"Shadows never lie. But humans always do."
The evening sun licked the school walls with a blood orange color. Harith Hadami leaned against the edge of the stairs of Block D, his earphones half stuck in his ears, the other half hanging, the world seemed to not know how to be quiet that day.
The lower-class children were noisy, the football was bouncing, and the fan in the corridor was squeaking like an old voice that hadn't slept for a long time.
But among all that… there was one thing that wasn't right.
The shadow.
Harith had noticed since last week that every time he passed in front of the school mirror, his shadow was a second late.
At first he thought his eyes were wrong. But today, in front of the stairs, he saw clearly, the shadow of another student sitting at the end of the corridor not moving with his master.
"Eh…"
Harith took out his phone, turned on the camera, and recorded quietly.
The student was bowed down, playing with a pencil. But the shadow under the table turned towards the camera and smiled.
Harith's blood froze.
He stopped recording, closed the screen, but the uneasy feeling in his chest didn't go away. When he looked back ahead... the student was gone.
Only the shadow was still there, lying on the floor without a master.
---
That evening, Harith returned late. He passed the path behind the school, a place that many people avoided because the large ketapang tree there always rustled strangely.
"...Are you coming back alone, Harith?" someone's voice asked.
Harith looked at Aina, his classmate, who was waiting by the fence. Her hair was tied loosely, her face half submerged in the orange light of the dusk.
"Haah. Teacher told me to sweep the lab room," Harith replied, smiling slightly. "Who are you waiting for?"
Aina laughed softly. "Wait for my shadow. It seemed like he had just disappeared."
Harith fell silent.
He tried to think Aina was joking. But when he looked down, there was only one shadow...his own.
---
That night, Harith couldn't sleep. His phone was lying on the table, the screen still showing the video from school. He watched it over and over again, making his heart beat faster.
But this time, there was something extra.
In the recording, after the student's shadow smiled at the camera, something appeared behind Harith, it was his own shadow, but his eyes were wide open and his lips moved slowly:
"Don't show it to anyone."
Harith dropped the phone, cold sweat dripping. He looked at the floor and for the first time, his shadow was staring back at him.
---
The next day, the school was in an uproar.
The student Harith had recorded yesterday was found dead hanging from the classroom fan.
In the sunlight, the classroom floor was empty. There was no shadow under his body.
The teacher, the students, everyone panicked. But Harith couldn't speak.
His shadow on the floor began to smile.
---
That evening, Harith sat by the school lake. The evening breeze was calm, but in his head, another voice echoed:
"I can protect you."
He looked at the surface of the water, his shadow appeared moving even though he was still.
"Who are you?" whispered Harith.
The shadow smiled the same smile from yesterday's video.
"I am nobody. I am only half of you… the one you threw away when you were a child."
The lake water rippled slowly.
And in that reflection, Harith saw something impossible, his shadow reaching out from the water.
He backed away, but the shadow continued to come out little by little, pitch black, like a living liquid.
When the hand almost touched his shoe, a voice shouted from afar.
"Harith! Don't touch it!"
Harith turned to Tok Halim, the blind school guard, standing at the end of the path with his cane.
His face was pale.
"If you let him out, there will be no light to save you anymore!"
Harith looked back at the lake but his shadow had disappeared.
But under the water, something was moving, slowly… waiting.
---
And that night, for the first time, Harith dreamed that he was awake, but his shadow was still standing by the bed.