[Pokémon] My Shadow

My Shadow​

A/N: This short piece was inspired by this picture prompt.

Do you ever feel that sometimes you were being watched? Have you ever felt that sensation of being shadowed, like eyes fixed on your back no matter where you go, you can never shake off the invisible stalker? I have. All my life. It took me years until I realized the truth behind everything. My shadow is no ordinary shadow. Sure, it looks like me, as everyone's shadow is supposed to. And it grows in shape and size, depending on where the light is cast, just like any other shadow. But my shadow follows me wherever I go. And I don't mean follow in the literal sense. Even when there is no light for a shadow to be cast, I can feel its presence. It's always there. With me. And its presence is more pronounced in the night.

I first saw it when I was a wee little Cleffa, but I had no idea at that time what I really saw, my innocent young mind thinking that whatever I had glimpsed under the sliver of moonlight was but a trick of the eye, a figment of my imagination. But as the years went by, it made itself more obvious. A chuckle in the dark. A derisive snort from the shadows. Whispers in my ear, fleeting like a cold draft of air. Every time I cast my Cosmic Power, I hear my shadow calling out to them, conferring power through information. What I need to do, what I should do, to survive, to beat the enemy, to escape, as though I was listening to an invisible metronome that determine every step and twirl of my moonlit dance.

Kill them. Kill or be killed. I was fighting against a pokemon, owned by a human, and for the first time in a long while, I was not in good shape. I had the greatest misfortune of running into a user of poison-typed pokemon. Which was itself a stunning revelation to me for I remembered the times where poison types were so unfavorable in the eyes of the public and therefore, it was a rare sight to see one on a trainer's party. And for some reason, the enemy vileplume's attacks were excruciating to receive.

Kill. Kill them. Or end up killed. The voice grew persistent and insistent, as I kept on drawing the celestial energies to protect myself. I could hear the bloodlust dripping from its nonexistent tongue.

Corrosive sludge was hurled at me from the pokemon's giant flower, relentless like a cannon barrage and I was forced into a position where I could only focus on dodging the incoming projectiles, with no room to go on the offensive. As my head started swimming, a consequence of the poison that had infiltrated my immune system, and vertigo slowed my attempts at evasion, the voice ceased to be urgent. My body froze, just as the vileplume launched another Sludge Bomb, and I watched my shadow manifest before me, its body absorbing the attack. It continued to tank the hits for me, evilly grinning as the vileplume's attacks did nothing at all and was simply shrugged off. Then, it was gone. And in a blink, it stood right behind the vileplume. Kill or be killed. I heard its susurrant voice echoing in the dark recesses of my mind, tinged with glee. There was a moment of darkness as if night had fallen over the area, and once the light returned, the vileplume stood no more; my dark doppelgänger hovering over it, lips curled in sadistic satisfaction. It cackled as the human grabbed their pokemon and ran off, pants wet, like a rattata.

My shadow turned back to look at me. It winked, before fading away, like the afterimage of an apparition, reverting back to a normal shadow. My shadow. The void of light that would suck in anything that threatened me. My shadow. My unknown guardian. Forever by my side, even death cannot do us part.​