Walking down a cold, black street in the depths of midnight opens one’s soul to a period of reflection. The unfaltering darkness offers no distraction as one contemplates their life, the things they’ve done, and the things they should have. A full moon beams down on me, pitying myself and my meaningless existence. I was put here for a reason, but is it one I’d want to uncover?

I saw a pair of glistening red eyes studying me from a nearby shrub and stopped, quaking slightly in my Ugg knockoff boots. My mind, however, was all but frozen, leaping into overdrive to conclude my next course of action. Instinctively, I attempted to flee, but the eyes held me still in their mesmerizing gaze. I couldn’t comprehend why were these eyes so familiar, why their depths were so inhumanly cold but unmistakably, creepily caring. They wanted something, and somewhere in the cold brick that was my heart, I knew I would have to give it.

The monochrome eyes floated toward me until I could see the body they were attached to, if the figure I saw was technically a body, that is. The closet comparison I can offer is a black hole, as the figure seemed to absorb every particle of light within view. The eyes burned with the captured light, even brighter against the nothingness that surrounded it. I nearly felt my thoughts come to a stop because of the incomprehensible beauty before me.

The figure dimmed into existence where I could view it more clearly. It took me a second to see that it was my silhouette, not truly me, but strikingly identical. It, or, if this thing was in some way me, her body shone with confidence, but otherwise was a soul-sucking darkness. She had a mission.

A demonic shriek, like nothing I had ever heard or would probably every hear again, struck my nerves like lightning. Through the unintelligible screaming, I understood her message.

You have displeased Lady Destiny. Once hopeful that you could pull this world from its present state of despair, she has decided that you are no longer of use to the universe.

My soul was torn from my body, never to inhabit flesh and bone again. The messenger, an otherworldly form of myself, took my place, filling my skin with its dark nothingness. I saw my eyes blink red for a second, then melt to their original color. I rued myself inside for never making anything of my life that had once held so much promise. Now I had paid the price: becoming a lonely soul without a body to belong to.

For days, I watched as the demon played my role, exactly the same, but, in a small, unrecognizable way, painstakingly different. Sorrow took over my will, and I, after my time of mourning the loss of my earthly form, severed my ties to humanity.

As I faded away, I saw the curve of the earth. For a second, I felt the forces of the universe tearing at my bodiless soul. Then I was gone.