---

Thin bands of vantablack

careening toward the pale walls

converging to form a figure-

one who moves crassly with a hideous gait

It feeds off of man's fears of himself.

With willful ignorance as its essence

Growing tenfold in hiding

smothering the fires within the mantelpiece

Giving way to unfathomable darkness

The brightest light yet still casts the blackest of shadows

An outstretched hand descends obscuring her porcelain visage

suddenly it clenches her face.

Her body falls limp, the ghastly arm hoists her upward

Suspending her above as the ceiling came crashing down.

Before an endless corridor

adorned by torches

futile in their efforts

of guiding the way

A jagged maw

presents itself.

While exuding

a foul miasma,

it begins speaking

in a chorus of whispers

"You wear a mask of perfection

which renders you blind within and without."

The mask removed

only to reveal a beam of piercing light

saturating the room and striking

the very core of the shadow being

Lifting the facade

exposing the shadow-

a mere projection of nothingness

along a blank pale canvas

She awakens in tears

and the color returns to the world.

Vibrant and lush as it envelops her being

The beauty of everything personified in her

yet eternally bound to the shadow self.