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The dark has never felt so heavy and oppressive.
You wake up to it holding you down, eyes wide and straining to find anything familiar in the pitch black, making you unsure if you ever opened them at all. The pressure is so unbearable that you find yourself entirely unable to move a single inch — yet you persist in struggling against the grasp of the abyss. You only allow your own decisions to paralyze you, not the forces of nature.
But you do not move despite your efforts. You are trapped with your eyes wide against the cold dark of the room, completely prone. Your mind does not race, however, as you're certain this is nothing but an episode of sleep paralysis and you will not be harmed (though often it is not your own safety you are concerned about).
Your eyes adjust eventually, but not by much. Your room is a blur of deep dark grays and blues and a sensation that looks like static. It all looks dreamy and distorted through your exhausted eyes woken suddenly from their sleep, as if the room was created from memories. Memories that were recalled only partially — your brain stumbling trying to fill in the gaps, or patch over spots that don’t look quite right, resulting in a somewhat unsettling reflection of reality.
So at first it doesn't surprise you much when you glimpse at a growing spot of darkness from across the bed you sleep on.
It's tall, with a shadow that bleeds into the corner of the room, almost formless if it did not look so much like a silhouette of a person. Very slowly, it shapes itself, but keeps its wispiness and distortion, until it becomes a twisted figure of someone you recognize. Her shape always changes, like a shadow obscured in rippling water, but stays ever familiar through it all.
Her eyes open bright against the inky black cloud of darkness that makes up the rest of her, widened to the point that you aren't sure this shadow bothered to fake eyesockets at all. Those eyes are truly unforgettable, bright burning stars poking holes in the night sky. Hypnotic, almost. It hurts to look at.
But you can’t look away.
The memory still hasn't faded from the last time you saw them staring back at you — so it feels all too familiar to see them once more. Like visiting an old friend for the first time in sweeps, only it instills the most intense feeling of dread inside you, incomprehensibly so. Your heart races as the shadow approaches you, climbing up to sit on your bed. A false gesture of comfort that is hardly obscuring the truth. You want to scream from how quickly the sensation of terror overwhelms you.
As you heartbeat grows faster and your eyes start to burn, you wish you could cry out for help, or anything at all. But the only thing keeping you company is her. Her, and the void of evil puppeting her body mockingly. Your throat won't make a sound anyways, held hostage by whatever is keeping you simultaneously awake and asleep. The hope of rescue was dead before it had even been born.
Her hand grazes your face, ice cold knuckles gently touching your cheek; then trailing upwards to move some stray hair out of your face. Almost in adoration, you'd think, but you know she is merely taunting you, being the only one able to freely move. It's a hollow shell pretending to be affection. You're glad you can see right through it.
Faceless except for her headlight eyes, she resorts to speaking to you telepathically, echoing against nothing inside of your head.
"Do you believe this is real?" She asks, her voice sickly sweet. Like honey pooling in the back of your throat that only makes you feel more nauseated.
No , you think back. I'm not stupid.
"Then surely your visions were just as much a dream as this."
Why won't you leave me alone? Haven’t you done enough already?
"I want you to answer me." She cups her palm over your cheek, tilting her head just slightly. "I want you to tell me how scared you are."
You feel so small in this moment, so completely terrified that you can no longer feel any part of your body anymore. If you were able to swallow the fear, you would. But you still cannot move.
I am not afraid.
She coos at you in a rather condescending tone, caressing the side of your face. Ice cold and numb, but gentle. "You're a better liar than that. I've seen how you spin your words before."
Why do you care about an answer if you already know how I feel?
"There's no fun in just knowing things. You of all people would understand the satisfaction of getting somebody to spit something out, wouldn't you?"
Go fuck yourself.
Her hand moves downward, a nail just barely scraping over your jugular. "Tell me how scared you are, Murrit." You can feel the smile in her voice. That sick fucking smile.
You don't fucking scare me.
"Why the persistence? You aren't going to win anyways. It's pointless. I know you’ve always been stubborn, but come on now. The act has got to be dropped eventually."
I won't give you the satisfaction.
"That would be a fair point if it were not just an admission of defeat."
What do you *really* want? Why come to torment *me*?
She stares at you blankly, the burning brightness of her eyes penetrating into your mind. They’re practically all you can see in this darkness, blinding you every second you spend with your eyes peeled open.
You’ve seen it in your dreams many times before. There were hundreds of thousands of those things, stretching everywhere over darkness for as far as you’re capable of thinking, and then beyond that. They blink, and they watch, and they do not speak. They observe the end of time. And there is something they want, and you do not know what it is. Nevertheless, it is requested of you.
It’s your turn to answer.
“You do not demand things of me.”
You want to punch this faceless nightmare. Fucking tell me.
“I know well how strong your desire for control is. Not necessarily power, but control. To know all that turns the world and then some. Is that not why you are so afraid?”
What?
“I make you powerless. I make you weak. It’s not merely that my presence causes you to just feel these things, but that you are these things at your very core.”
I’m going to kill you.
“Kill me? ” She cackles, low and soft and drawn-out. “If only you knew how funny that was to hear. At least you still have your ‘humor’ going for you in the end.”
She wraps her hands around your neck. And grips tightly. You gasp breathlessly, desperate to escape.
“Though I will admit, killing you with my own hands might be just as entertaining as watching you foolishly destroy yourself under false pretenses. Either way, I know your final thought will be the earned knowledge of how fucking stupid you are.”
Not a sound escapes you as you are strangled, not even the ghosts of begging and pleading crawling out of a crushed throat. You merely wait there, staring back at her, lungs burning as your vision starts to blur.
But when it comes to an apex of pain, your lungs flood with air again, and you sit up instantly, the nightmare gone with your hand clutching your chest. Your throat hurts, and you’re coughing as you try to catch your breath in ragged heaves, but you’re alive. Your head is spinning like it hasn’t in a long time. How much of it was real? How much was just your imagination? Surely you would be dead by now, wouldn’t you?
Without warning, you begin to sob, shaking at the memories brought back and the new ones gained. The inexplicable terror cannot be forgotten even now, and you are still alone. Helpless. There is no one who would answer your cries, and there never has been.
You are powerless, you are weak, and you are fucking stupid.