. The reflections in the trees grew dim. She realized that she was not supposed to conquer the dark, nor escape it but to remember it as part of her. Every dream, every sorrow, every memory unspoken was stitched together by threads of shadow, forming the tapestry of her being.
When she awoke, dawn had not yet arrived.
Her room was filled with that same stillness the moment before morning when everything holds its breath. She looked to the wall, expecting to see her shadow lying quietly where it always had. But it was gone.
Instead, she felt it within her chest, steady and calm, moving with her heartbeat.
And in that rhythm, she understood:
Light was never the opposite of darkness.
It was its echo its dream of being seen.