Shid wakes up from his bed, feeling a pain in his head. He looks at the clock hanging on the wall and sees that he is very late, but he leans back again.
"I don't want to go today, I don't feel well."
As he was staring at the ceiling, his mother enters the room.
"I think you're late for school, boy."
Shid tells her that he doesn't feel well today and asks her why she didn't return yesterday. She replies that she had a lot of work and finished it, so today she will come back early. Shid feels a bit happy about that.
"That's good, I wish you a nice day."
His mother leaves the room, but he finds it strange, as it is not like her to let him skip school. But his thoughts are interrupted by a vague flash of a confusing event and a voice echoing in his head
"What does Shadow Knight mean?"
At that moment, he realizes that he doesn't remember what happened yesterday, but he doesn't think about it for long and falls asleep again.
But he finds himself in a place with a dark red sky without clouds and four bright white spheres, and he realizes that he is in his city, but its color is black with white outlines on everything.
"Is this a dream? But it feels real."
He turns and finds something in front of his face that startles him, causing him to fall to the ground—a shadow with eight spikes.
The shadow laughs at him.
"I'm not that ugly."
The shadow extends its hand to help Shid. He hesitates at first, but then takes his hand and stands up. Shid asks the shadow what this place is. The shadow answers that it is the real world, but from the perspective of free shadows. Shid then asks what free shadows are.
The shadow replies that they are shadows that do not have a person, or whose place is not taken by another shadow, and gives him an example of Shid's real shadow, which has become free.
Shid feels a chill.
"But I'm sure I was seeing my shadow."
But the shadow responds that it has become his new shadow, and his original shadow is now stuck here, waiting for any chance to escape and find a new person to become their shadow in the real world.
In the middle of the shadow's explanation, Shid remembers that a shadow pierced through him, and after that he couldn't remember anything. He tells this to the shadow.
"Oh, yes. That's what shadows that can leave at any time do like me—because of our power."
The shadow shows Shid an example by drawing a circle in the air in front of him and telling him to put his head into it. Shid hesitantly puts his head into the circle and finds that he has entered the real world while still halfway through, so he quickly pulls his head back out.
"Do you want to know more? Not now, my little
servant."
Shid wakes up in fright, screaming as his heart beats extremely fast. It takes him a few minutes to calm down.
"I hope all of this is just a damn nightmare."
Shid gets up from his bed, leaves his room, and enters the bathroom. He turns on the tap to wash his face, but then looks at the mirror.
That was not him, but a black creature with eight spikes emerging from its head.
Shid quickly breaks the mirror.
"Are you running from me? We were friends just a moment ago."
Shid screams and asks who he is, but the shadow begins to laugh and says that he has been searching for a body to contain him for decades, and that Shid's crying will not change anything—he is his servant through whom he will achieve all his dreams.
"You're not real, you bastard."
The Shadow Knight's tone changes as he tells Shid that this is useless, and that his anger is annoying. He asks him how about suppressing his emotions until he finishes serving him.
Shid stops moving, his eyes widen, and he feels a strange coldness in his body.
"I feel… empty inside."