I do not know why were parted, or indeed the exact mechanics of how, but when the lightning struck, we were suddenly two. There was no pain, when the fork came groping down from the clouds it did not hurt me, it did not tear through my body, did not send heat coursing through my veins, did not cause my organs to combust. It rendered me momentarily dizzy, blurred the world for a few moments, during which the separation must have occurred. When my vision clarified, we were two. Certainly, he was me, we were identical, stood face to face as one gazes into a mirror, but he was mute, he could not be made to speak, act, do anything, it seemed, other than follow me. Our peculiar relationship was perpetual, I could do nothing to purge myself of my doppelganger, nor could I subdue it, or influence its behaviour. Indeed, after the lightning strike, we became two entirely separate entities, identical in appearance but with no other link, nothing binding us together as one.

Over time, my companion found both his words and mind, and I grew increasingly appalled by his conduct. He was, or at least I had expected him to be, my shadow, and initially this was the case. I would walk the streets, and he would follow in my wake, a strange inconvenience but nothing more, but over time he usurped a personality of his own. Once in possession of himself, he would do all that he could to humiliate, degrade or otherwise draw attention to his person. Always, I had done my upmost to pass through the world unnoticed, slip through the throng that was society without eyes finding me, without probing voices enquiring of me, but he was different. As a vampire eager to glut itself on blood, he would barbarously taunt passers-by, goad them into some type of reaction, often violent, only to cheer and jeer as they raged. Gradually, I came to recognise that he was basing his behaviour in some part off myself, or rather, he was striving to appear as the antithesis of me. While I would seek to hold myself, to constrain my feelings, my companion would do nothing of the sort. After conflict, one of those minor battles which occasionally break out over the course of a mediocre day, I would sit still, attempting to wrench my mind from the woe of unpleasant interactions. He, on the other hand, would shout and scream, leap about until a whole crowd would gather to watch him and I, not daring to move, would join them, become invisible amongst them, and stare at him in silent reproach. When I was happy, when some chance quirk lifted my mood, I would nonetheless supress my glee, but he would dance, sing, roar out in mirth, leaving me to join the ranks of society, quiet, wordless, staring in muted disgust. When I was noiselessly sad, he would charge into the street, weeping, howling like a baby, beating his fists upon the road.

“Disgusting. Pathetic,” I would mumble, as the inevitable crowd was drawn to watch.

It baffled me how they never seemed to understand, never seemed to see that we were identical. Perhaps, and I wonder if this is the only valid explanation, they were so drawn to him that they never saw me, were never offered the opportunity for comparison. Regardless of this saving grace, I could not tolerate his presence. He was obscene. He was everything I could not, would not be. Besides, it was a matter of time – time and nothing more, until some cunning eye noted that we were in fact the same person, inexplicably severed by the lightning strike. And I knew that I must kill him. He must be destroyed at all, at any, cost. He overpowered me, though, murdered me – and I now I have stolen his voice, to write, to rage, to do all that he dreaded in the grey of his half-life. 

The End