SpaceTurtle

  Simple as that. Always present in every being. A mere reflection of light, cast from a body onto any given surface.

  But… what if one day that shadow — which was nothing more than a phenomenon — gained life and consciousness? Something beneath even the simplest living being, lower than an irrational animal, less than a stone or a flicker of artificial intelligence. Something that should never be.

  And yet… it happened.

  The birth of a baby comes with cries and screams, tearing through the air to announce its presence to the world.His birth was silence. Peaceful. The world noticed no difference between the before and the after.Maybe, just maybe, the whisper of the wind grew a little more restless, as if reality itself had exhaled differently for a moment.

  That which was nothing — and yet, somehow, was — began to acquire something. Slowly, almost imperceptibly: senses. Not just one, but several.It was a shadow, of that there was no doubt. Although it didn’t comprehend the concept, it knew it belonged to the same category as those dark forms cast on floors, on walls, on bodies.But there was a difference. While all the other shadows remained still, tethered to their hosts, he moved.

  At first, clumsy. Like the involuntary twitch of a muscle newly awakened. He slid across surfaces like a living stain, aimless — only curiosity.But only when unseen. When the light was diffused, when the shadow’s perspective drifted away from its host. And still, it always returned. Instinctively, as though something unseen called him back to his origin.

  He didn’t know what a “name” was, but he knew he was unique.He didn’t know what “I” meant, but he began to sense himself as something separate.He watched. He learned. He mimicked.

  Sound was the first step. Soft waves, sometimes intense, sometimes subtle, vibrating around him. He didn’t understand them — but he liked them.There was something within them… rhythm, pattern, intent. And in time, he learned.He learned to hear. He learned to understand.He learned nguage.

  The name of the one who cast him, who unknowingly gave him form, was Lucas — one of the beings above, with a stretched body, covered in shifting colors and expressions that changed with light and sound. The only one who, unknowingly, gave him shadow — instead of light.

  Lucas didn’t know.No one knew.But his shadow… lived.