https://www.trevorlangcarter.com/post/short-story-illumination Illumination by Trevor Lang Carter In this malignant place of sorrow, suffering is my only sustenance; a mental confinement where isolation and loneliness are my closest companions. Haunted by my Shadow; its ominous form stalks me without reprieve. Baleful manifestations creep into my mind like weeds, wrapping their deleterious tendrils around my sanity, squeezing out all hope and joy. Since I was a child, this has been the unrelenting narrative of my existence—a purgatory I endure to this day. One cannot see their Shadow without illumination, just as one cannot see the shadow of their form without the glorious rays of the sun. It is a frightful proposition to peer into the abyss of one’s mind. Some part of us knows that suffering and depravity live there. Those old psychic wounds from the trauma we experienced throughout our lives still fester in the depths of our psyches. But we dare not look beneath the surface. We i