The shadow

It was my first day at high school, I was very nervous because I was new in town. My parents had found a good work in this city, called Tortosa, so we moved there to start our new life. My first day at school was the worst. People looked at me strangely, moving away from my side. I was alone. The class was made up of pupils who had chosen scientific studies at the beginning of the school year and they were in groups of friends: The popular, the jockers, the nerds, etc., but I was not in any group because I had no friends. A week later, the «popular group» started picking on me for my appearance, insulting and hitting me. I was harassed for a month until I met a friend who was wearing black clothes and had long black hair. We became close friends. He even helped me with my homework. He told me what to do to deal with the bullies at school.

The problem was that everyone was telling me I was talking alone, even when my friend was right in front of them. One day, I asked my friend if he were real and he replied very annoyed: Yes, I am real!!!

He said he was very happy that he had finally made a true friend. That night, he came home to sleep together (he looked like a shadow ), he made me promise not to tell anyone that he was my friend, either my parents or my teachers would like to separate us and we would never see each other again.
 One day, when we went home, my friend got very angry with me because I told a classmate that I was his friend. He looked very angry, he grabbed me out of my hair, dragged me all over the house to the kitchen, took a knife and killed me.

This would be an example of a guy who lived being bullied, went completely crazy, his supposed friend was only a shadow invented by his own mind. That shadow represented bullying, a shadow that made the lonely boy finally commit suicide.


Rubén Solà Herrera
Institut Dertosa, Tortosa


*Conte premiat en la categoria de secundària en el XI Concurs de microrelats de terror 2020, organitzat per la biblioteca de l'Institut Cristòfol Despuig.