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The Shadow-Self says:
You're standing on a bridge. You were being hunted by the police (you're one of the good guys, but in secret, and they don't know).You can hear them talking on their radios, about how the bridge has only two ends (and its high, so very high above the water). It's the bridge from Inception, and the middle part is lifting, leaving behind a gaping hole in the bridge, and you steel yourself. Your partner has already jumped and is fine, back at headquarters already. Now you need to. You take a deep breath and remember all the rules.
Spread out while you fall, so as to gather as little momentum as possible. Contract to a very small, thin arrow, right before you hit the water, and then spread out immediately again, and swim like crazy to reach the surface again.
It works, and you're a very good swimmer. You let yourself drift a moment, happy to have gotten away, confident in the wide, friendly, lukewarm river.
But then, suddenly, you spot it: The monster. The urban legend the team had been dismissed as utter fiction is actually true. All the debris and junk that had been thrown into the river has accumulated and grown into this shapeless, vaguely orange monster, and you remember:
It eats people.
So you try to swim away like hell, but it's quicker. So you try to use the planks and concrete pillars in this industrial area to change direction as quickly as humanly possible (like a hare), and it misses you again and again.
But you get scratched. And it's a biological colony of millions of small organisms, and now you're infected. Tiny orange flecks slowly spread on your skin around the scratches.
Finally you grab a big, wet carton and hold it in the direction of the hungry mass coming after you, and apparently it thinks there's food in there, for it jumps right in. You close it and put it down on a slap of concrete, upside down. The thing is confused, not trying to get out, but at the same time, you can see it seeping through the carton. It will get free.
But you have the time to cross the river and get out of the water by then.
There are small houses there, you just go to the very next one. It's cute, if a bit tiny, there's a family living there, looking at you in bewilderment and growing fear.
(You are, btw., a beautiful young woman with short black hair and a lot of muscle, wearing a black fighting outfit, now bloody, dirty and utterly wet.)
Where's your telephone? you ask. Out back, they say.
So you walk through the whole house to find the telephone on the porch, and call headquarters. Jimmy from dispatch is giving you a hard time, but you're not up to jokes right now. You give your code in a raspy voice, and he puts you through to the rest of the team.
It's dusk, by then, birds singing in the back garden. You look at your scratched arm, but you're not worried. You know how a TV episode like this ends.
Your team will find a way to save you, just in time.
******
So the Shadow-Self says:
You've jumped from the traditional pathway into the one that works with your emotions, and you got away. But yes, there's something disgusting lurking here.
Put it in a box for now and call your tribe. They will find a way to heal you.
True that, partner, true that.
But don't forget: This is just one side. The other one is a desperate old lady, watching her life's work in peril around her. I will fight the infection in my mindset. And I will stay one of the good guys.
Spread out while you fall, so as to gather as little momentum as possible. Contract to a very small, thin arrow, right before you hit the water, and then spread out immediately again, and swim like crazy to reach the surface again.
It works, and you're a very good swimmer. You let yourself drift a moment, happy to have gotten away, confident in the wide, friendly, lukewarm river.
But then, suddenly, you spot it: The monster. The urban legend the team had been dismissed as utter fiction is actually true. All the debris and junk that had been thrown into the river has accumulated and grown into this shapeless, vaguely orange monster, and you remember:
It eats people.
So you try to swim away like hell, but it's quicker. So you try to use the planks and concrete pillars in this industrial area to change direction as quickly as humanly possible (like a hare), and it misses you again and again.
But you get scratched. And it's a biological colony of millions of small organisms, and now you're infected. Tiny orange flecks slowly spread on your skin around the scratches.
Finally you grab a big, wet carton and hold it in the direction of the hungry mass coming after you, and apparently it thinks there's food in there, for it jumps right in. You close it and put it down on a slap of concrete, upside down. The thing is confused, not trying to get out, but at the same time, you can see it seeping through the carton. It will get free.
But you have the time to cross the river and get out of the water by then.
There are small houses there, you just go to the very next one. It's cute, if a bit tiny, there's a family living there, looking at you in bewilderment and growing fear.
(You are, btw., a beautiful young woman with short black hair and a lot of muscle, wearing a black fighting outfit, now bloody, dirty and utterly wet.)
Where's your telephone? you ask. Out back, they say.
So you walk through the whole house to find the telephone on the porch, and call headquarters. Jimmy from dispatch is giving you a hard time, but you're not up to jokes right now. You give your code in a raspy voice, and he puts you through to the rest of the team.
It's dusk, by then, birds singing in the back garden. You look at your scratched arm, but you're not worried. You know how a TV episode like this ends.
Your team will find a way to save you, just in time.
******
So the Shadow-Self says:
You've jumped from the traditional pathway into the one that works with your emotions, and you got away. But yes, there's something disgusting lurking here.
Put it in a box for now and call your tribe. They will find a way to heal you.
True that, partner, true that.
But don't forget: This is just one side. The other one is a desperate old lady, watching her life's work in peril around her. I will fight the infection in my mindset. And I will stay one of the good guys.