I didn't sleep after that.
Not because I was scared to close my eyes, but because I was afraid I might open them and forget everything again. The room felt different now, heavier somehow, like the air itself was watching me breathe.
The shadow stayed on the floor.
It didn't move much. It just existed there, slightly darker than the darkness around it. Every few seconds it shifted, not like a person moving, but like smoke trying to remember a shape.
I kept my distance.
"So… you're real?" I finally asked.
A pause followed. Long enough to make me think it wouldn't answer.
"Yes," the voice said inside my head. "More real than you are right now."
I didn't like that answer.
"What does that mean?"
"You are being forgotten," it said calmly. "Reality is correcting itself."
Correcting itself.
The words sounded wrong.
"I didn't do anything," I said. My voice came out sharper than I expected. "People don't just disappear."
"They do," it replied. "You simply never noticed before."
The room went quiet again. Outside, a dog barked somewhere far away. Normal sounds. Normal world. Except I wasn't part of it anymore.
I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my face.
"Why can I see you?"
"Because you are close to becoming like me."
That sentence made my stomach twist.
"Like you… meaning what?"
The shadow stretched slightly, touching the wall before pulling back.
"I am what remains when a person is erased but refuses to end."
I stared at it, trying to process that.
"So you're… dead?"
"No."
"Alive?"
"No."
It almost sounded amused.
"I am remembered by nothing, yet I continue."
That somehow felt worse than death.
I swallowed. "And you said I want to exist again."
"Yes."
"And you need a name."
The shadow became still.
Names mattered. I didn't know why, but I felt it strongly. Like saying the wrong one could change something important.
"Did you have one before?" I asked.
Silence.
Longer this time.
"I do not remember."
For some reason, that hurt to hear.
A being that existed without a name. Without anyone remembering it. Completely alone.
I looked down at my hands. Even they felt unfamiliar now, like borrowed objects.
"If I disappear completely…" I asked quietly, "what happens?"
"You will become silence."
Cold spread through my chest.
"No thoughts. No identity. No pain. No self."
It said it gently, almost kindly.
I stood up suddenly and began pacing.
"There has to be a way to stop this."
"There is."
I froze.
"Tell me."
The shadow slowly rose from the floor, forming something closer to a human outline, though still imperfect and shifting.
"Be remembered," it said.
I almost laughed.
"That's impossible. Everyone already forgot me."
"Yes," it agreed. "Therefore you must create a memory that reality cannot erase."
I blinked. "How do you even do that?"
The shadow turned toward the window.
"Impact," it said. "Meaning. Connection. Something strong enough to anchor your existence."
That sounded less like magic and more like life advice, which somehow made it scarier.
"So I just… live normally?"
"No," it said.
The air grew colder again.
"Something is already coming for you."
My heartbeat quickened. "Coming?"
"When a person begins to vanish, the world sends collectors."
The word sent chills through me.
"Collectors of what?"
The shadow answered quietly.
"Of what little remains of you."
At that exact moment, the light in my room flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the bulb burst with a sharp crack, plunging everything into darkness.
Except for the shadow.
It grew darker.
Larger.
And behind my door, I heard footsteps stop.
Someone was standing outside my room.
Slow breathing.
Not human.
The handle began to turn.
I couldn't move.
The shadow spoke one last time, calm but urgent.
"Do not let it see your fear."
The door opened.
And something that should not have known my name whispered from the darkness,
"Aarush."
My blood froze.
Because until that moment, I hadn't told anyone my name.
Not even the shadow.
And suddenly I understood.
Something in this world still remembered me.
And it was not here to help.