How to Kill a Cold-Blooded Ghostly Top

There's someone hidden in my shadow.

It writhes in the dark mass, trembling, like a blob of slime stuck to my shadow, rustling, rustling.

I know it's been following me all along, gripping my feet tightly, trying to drag me underground and turn me into the same kind of monster.

When I eat, when I ride in a car, when I work... It even lies beside my pillow while I sleep, wrapping its hands tightly around me.

It's always whispering, "I want you. I want you..."

But I can't push it away.

Because in the whole world, only it knows I'm not insane. And only it and I have the same human face.

That's right.

My neighbor is a pig-headed man with clumps of mud hidden in his folds. The kid downstairs is a wild dog who does nothing but pant with his tongue out. The woman who leads the square dances has a chicken's head with glossy feathers.

Most of them are sheep, with tangled curls and horizontal pupils. When I get close, I can smell their revolting mutton stench. When they open their mouths, they have long, sharp teeth.

I know I'm not sick.

They all want to kill me.

They want to cut my flesh to pieces, chew me up, swallow me whole.

The person in my shadow slowly climbs up my legs, his cold hands gently caressing my cheeks.

"A Shang, you forgot. I'm your husband."

He grins, his chilly breath brushing the back of my neck. "So you're the only one I get to eat."

[Bonus scene]

There's a silver mirror in the bedroom. The ghost always likes to drag him over to it and force him into all kinds of poses.

He trembles all over, staring at the mirror, where there's no one else but him. That part is turned inside out, opening and closing...

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