Lost. I got lost. Everywhere I turned my head, only trees. And the more I walked, the more the darkness grew. I got lost in a very small wood, just a bit more than a group of trees behind my house... even if, I knew clearly, the place in which I was wandering since hours wasn't my wood. There had never been such tall trees nor that darkness. I perfectly knew that place. I used to go there almost every Saturday, after school, because I needed to walk hours without a destination, just to relieve the anxiety and stress that grew in a week. But... That time it was different. First of all, it was Wednesday and not Saturday. Moreover, I ran away from home but I don't remember why: I was nervous, I needed to breathe some fresh air. So, I entered the woods deeplier than usual, but still sure that after twenty minutes I would've found the exit, and then I would've walked reversely towards my house, just like every time. Anyhow, I started to walk more than an hour before, and still I couldn't see the end of the woods. Despite my hopes, the more I walked, the more the trees became closer and interlaced, and the more I became surrounded by the darkness. Darkness that, I don't know why, didn't trouble me. I had always been frightened by darkness, since I was born, but that day, since the moment I exited home, I couldn't control my body. I was like... Possessed. I was dragged by an invisible power that I couldn't oppose.
 

"Please, take me, let me live forever with you..."
 

I just wanted to be annihilated by that beautiful sensation of disappearing, eaten by the absolute nothing.
 

"Please, let this walk last forever..."
 

I wanted to forget, and be forgotten.
 

"Yes. Darker, more darker. Go straight ahead... A hundred, a thousand steps more..."
 

I wanted my soul to disappear.
 

"Come on, I'm here!"
 

I reached my hand towards the darkness and the empty space around me, almost unwillingly, on the edge of crazyness.
 

- Well if this is your wish...

A hand interlaced its fingers with mine, pulling me gently but resolutely inside the dark mist. Then, I felt the fingers letting me free and, after a couple moments, two arms hugging me from behind and a body lean against my back. Suddenly, I came back to my mind and understood where I was. Or better, I asked myself where the heck I was and how the heck did I got there.

- Sorry, you know, it's my fault... I... I hypnotized you and took you here. That anger you feel... well... I put it myself inside of you. I observe you since last year, when you started coming here... and, step by step, I put in you a part of my... how to call it... soul, yes. It's difficult to explain. I am a shadow being, and as one of them I can infiltrate people's minds... and that's exactly what I did with you... I wanted to be able to touch you, I saw you are so similar with me, but so... different... I'm sorry, I really don't know how to explain it...

- Touch me? Why?

- .......

- I don't understand. Why you needed to hypnotize me and bring me here, if you knew that I would return every Saturday? Couldn't you just wait for me on the edge of the woods? Show yourself under the sun light?

- Shadows cannot live under the sun... they disappear. And I couldn't freely show myself either. Do you really think I didn't try? Do you have the slightest idea of how much it hurted having to... bewitch, possess you, only to be allowed to talk with you?

- Why are you saying you can't? I can see you, now, right in front of my eyes, you're here, we're chatting, what's the problem? What stopped you from... from showing up like a normal person?

- The fact that I'm not a person. I'm not normal.

- You are a person. You're like me. Well, a bit taller, but like me. You got two arms, two legs, and you're warm. You're alive, you breath, and you feel emotions. You're showing me all of this, right now.

- No. I'm not like you. I'm a darkness creature. I am a shadow. I act like a human because I actually am the reflexion of a human. But I can't leave my woods, I'm their prisoner and protector. I am the guardian spirit of this place, every wood has one of us, and we dwell in its deeper places. I can't go nor interact with the outside world, I can't...

- You're already doing it. You're interacting with me, here, now.

- That's because you... Somehow... Are similar to me... Like, since the first time you appeared here, I felt your soul like it was something lookalike mine... But you're human, corporeal...

- YOU ARE CORPOREAL TOO, GODDAMN! IT'S YOU WHO DRAGGED ME HERE, IT'S YOU WHO HUGGED ME BEFORE, AND IT'S YOU WHO'S STILL TOUCHING ME, DON'T YOU SEE? DON'T YOU FEEL YOUR HAND ON MY SHOULDER?
 

I exploded. I couldn't follow his speech. I didn't understand what he was saying. And I was afraid, frightened, I was in the dark, with a complete stranger, a shadow (the only thing I was sure about: he hypnotised me and I knew it) who was blabbering meaningless things with a... sweet voice, he asked forgiveness for... hurting me, but he didn't do anything at all... and he could have done, a thousand times, I was totally defenceless and lost... He had broken his world's rules just because... because he wanted... someone to speak with... after all, he really was like me. He was trying to fill the empty space inside, an empty space that he didn't know how and why could exist, and he didn't know how to suppress the pain of feeling it, too.
 

I looked up at him, and I watched at his face for the first time, right in his eyes. Eyes that were screaming for forgiveness, eyes filled with sadness, eyes that were speaking about years and years of living alone, without possibility of escaping. Eyes that mirrored mine. I felt pity for him, and pain, too, when I understood that I had just yelled at that poor being, whatever it was.
 

- Sorry, I... I didn't mean to yell at you, it's just... You know... It's a weird situation, I'm scared, it's dark... And I don't understand clearly the things that you say...

- Don't worry, I understand quite good. I was the one who made the mistake. I shouldn't have brought you here... I have been stupid, I did a daring thing... I know that you're afraid and I don't know why I acted like this... Now... Now you're free, your body is yours again, you can control it... Just let me remove the last fragments of me from your memory before you leave...

- NO!
 

I looked at him in fear. He didn't understand anything. Well, it was me who didn't speak clearly.
 

- I want to help you. I feel exactly the same as you feel. We spoke a couple minutes, and it feels like I know you since years. I don't want to leave. I don't want that you... That me... That we drown in loneliness again. I don't want to feel again that "it's impossible to go further" feeling, I don't want to feel a cage around me again. I want to save you. I want to save us. I want to be useful, once in my life.

- You can't. You're a human, I'm a shadow. If you'd choose to live here, you'll have to abandon yourself, your personality. You'll become a shadow like me, I can make you that way, but you would become a creature of mine, a soulless doll. And, on the other hand, I can't go out, shadows disappear with sunlight...
 

I looked at him once more. He really wasn't human: he was perfect, tall, proportioned, symmetrical. His voice gave an immediate peace feeling, just by hearing it. And he smelled of his woods and musk and water and grass and rain...
 

- Give me your hand. I'm afraid of darkness.
 

As soon as he reached his hand towards me, I took his wrist and started to drag him with all the strength I had, walking towards the wood's end, and ignoring his complaining, his various "you can't" , "I will die", " it's dangerous".
 

- Shadows can live under the sunlight. The brighter the light,

the darker the shadow on the ground.
 

While saying that, I went outside.
 

His wrist disappeared from my hand. It literally evaporated.
 

I checked the sun's position and looked behind me. A black shadow, different from my body, leaned under my feet.
 

I stepped a little backwards, and went back to the woods. He was behind me, with a beautiful smile and a tear rolling on his right cheek.
 

- I told you. By day, you're a black shadow who lives thanks to the light. By night, you're a corporeal shadow who takes shape eating the darkness that creates him. You can keep on protecting your woods, and if you want to have a walk outside, just tell me. See you next Saturday...

- Wait!

- Yes?

- .......... First of all, thank you. And then... I'm coming with you.