I sit in my livingroom, my 3 year old son jumping around and pretending to shoot the monsters on his show... I love this time with him but it's not my main focus.
Since I can remember, I've never been alone. Umbra is always with me. My doppelganger made of concentrated blackness that nobody but I can see. He's not evil, I don't think, but he is mischievous. As a child, I watched him move a chair as my brother would sit so that he would fall to the floor. I've seen him loosen the top of the salt shaker so when my mother tried to sprinkle some on fries, the top would pop off and dump all the salt.
I saw him trip a bully of mine in high school and while they fell, he forced their head on the tile floor hard enough to cause brain damage. That bully used to call me "retarded" and Umbra stood next to the bully who laid unconscious in a growing pool of blood with an exaggerated smile of needle like teeth.
For a while, I thought he was a protector. He shredded the skin of my step fathers arm after he decided to whip me with his belt for breaking a coffee mug while putting dishes away. He never hurt me but anyone who ever did always suffered horribly, no matter how minor the injury, or even if it was an accident.
I played football in high school for about 15 minutes. My first practice, I got tackled and it wasn't even that hard... the kid who tackled me has a glass eye now. Umbra slammed his face into the top of a low chain link fence and it crushed their eye socket.
My first girlfriend scratched my back during an intense... expression of love, and he tore out a chunk of her hair, making it appear like it got caught in the headboard. I have set rules for relationships and though they make me seem weak, sometimes misogynistic, it keeps the women I date safe.
I met the woman who has become my wife, almost 10 years ago, we worked in the same store and things just clicked but even with her, Umbra has caused her minor pains. Our first "date" was a walk down a trail in the early winter. I have a bad hip and slipped on some ice and catching myself made my hip pop and that hurt like hell, so Umbra, placing the blame on her simply because it was her idea to go for a walk, shoved her when she walked on the same ice and she fell on her ass.
Luckily there was never any real pain, she never suffered any injuries and any cuts or falls by Umbra were brushed off by her. So many times I thought about telling her about him but it sounds so crazy. I've thought about ending things, this doppelganger of mine causes everyone around me pain at the slightest pain to me... but I've stayed. Umbra seemed to calm down for a while. Once, my wife accidently shut the car door on my finger, Umbra simply laughed.
She told me she was pregnant and I got so excited. During labor she squeezed my hand hard enough that it hurt, seconds later there was a panic because the epidural was torn out of my wife and caused nerve damage. She has a numbness in her shoulder that travels down the back of her arm and has yet to fade. Her pinky barely moves when she closes her hand... but at least that's all that happened.
I sit in my livingroom, my 3 year old son jumping around and pretending to shoot the monsters on his show... I love this time with him but it's not my main focus... Umbra is watching my son, and my lip still bleeds from when my son accidentally hit me with a toy he threw...