The nights back then were brutal. Power outages left us in complete darkness, and the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance. Machine guns rattled like some twisted soundtrack, and we spent those hours waiting—for what, I don’t know.

One of those nights, when the silence felt heavier than usual, I grabbed a pencil and an empty sheet of paper. I didn’t know why—maybe just to do something, anything. But as I stared into the dark, one question hit me hard: “What lurks in the darkness?”

In that moment, and for the first time I knew I wasn’t alone. Dark, shapeless figures seemed to close in around me, pressing against my skin and whispering things I didn’t want to hear. They weren’t new—they had always been there, hiding in the corners, waiting for me to finally notice them.

“The shadow is a living component of our personality and seeks to coexist with us in some form” (Carl Jung). These shadows weren’t just figments of my imagination—they were a part of me, impossible to dismiss or ignore.

So I began to draw them. Line by line, I gave them form—huge bodies, jagged limbs, hollow eyes. What I couldn’t put into words, I poured onto paper. Each drawing felt like a confrontation, a way of bringing those shadows out of hiding and facing them head-on. And in doing so, I began to understand them—and myself—a little more.