Last night changed me forever. It’s hard to put into words what happened to me, but I shall try my best, for only in understanding will you be able to avoid my fate, and the cold, dark emptiness that surrounds my mind. I sat, last night, as I always do, typing away at my keyboard, surfing the net, browsing meaningless web pages to relieve the boredom that envelops my life. I watched as the red lights of the clock flashed at me, different numbers, different patterns each time I looked, yet still ticking, counting down. But to what? I glanced back, unseeing, to the screen, my mind shut off from my body. I knew I should get some sleep, God knows I needed it, but it’s harder than it sounds. For someone like me, at any rate. The numbers ticked on reassuringly, keeping track of seconds, minutes, hours that passed by. 22:32, 22:33, 22:34, 01:84. I did a double take, surely I wasn’t in that much need of sleep?

I gazed at the ominous numbers warily, waiting for them to change, watching for where the next minute would take my mind. After some time of watching, and waiting, it remained unchanged, resolute. Refusing to move, as a stubborn child does when told to follow orders, defying the very laws of physics themselves. I pinched myself, hard; to wake myself from the sleep I knew I must have fallen into. But the numbers remained, unblinking, staring back, the dim red glow casting a menacing pallor over the otherwise dark room. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I found myself in a room, my room, yet there was something different about it, something not quite right. Old shapes, familiar shapes, started to form out of the darkness, a bed, a chest of drawers, a photo frame, but were they really mine? It didn’t seem so, I couldn’t put a finger on it, but something was most definitely not right. I stayed seated, curled myself up into a hedgehog-like ball, yet unlike those small, prickly pincushions, I was defenceless against whatever was out there. I clenched my eyelids, shutting out the invasive probing glow, enveloping myself in the soothing black, pure black. Listening to the sound of my breath, rising and falling, rising and falling, slowly, calmly.

But my breathing was not slow, or calm, my heart beating against my chest as a drummer would, leading the troops into battle. I curled myself even tighter, hugging my legs to my beating heart, hearing my breath coming faster and faster, yet also the slow, menacing breathing behind me. An involuntary mew escaped my lips as I felt the warm breath caress the back of my neck, sending a cold shiver of dread tricking down my spine. I stopped breathing altogether, my body refusing to respond, paralyzed with fear, other than the violent trembling I knew had seized my limbs. And yet still it toyed with me, hovering, I felt, just inches above me, relishing the hold it so obviously had over me. I fought the urge to open my eyes and see what was standing over me, preferring to remain in the dark unknowing, rather than open my eyes and remove all doubt of the danger I was in.

Until the fear hits you, you never know how you will react. You may plan ahead, believe that you would be brave, or strong, but until that moment, when your fear finds you, nobody can predict your reaction. But I know what it will be. A rabbit in the headlights, paralyzed, as I was, the ice cold fear freezing your muscles and chilling your soul. I shank away from the rough touch of my fear again my skin, but its feel stayed with me, the cold barklike rasp, coupled with the icy dread, burning across my cheek. Yet still it waited, feeding off my helplessness, unwilling to bring the night to an end. I pried my eyes open, yet still all I saw was darkness, no, wardrobe, no shapes, no numbers. No red. Just me and my fear. Alone. Just us. I could see nothing, the previously comforting darkness now terrifying, surrendering me up to fear.  For now I did not chose its claustrophobic embrace, it grew, merging with the fear, enveloping, taking, choking. The darkness pressed in on me, crushing my very lungs, making even the simple act of breathing an impossible task.

I can’t have been sitting there for more than a few hours, until I finally succumbed to the darkness and the nightmares chasing me through my dreams. But it felt like a lifetime, spending all eternity trapped, endlessly, by my fear, draining my energy and stealing my very being. For when I awoke in the morning, after tossing and turning and writhing through the night, I glanced at the mirror, and saw but a shell of me. Not noticeable to most people, but it was there, my essence was gone, I was just a husk, filled instead by the fear that still consumes me, eating away inside of me, gnawing at my soul.