Thanks! :) In a sense the more I think about it, the more the story is sort of a metaphor for dealing with your shadow side. And.. This is an interesting subject for me. Cause.. I do think in a sense you need to try to hug and love your shadow self, but not too much or else you'll become it even more and manifest or embody that so to speak.. So.. Love your shadow self and then destroy it. Though perhaps some day the destroying part won't be necessary and it'll be possible to just hug the shadow self.

I'm not sure if that's possible or not.. Or how entertaining of a read it would be, heh.. But.. Something to think about! I still believe strongly in self defense, so.. Not a pacifist, but maybe some day I will be. I do have a certain kind of admiration for those who refuse to fight, even though I think it shows a high level of self value and love to fight, for all involved. So it's definitely a deep complex philosophical subject if you get into it in my opinion.. I still haven't totally figured it out, and it's fun to explore in little fictional short stories like this one. :)

Also glad you noticed the "One foot in front of the other foot" part, I thought that was good and meaningful how it repeated like that! :)
Well if you hope I write more short stories, then.. I even more plan on it now! :D
Thanks for the great feedback!

PS.. Yeah.. The sleep paralysis stuff or nightmares or whatever you wanna call them are not fun, I had another one not too long ago, though it was much more clearly a dream, but one that felt sorta foreign, like.. A being somehow got into my dreams, which is bizarre and hard to explain, though.. It felt like not an ordinary nightmare, there was an extra real element to it, like someone somewhere in the world was cursing me or something, heh. The dream world is an interesting one I haven't explored enough since I was younger! I think there's a lot of mysteries to be discovered there.