10 TV Fates Worse Than Death
4. The X-Files - Your Shadow Makes People Disappear
The X-Files is stuffed to the brim with brutal deaths thanks to its smorgasbord of terrifying monsters and villains, but death is not the cruellest fate a victim of an X-File has ever succumbed to. One of the most horrific fates worse than death occurs in the episode "Soft Light", in which Mulder and Scully investigate a series of inexplicable disappearances.
It turns out that these vanishings are the result of an experiment gone wrong, involving physicist Chester Ray Banton and a particle accelerator.
Banton was locked inside the accelerator's target room and blasted with subatomic particles. Now, his shadow erases anyone it touches. Step into the shadow, even for a second, and your body collapses into nothingness and you disappear.
It's a chilling fate for the victims, but it's even more disturbing to consider the fate of Banton himself. He can never see his friends or family again for risk of erasing them from existence. In fact he can never interact with another human being again, not without fearing they may step into his shadow. Add a generous dose of paranoia about being hunted down by the government (which he is) and Banton's fate is one best avoided.