[ WP ] You live in a world where people 's shadows show who they truly are at their core . Some shadows look like monsters , some look like animals . You are the only person in the world with no shadow .

On the surface I appear human. Full of life, full of vigor. I breathe, eat, sleep, blink, drink, and do all the normal functions of a human. I live in a nice apartment building, I have a dog and 2 fish. I listen to popular music and drive a nice car to my job where I sit in meetings for 8 hours a day. Around the water cooler I tell jokes, make friends, share stories. In every way I appear to be normal, well-adjusted, successful human being. There's an outline of a person. Something you can see, touch, and feel but there is no substance. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there. 
 
 *** 
 
 I was 30 when the treatment first came out. Personality shadowing. Interfaces fully with your enhanced optic suite. A program uploaded to your personal neural net interface would probe your brain, scanning to determine your `` spirit animal'' and then super-posed it as your shadow to other people's visual system. It caught on faster than Facebook did in my youth. Like wildfire you'd look around and see smiling dog-type people, a crow-type person in a trenchcoat, the aloof cat-type sitting at the bar. You'd look around and see a society full of interacting shadows, their shadowy animal companions dancing and playing in response to their owners emotions. People would chat amicably about what their shadow would do when they were happy, or excited. Everybody but me. 
 
 I had no personality to detect, nothing to scan. For the first time I was different, I could no longer fit in. Sure I played it off as a computer error. Incompatibility with the program. That it just did n't load properly. I tried hundreds of excuses in an attempt to re-establish my cover. Hide the gnawing void within myself. Fit in and once more mechanically move throughout society. I had to do something. 
 
 It was 5 years before I discovered the cure. In those 5 years I was ostracized. I lost my job, my apartment, and my friends. It was 5 years before I met him. 
 
 *** 
 
 Jack was a hyena-type. He pretended to be a dog and sometimes played it off as such but he was a cruel scavenger. A con-man that took wicked delight in ruining the lives of the people around him and scavenging from the ashes. A crooked nose and too-wide smile distracted from his eyes. His eyes that constantly tracked the shadows of everyone he met. Until he met me. 
 
 At the time I was working as a bouncer at a bar. How the mighty had fallen. He was working as one of the bartenders. The taunting started the day I did. 
 
 `` Yea, sure it's an error you fucking freak,'' `` The only person with a shadow as empty as his fucking skull,'' `` Obviously a sociopath.'' 
 
 That last one made me snap. I knew what I was but I was never called out before. It was never public. I WAS empty and I needed to be filled. I followed him home. 
 
 *** 
 
 Turns out all I needed to do was rip his interface from his skull and upload his information to my own. His shadow replaced mine for 2 months before it started flickering. I started moving up in society again, one step at a time and taking a new shadow every time I started applying for a position that a different shadow would be more `` suited'' for as a personality type. I've got an interview for an upper-management position coming up. I think a lion-type would look the best for it. 
 
 *** 
 
 So, basically, that's why you're tied to this chair. Let's see how your shadow dances hm?
