Nothing feels real when I’m frozen in the infinity that is time, eyes locked onto a random spot on the ceiling. My head is simultaneously pounding and clear. The pitch-black sky outside my window should indicate that I can’t trust myself right now, but I still do. I mean, it’s me. What’s not to trust? But my inner voices don’t whisper like this in broad daylight. Still, I read into their deceptions. I let them speak louder than the voice of reason. Reason left me behind a while ago; she never stays up past her bedtime. I miss when I never stayed up past my bedtime.

Reason would never let the horrific things I’m thinking about be thought. She is heavily influenced by common sense, which tells her to get eight hours of sleep and not do things that worsen her life. Instead, I am caught in the dead of night sacrificing my sleep for my grades. 

Suddenly, the hallway light turns off. I’m not alone, and the void consumes my once-soothing room. I’ve been transported away from the safety of my familiar space, falling head-first into nothingness. For as long as I can remember, the hallway light turned off meant I was up too late because one of my older siblings or parents would turn it off before they go to bed, and grown-ups go to bed late. Now, it’s a regular occurrence, but I feel no different than I did then. I still whole-heartedly believe that anything could be lurking in the all too quiet shadows, waiting to attack me. 

Every night is a new opportunity for my life to become a horror film. My authentic screams are echoing throughout the theater while the audience laughs at the low-budget special effects. We cut to a forest with leafless trees and thick fog. I’m running and running, but I don’t know where, all I know is I’m running from something. It scares me, it controls me, yet it is me.

The same silence that terrifies me is still slightly comforting; In solitude, I can finally hear myself think. 

I decide to put in my headphones and listen to music. I don’t like hearing myself think.

All I want is to drift into the sweet serenity of sleep, but instead, I experience every anxiety I’ve ever felt all at once. Without reason in my way, I can twist everything out of proportion until every possible outcome is as awful as can be. 

I won’t get into college. I’m in a coma, imagining all of this. My friends secretly hate me. I subconsciously gather evidence to prove my own statements true, and there’s nobody to argue the opposite as I spiral in my room.