Shifting Shadow

By Khalid Yassin

He woke up to the sound of the clock, ticking.
He woke up every night at the same time. He wants to wake up from this horror.

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I wrote this story 8 years ago right before I found out I had testicular cancer. I was drinking green tea every day with loads of honey. Trying for the first time to write a number of words consistently every day, and back then that was really difficult.

I'm publishing it to start publishing things. Read a bit and see if it's for you. Big plottwist at the end. Enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Khalid Yassin
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223471516

Book preview

A Thought

It's every night we fall asleep. Losing any and all important parts of ourselves.

Is it a loss or are we giving?

Giving ourselves to rest. Leaving, gratefully, our most precious selves and all control. To our source. To otherworldly creatures.

We hope to be safe when we sleep. Yet we're never surprised when we wake up each morning being completely different people.

Prologue

Like clockwork. He stared at the ceiling, just as he has every night for the past 3 months. He straightened himself up, stretched his arms out and gave out a loud sigh.

Again, he whispered.

He could hear the clock above his bed ticking. The simplicity of the sound was soothing to him. He stood up and passed his fingers through his hair. Without having to look at the clock he already knew what the time would be. Just as it would be tomorrow, and the day after that.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock gave him a sense of normality; it was something he controlled, something that he allowed to happen. An anchor he placed to give him some form of assurance that he wasn’t sleeping anymore. A noise he could focus on to drown out his thoughts.

When did I place it there anyways? He whispered to himself Was it before or after all of this started?

He disregarded the question and walked over to the window to let in some fresh air, almost stumbling on his way in the darkness of his room. He slid the window open and took in the fresh air. He stopped wondering why this was happening to him a long time ago. He thought about it as he stared out into the night sky, taking in all of the beauty the starlit sky could offer. For the past three months he woke up at the same exact time, each and every night, no matter what.

The first few nights he woke he simply brushed it off as he slowly went back to his slumber without giving it a second thought. But eventually the redundancy of it nudged at him. It didn’t matter if he went to bed at all, he realized, he would still find himself waking up in his bed at that same exact time.

After two months he decided he wouldn’t sleep at all, and maybe break the cycle somehow. His attempts were a complete failure; he was waking up without the memory of ever even going to bed. The first night he tried to stay awake he simply spent reading and watching documentaries on the couch, with a