Fallacia Field Report

Compiled after thirty-eight years of independent study.

Case 17 — Male, 72

The subject's wife reported seeing a figure beside the bed on twenty-seven occasions over ten years. After installing CCTV, a distortion was recorded on three consecutive nights. The subject passed away soon after. Subsequent footage showed no further evidence.

For centuries, these phenomena have been dismissed as delusion, sleep paralysis, night terrors, overactive imagination or complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

After studying them for almost thirty-eight years, since I was a young lad, I have become convinced these explanations are incomplete. I believe something exists within many shadows.

Their very nature explains why proving their existence has proven so difficult.

They are creatures often described as quantum-locked. The term has been criticised because of its use in Doctor Who to describe the Weeping Angels. Or did fiction simply borrow from reality?

What do we know of Fallacia?

Case 45

Three witnesses described the same encounter. One claimed it smiled despite having no face. Another insisted it had no head. The third swore it possessed too many.

Genderless and without physical bodies, Fallacia exist in two states.

When their host is awake, they remain in Dormancy, almost invisible. At most, they resemble the shimmer of heat on a summer's day.

When the host sleeps, particularly during REM and deep sleep, they become active, appearing as badly misaligned human shadows.

They disappear the instant they know they are being consciously observed.

Unlike true shadows, they are imperfect. Heads merge directly into torsos. Arms stretch unnaturally. Eight fingers appear most common, though extra limbs, missing limbs, and other deformities have all been documented. Witnesses consistently report emotional expressions despite the complete absence of facial features.

Study 14

A four-year-old boy repeatedly told his mother that "the not quite right man" visited him at night. A camera later captured a figure briefly appearing before the lens while uttering what sounded like *nulla imaginibus*.

They grow, live, and die alongside their hosts, reaching heights of eight to ten feet. Although they cannot account for all mankind's suffering, evidence suggests they are responsible for a quiet percentage.

What motivates them?

Here, the evidence becomes controversial.

Most researchers, myself included, agree that Fallacia are not inherently evil. Rather, they resemble parasites in a symbiotic relationship with humanity.

They feed upon the full spectrum of human experience. Every lesson learned, every love found, every success, every grief, every failure nourishes them.

They have existed as long as we have and therefore have as much claim to the Earth as we do.

They need; therefore, they feed.

They feed; therefore, they are.

They do not seek to conquer humanity.

They simply need.

Therefore, they feed.

And because they feed...

They add.

Witness Statement 88

"I woke because I thought someone was beside the bed. Just had a strange feeling. Unnerved. When I looked directly at it, there was nothing there. But when I turned towards the window, my own shadow was already standing where I'd been sleeping."

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is for Leslie's awesome and creative "What am I?" Unofficial Challenge.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know I don't consider myself even a subpar artist when it comes to visual mediums of art. But I wanted to see the challenge through and had a lot of fun with it in the end.

For anyone who cares, before settling on Fallacia, I actually had a few other ideas for cryptids to write about.