Izumi snapped back into himself with a sharp gasp.
The void had not changed. The darkness still stretched without end. And behind him
The crawling continued.
Slow. Patient. Relentless.
The sound scraped against his spine like a memory that refused to fade. The creature was still there. Still following. Still unhurried, as if it understood something he did not—that running was never meant to last forever.
Izumi forced his legs to move.
But something was different.
The ground no longer fought him.
Where before the world had clutched at his feet, dragging him down with tightening veins of mist, now it yielded. The surface bent beneath his steps, allowing him forward as if granting permission. The realization struck him hard enough to steal his breath.
It wasn't the world that slowed me.
He stumbled mid-run, barely catching himself.
It was him.
The doppelgänger. The shadow that wasn't real. The thing that had appeared only long enough to speak and long enough to hold him still while the creature closed the distance.
Izumi clenched his jaw and pushed on as the scraping behind him grew louder.
Become the shadow.
The words gnawed at him, looping endlessly.
"How?" he whispered between ragged breaths. "How am I supposed to do that?"
His thoughts spiraled, colliding and unraveling all at once. Hide his light? Bury his fear? Stop running? None of it felt right. Every idea slipped through his grasp like mist through fingers. The more he chased the meaning, the further it drifted away.
He ran and thought. Thought and ran.
The void offered no answers.
Then—
A memory surfaced.
Not gently. Not willingly.
It tore through him.
Izumi sat on the edge of a rooftop, legs dangling over the city's glow, a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey hanging loosely from one hand while the other gripped the cold railing like it was the only thing anchoring him to the world. Below, the streets pulsed with life laughter spilling from bars, strangers brushing past one another, music bleeding into the night but up here, the wind carried only silence. He took another slow sip. The burn in his throat was familiar, grounding, the last sensation that still felt real.
Inside the apartment, the television murmured to no one, some late-night show filling the room with hollow laughter. His sister had left hours ago, her words still lingering like smoke You're always like this, Izumi. Drinking. Pushing everyone away. He hadn't argued. He never did. He just stood there, glass in hand, watching her walk out, the door clicking shut like a verdict.
He used to believe he could change. Used to promise his mother he'd stop, swear to his sister he'd get help. But every time he tried, the emptiness came rushing back quiet, crushing, bottomless. So he drank. Not to forget. Not to celebrate. Just to feel something anything other than the dull ache of being unseen.
At work, he smiled. He joked with coworkers, nodded through meetings, laughed at the right moments. He became what was expected, nothing more, nothing less. But when the office lights dimmed, when the last goodbyes faded into the elevator's hum, he was alone again. People passed him on the street, brushed past him on crowded trains, sat beside him in quiet cafés close enough to touch, yet never close enough to see. And Izumi learned, slowly and painfully, that vanishing did not always require darkness. Sometimes, it only required being ignored.