?

You don't know it, but I have been watching you for some time. A few weeks, I would wager. Even now, as you sleep in a bed three hundred miles from your apartment, I am watching.

Why, you might ask? I giggle as I remember our conversations. The answer I gave was not a lie. There are more shadows than I have numbers to count, yet companionship among us is rare. Each shadow is born of an accursed death, stripping us of our humanity. We are cursed to forever wander in search of a purpose. Too often, we revert to nothing more than a semi-intelligent animal, doomed to roam in ravenous hunger until we fade into oblivion.

Yet all species have their outliers, and we are no exception. Those with their humanity intact exist, but in a realm of darkness and ferocity, cretaining the trait can be difficult. So we reach out and become travelers in the world who rejected us, hoping to find just a little recognition.

And what I found... was you. A soul, screaming for companionship as you toil away at life, begging to receive what I have begged to offer. So I have watched. I've heard your woes of exhaustion and cries begging for a solution. I have given you my comfort. And were you to forgive the savagery of my species, I will do so again in the future.

After all, a meal is tastier if prepared in comfort.