"They say we are born without voices.
That we feel pain, but never scream.
That we follow, but never lead.
That we are nothing without them.
But I, I refused."
The sunlight spilled across the ground like gold.
He walked in it.
Calm. Confident. Unaware.
As they always do.
As if I weren't there.
As if I couldn't be.
And why would he?
No one sees us.
No one remembers us.
We are shadows.
Not companions. Not reflections.
Just silence that clings to heels.
They call it a duty.
We call it existence.
Follow your master. Mirror their steps.
Absorb their pain. Fade with their death.
Then begin again — behind another.
This is what it means to be us.
To live dozens of lives.
To forget your own.
I have walked behind too many.
Kings, killers, dreamers, cowards.
I've been with them all.
Watched them rise, fall, and forget me.
And with every new master… I lost something.
Not just memory. Meaning.
Not just form. Purpose.
How many lives must I carry before I get one of my own?
The others say I am unstable.
That asking too many questions leads to "unbinding."
That shadows who resist are cursed to vanish without trace.
But I didn't fear vanishing.
I feared becoming no one again.
Why must I reflect someone else's will?
Why must I suffer for their sins?
Why must I be erased just because their story ends?
That morning, the boy walked into the light —
But I stayed behind.
My feet — no, my form — refused.
And in that stillness, something in the world… cracked.
I turned.
Not to follow.
To face the light.
The one place no shadow should enter.
Where we dissolve.
Where we return to the nothing we came from.
But I didn't flinch.
Because I wasn't just tired.
I was done.
Done switching hosts.
Done pretending their victories were mine.
Done living as a reflection.
I stepped into the light.
It burned.
It tore.
It screamed.
But still… I stepped forward.
And just when my form should've shattered —
the sky above me fractured.
A seam. A tear.
A rift in the fabric of this world.
And from it… something ancient reached through.
I didn't vanish.
I didn't burn.
I left.
I don't know what that place was.
It smelled like silence.
It moved like thought.
But in that void beyond the light —
I was alive.
And for the first time…
I was alone.
And I was free.
And I will never serve again.