Back to the Trope game - The Assimilator (all genres)

The Echo-men

There is a legend that goes as such: Echo-men only target those who summon it by reciting "Echo-man, Echo-man, who are you?" into a vast echoing space. If you hear the reply "I am you" an echo-man is now after you. At first only you can see it, a shadow of ever shifting size & proportion following silently far behind you, stalking you wherever you go. In time it will grow to look more like you as it closes the distance. Eventually it will look exactly like you, this is when it will touch you with its shudderingly cold hand and walk away. From then on nobody will see or acknowledge you as you grow ever more insubstantial, unable to affect anything. If you decide to follow your echo-man you'll be able to watch them destroy your life's work. When there is not one person left who would mourn your passing it will turn back to a strange shadow in the night and leave you alone with the pain it has caused you. The pain will eat away at you until you can't remember who you were before or what you looked like before you were a shadow. You'll only know that you want to be with people again. Even if you can't remember how basic human interactions work. Even if you would inevitably drive everyone away from you, leaving you right back where you started but with uncounted ruined lives in your wake. You have to try. So on the day someone calls out to you, you call back to them. You start following far behind them, hoping for a little companionship. As you follow them you start to see all the things they are doing wrong, and decide that you can do better. You start to close the distance.

Of course this is a lie. Echo-men don't need to be summoned.

/r/worldbuilding Thread