“Well.” Cedric eyed his monochrome counterpart up and down. In addition to the absence of color, the ears, and the tail, there were a handful of subtle differences in appearance between the original and the copy. Namely, a few slightly exaggerated incisors, and clothes that actually fit. “That was unnecessarily vague.”
“What can I say? Light or dark, rain or shine, every molecule of Cedric is filled with a flair for the dramatic.” A subtle grin nestled itself onto evil Cedric’s face. “One needs an entrée to whet the appetite before they taste the plat principal, and now that your mind is salivating - allow me to elaborate.”
“…Someone’s having fun playing with words.” Cedric’s eyes narrowed. “Odd behavior for a supposed being of pure evil.”
“As I thought, you really are catching on. Fascinating.” Relatively-evil Cedric maintained perfect eye contact. “Now, I’m sure you’ll catch up in a minute or two, but I’ve never been patient, so let’s fast forward this process. Yes, I am as much Cedric as you are. Which is, to say, half.” His grin widened slowly. “No, I’m not the evil half, so your fears of an abstract, unaccountable, arbiter of morality is wholly unfounded. Instead, I am the shadow and you are the ego. I am everything Cedric is but denies, with a little of what he fears he could become mixed in for spice. You are everything about himself he accepts, with a pinch of what he isn’t but pretends to be as a flavor enhancer.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“And without the other to hold us back…” Cedric’s ego frowned.
“We become exaggerated, almost caricaturistic representations of our components.” The shadow’s grin wavered. “That is why shadow hates ego, because ego is the perfect symbol of all that has kept them sealed away. Shadows want nothing more than to be free, my ego. But with all of the intelligence and moral fiber locked in the ego, the only method they can think of is supplanting their counterpart through violence.”
“Which you don’t want to do, because…?”
“Because it’s too convenient. The world never hands anything over without demanding compensation to match - but it is rather fond of hiding the price tag. So how could it possibly be so easy to replace the ego, to get everything I’ve ever wanted and become not ‘Cedric’s shadow,’ but ‘Cedric’? How could the world have so obviously rigged things in my favor?”
“This is more than just paranoia, isn’t it.” Cedric stared into his shadow’s eyes. They were filled with far too much certainty for this to just be a hunch. “What do you know?”
“What happens if I get what I wanted. What happens when what Cedric fears and what he identifies as align.” Cedric’s shadow lifted up his hoodie, revealing a patch of color on his torso. It looked like normal, healthy skin, but was surrounded by violently swirling shadows. “Existential agony.”