The Shadow That Followed My Dreams

The Shadow That Followed My Dreams

Every night, it waited for me.

Not in the corners of my room.

Not behind doors.

Not beneath the bed like childhood fears.

It waited inside my dreams.

The first time I saw the shadow, I was eight years old.

In the dream, I stood alone in an endless field of silver grass. The sky was colorless, like a photograph that had forgotten how to breathe. I could hear my own heartbeat echoing unnaturally loud. And when I turned around, it was there.

A tall, shapeless figure.

No face.

No eyes.

Just darkness shaped like a person.

It didn’t move.

It simply stood at a distance, watching.

I tried to run, but my legs felt heavy. The grass tangled around my ankles. The shadow did not chase me.

It didn’t need to.

Because no matter which direction I ran, when I turned again—

It was there.

I woke up screaming.

My mother rushed into my room, wrapping her arms around me, whispering comfort into my tangled hair.

“It was just a nightmare,” she said.

But it wasn’t.

Nightmares fade.

This one stayed.

Years passed, but the shadow grew with me.

At thirteen, it appeared again.

This time I was in my school hallway. Lockers stretched endlessly, their metal doors slamming shut on their own. The fluorescent lights flickered violently. My classmates stood frozen like mannequins, faces blank.

And at the far end of the corridor—

The shadow.

Taller now.

Closer.

When I tried to speak, no sound came out.

When I tried to move, the floor swallowed my steps.

And again, it didn’t chase.

It simply followed.

Always at a distance.

Always just behind.

I began to dread sleep.

I avoided closing my eyes for too long. I told no one—not my friends, not my teachers. Who would believe that something without a face could feel so personal?

By seventeen, the dreams had changed.

I stood on a stage under blinding lights, an audience lost in darkness beyond the glare. Applause echoed around me, yet I felt no pride.

Only fear.

Because I knew it was there.

When I looked behind the curtain—

The shadow stood inches away.

This time, I could feel it breathing.

Or maybe that was my own breath trembling in my chest.

It reached toward me—not with hands, but with presence.

And for the first time, I felt something different.

Not terror.

Recognition.

I woke up shaking.

That morning, I looked at myself in the mirror longer than usual.

There were dark circles under my eyes. My shoulders were tense. My jaw clenched as if I had been fighting something in my sleep.

And maybe I had.

College brought new distractions, new ambitions, new pressures. I buried myself in studies, achievements, expectations. I told myself the dreams were just stress.

Until one night, after failing an important interview, the shadow returned stronger than ever.

I stood in a city made of glass. Skyscrapers reflected distorted versions of myself in every direction—confident, successful, smiling.

But the real me stood barefoot on cracked pavement.

Behind me, the shadow towered.

It stepped closer.

Closer than ever before.

I could feel its coldness against my spine.

And suddenly, it whispered.

Not with sound—but with thought.

You’re not enough.

The words struck harder than any scream.

You will fail.

You will disappoint them.

You will never escape me.

I fell to my knees.

Because I realized something horrifying.

The voice sounded like mine.

I woke up gasping, my heart pounding violently.

For the first time, I didn’t try to forget the dream.

I sat in the darkness and let the memory linger.

The shadow had never harmed me.

It had never attacked.

It had only followed.

And it had only spoken when I already believed its words.

The next night, when sleep pulled me under again, I found myself back in the silver field from childhood.

The grass shimmered softly.

The sky waited.

And there it was.

The shadow.

But this time, I didn’t run.

My legs trembled, but I stood still.

The figure remained at its usual distance.

Watching.

Waiting.

My heart pounded in my ears, yet I forced myself to speak.

“What are you?”

The wind carried my voice across the field.

The shadow did not answer.

It stepped closer.

Fear crawled up my spine, but I didn’t move.

“You’ve followed me my whole life,” I said. “Why?”

The air thickened.

And then, something changed.

The shadow began to shift.

Not disappearing.

Not attacking.

Just… thinning.

As if light were slowly pushing through it.

Memories flashed around me like fragments of broken mirrors:

My father telling me to be strong.

Teachers praising others while overlooking me.

Friends achieving milestones before I did.

Every comparison.

Every silent doubt.

Every moment I swallowed insecurity instead of confronting it.

The shadow wasn’t a monster.

It was every fear I had refused to face.

It was every insecurity I buried.

It was the voice I never challenged.

It followed my dreams because I carried it there.

Tears blurred my vision.

“I’m tired,” I whispered.

The shadow stood directly before me now.

For the first time, I saw its shape clearly.

It looked exactly like me.

Not monstrous.

Not distorted.

Just me—made of darkness.

“I know you’re part of me,” I said softly. “But you don’t get to control where I go.”

The field brightened slightly.

The silver grass turned golden.

The shadow flickered.

It didn’t vanish.

It didn’t apologize.

It simply stepped beside me instead of behind.

And somehow, that felt different.

When I woke the next morning, something inside me felt lighter.

The dreams didn’t stop entirely.

But they changed.

Now, when I stood on stages or in cities of glass, the shadow was there—quieter, smaller.

It no longer whispered.

Because I had learned to answer first.

Doubt still came.

Fear still visited.

But it no longer followed.

It walked beside me.

And I realized something powerful:

Shadows only grow large when we turn our backs to them.

When we face them, they shrink to their true size.

I still dream.

I still see that figure sometimes in silver fields and empty corridors.

But now, I don’t run.

I don’t wake in terror.

I simply look at it and say,

“You can come with me. But you don’t lead.”

Because the shadow that followed my dreams was never an enemy.

It was a reminder—

That courage isn’t the absence of fear.

It’s the decision to walk forward even when your darkness walks with you.