The Shadow That Guards
He left the university after ten at night. Backpack on his shoulders. The street was empty — the kind of silence that doesn’t bring peace, only a warning.
The alley was the shortest way home. And the most dangerous. Even knowing that, he went in.
When he realized it, it was already too late.
Three shapes detached themselves from the wall. Footsteps echoed, closing in. Low laughter. Hungry eyes.
His heart pounded in his throat.
“Game over, rich boy…” one of them said.
His body froze. There was nowhere to run. No strength in his legs. No voice in his chest.
That was when something strange happened.
The streetlight flickered. Its yellow glow hit the damp ground… and his shadow appeared on the wall.
But it wasn’t his shadow.
Where the outline of a thin young man should have been, something else took shape. A massive shadow. Broad. With a warrior’s shoulders.
In its hand, something like a raised whip. On its head, a wide-brimmed hat. The stance of someone who doesn’t ask permission — only arrives.
The alley went cold.
One of the men stared at the wall… and turned pale.
“What the hell is that…?”
Another stepped back, stammering:
“You seeing this too?”
The shadow moved before the young man did. The whip cracked through the air — or at least the sound did.
No one thought. No one argued.
They ran. They ran like people fleeing death.
The young man stood there, shaking. Air barely filled his lungs. His mind struggled to grasp what had just happened.
When silence returned to the alley, the shadow on the wall shrank.
Only his remained. Small. Frightened. Human.
That night, when he got home and locked the door, he remembered his grandmother’s advice, repeated so often it felt like a prayer:
“Walk the right path, my son… because those who walk right never walk alone.”
There are streets not protected by cameras. Nor by the police.
But by those who guard the paths of the living and do not tolerate cowardice in the dark.
Sometimes, the shadow that follows you is not yours.
It is protection.
