You are being hunted.

Your feet slap against the concrete and a frantic, uncoordinated rhythm, your chest heaving

with a kind of primal, unfiltered terror that only a child knows.

You are running in tight, desperate circles trying to shake the dark thing that is glued to your heels.

No matter how hard you twist, no matter how fast you sprint.

No matter in what surprise direction you go, it is there.

The silent, persistent pursuer that matches every move you make.

It feels calculated, conspiratorial.

You can barely see the world through your tears in the adrenaline and the panic, only the blur of your mother, of your grandmother desperately reaching for you.

Their voices muffled by the thunder of your own pulse in your ears.

They are calling for you to stop, to be still.

They keep proclaiming that there is nothing chasing you but your own shadow.

But you're only three.

It takes three things to make a shadow, a light source, an object to block the light and a surface to catch the shadow.

That dark pursuer that is effectively and powerfully terrified

you is nothing but you. It's the shadow of doubt. Of thought, it is the shadow of ego that is only

just beginning to grow, a shadow that will spend the next three decades growing larger and darker.

You think you are the body, that's why the shadow is there.

You're facing away from the sun, running from the only thing that could ever actually set you free.

But when you finally stop running, when you finally turn around to face the light, you don't see it, you disappear.

The light is looking.