Even at the pinnacle of my best mind could I never see that shadow creep over me, licking my face as if to taste me, dragging its terrible teeth across my cheek in hopes of devouring me. Likewise, I never understood to the fullest extent the irreparable damage that shadow caused my body; its claws marked my chest and my arms and my head. With those claws — those horrible, ripping claws — that shadow claimed me for its own, wrote its unspeakable name into me. It gripped my soul in its clutches and ripped apart the faces of everything I held dear. That shadow crammed those faces into its maw, grinding and chewing them up until they were an unrecognisable stew of blood and muck. It gulped the mixture down, and it bent down and passed the stinking filth over me, making me gag and heave from the stench. Every day and every night, that shadow leered at me from its parrot perch on my head and laughed at my misery, and every day and every night, I cowered from its fangs, I trembled at its claws, I shuddered at its reek. But all the while, I did not realise it. I could not sense that shadow’s presence, and I could not feel its terror.

...or something like that...

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