It's Time To Make A Change

One thousand words. I've written one thousand words, and still have a third of it to go.

The amount of work was daunting. It was already almost one in the morning, and the deadline was midnight, but she was granted a two-hour grace period, just in the case something went wrong. If she could just take a small nap, even just ten minutes, it would help to clear her head.

She'd been sitting on her bed for the past... maybe... six hours. With seven different tabs open on her laptop, three books in front of her, and her binder open with papers strewn around, it felt so intimidating. She was almost done.

Her day had started early and ended late, as every school day did. She wasn't home until nearly five o'clock, and by the time dinner was cooked and eaten, the kitchen cleaned and tidy, it was about seven o'clock. She wouldn't have left her paper till the last minute, but it was a struggling week, with deadlines in nearly every class. If she could just get a bit more of a grip...

Of course, it didn't help that she'd spent last weekend trying to drown her sorrows at the bottom of a bottle. But that was college, wasn't it? To study until you can't think, and then relax with braincell-killing coping mechanisms. What a sham...

She laid back in bed, her head on her pillow, legs still crossed. She wasn't going to sleep, not for the night. If she did, she would have to take a deduction on her paper, and she couldn't afford that. It had to be submitted within the next hour. But if she could just close her eyes, for just a few minutes...

Her eyes opened. She fell asleep. Panic set in.

I have to get up. Finish the paper.

Her eyes struggled to open. Almost as if her eyelids were being pulled by a heavy weight, like she had to pry them open.

She tried to sit up. But at about a 45 degree angle, her body stopped.

What the hell?

She couldn't sit up. It was as though there was something in front of her, stopping her from sitting upright. She tried to lift her arms to feel in front of her, but her arms wouldn't obey her. It was as though they were numb, forced to sit in place beside her, heavy, dead.

The muscles on her face seemed to pull back as the force on top of her grew stronger, heavier. It was suffocating. She tried to push against it, but it only pushed her back further.

This is Hell.

She tried to control her tongue, whisper a prayer, but her lips were pulled back. Her tongue wouldn't obey her, stuck to the roof of her mouth, her vocal chords stiff and stagnant.

I can't even pray.

She fell back against the mattress, forced to stare upwards, trying with every part of her to keep her eyes open. She couldn't see anything in front of her, but she knew it was there. Lurking. Pushing. Almost laughing.

This is it. I'm doomed. Dead. I belong to it.

Her eyes shot open. She gasps, trying to gain her breath, as if her lungs couldn't fill with enough air.

She shot upright, gripping her body, her face, her arms. She could feel everything again. Gravity back to normal. She couldn't feel the thing in the room anymore. Relief.

Then dread.

It happened. Again.

She clicked her blank computer, and it glowed to life. The little clock displayed the time. Three in the morning.

The deadline. She rubbed her head.

Why was she dreaming this again? Her heart was pounding in her chest. It's gone. It's not here.

Was it real? It felt so real... The room was the same. Her books and computer were still on her bed... She was still wearing the same clothes.

But I was asleep.

She got out of bed, out of her bedroom, tiptoeing as to not wake her roommate, and into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. Her hair was slick with sweat, her face flush. It was just a dream.

The last time it happened it had been a late night, too. She had spent most of the evening at a bar a couple of blocks from the apartment, eyeing the men at the bar, wondering which one could fill the void. She thought of climbing into a car with someone, catching a cab in the morning, but it put a sour taste in her mouth. She spent the night on the dance floor instead, trying to quiet her anxieties with long island ice teas and the feeling of a pair of manly hands around her waist. She'd woken up the next morning with a painful headache, and the room still spinning around her.

Ugh.

With a sigh, she stumbled to the kitchen, opened up the fridge, and took out a glass bottle with a German label on it. Something her roommate had bought. She leaned against the counter, steading herself. She uncapped the bottle, lifted it to her lips, and paused. She stopped, stared at it, and set it down on the counter. She thought back to the last times she'd had the dream, and what she'd been doing on those days.

After a moment, she put the bottle back in the fridge, took a sleeping pill, and walked back to her bedroom to try to sleep off the rest of the night.

It's time to make a change.