The Shadow Shop of Lublin, Poland — I picked wrong

So there's an urban legend in Lublin, Poland that the locals take genuinely seriously. Somewhere in the back alleys on the edge of the city, there's a shop that sells shadows. It's invisible during the day. It only appears at exactly 2:33 AM.

Fall 2023, I was in Lublin filming a documentary on European urban legends. The city itself was beautiful, quiet, chill. But the older the neighborhood, the more people talked about this place like it was real. One old man grabbed my arm and warned me.

"If you buy something from that shop, you have to leave something behind. Your shadow."

I needed to know if it was real.

So that night I walked into the old town with my camera. Narrow cobblestone alley, barely lit, dead quiet. And at exactly 2:33 AM... a door appeared in the wall. A shop. Not on any map. Not there five minutes ago.

No lights inside but it was BRIGHT somehow. The door creaked open.

There was a clerk. Sitting. Waiting.

Black hat. White hands. No face.

He slid a piece of paper across to me without a word.

[What would you like to exchange?]

And below that, four options.

[Memory] / [Voice] / [Face] / [Shadow]

I hesitated. I stood there for what felt like forever.

Then I picked Shadow.

I woke up in my hotel bed. Normal ceiling. Normal room.

Except every single video I filmed that night was gone. Wiped. The camera had one photo left.

The alley. The open door. Me, standing in front of it.

In full daylight.

With no shadow.

My silhouette is right there in the photo, perfectly visible, lit from above. No shadow anywhere.

I still look fine in mirrors. My reflection is normal. But outside, in sunlight...

There's something wrong. My shadow is gone but every time I walk, there are footsteps that don't match mine. Something is following me that I can't see.

And I don't know what it left behind when I walked out of that shop.