Light Switch

My brain constantly terrorizes me, holding me hostage to my own imagination. The images it shows me teeter between make believe and reality. Even when I take a breath and tell myself it’s fake, my body and my nerves react. Sometimes I jump, sometimes I hide, sometimes I scream or call for my partner. The odd thing is, I know they are fake. I always know what is real and what is fake, but it doesn’t change the fact that I see and feel the horrific images from my brain.

I can’t have peace doing simple tasks, like turning off the lights.The switch clicks beneath my fingers and I can hear her. The darkness swallows the room and the shadows twist and bend. This is not fear of the dark; this is a fear of her. She bends her long arachnid body down the walls, contorting and cracking her joints. The cracking breaks up the hum of her gurgling moan that sounds like she's choking on her own vomit.

My body shakes as I can feel her creeping closer, her legs stretching forward, slowly prowling toward me. I freeze, heart pounding deep in my chest. I can feel the drop in my stomach, I want to run but my feet are frozen.

“It's not real Anjol, it’s not real.” I tell myself, sometimes aloud or in shaken stutters. Sometimes it doesn’t even leave my lips, but I try.

I can hear the snap of her neck, twisting itself in unnatural angles. I can’t help it: I stare, eyes focused on her abnormally long face and jutted chin. Her teeth are like needles layered next to each other with globs of black tar dripping from her mouth; that must be what was choking on. She's close now and her white eyes look back at me. They look squishy and wet like moist marshmallows, gooey and dissolving into her eye sockets.

Finally, as tears well in my eyes, my feet move. I begin to run, sprinting as though my life is in danger. Rationally I'm in no danger, it’s not real , but my brain tells me otherwise. As my feet move I can hear her scratch, letting out a sound like nails dragging along a chalkboard. It rings in my ears, bouncing around my head, tunneling my vision.

Her long, large, chicken-like feet stomp against the floor and begin to stick themselves to the wall. Her gray leathery skin jiggles as she runs leaving streaks of black ooze beneath her. She's wet and I can smell the water; it reeks of dead fish and mold. Her wet hair slaps against her skin and my mind begins to float, losing the grip of reality I tried so desperately to hold onto. I scream for my partner, searching for an ounce of light.

She only lives in the shadows. I never know when she will actually appear. Sometimes she leaves me be and I can live life as though she doesn't exist. It’s almost like she does it for fun, living in the dark corners of my mind, laughing and waiting to catch me off guard.

It’s rare but sometimes she gets me. Her hands grip the back of my shoulders, her sharp nails dig into my skin; not painful, but cold. So fucking cold. Chills rattle down my spine giving me goose skin, and an extra pep in my step.

I wish I didn’t have these images, these things that creep around my mind. I wish they didn't haunt me. The pills and therapy help, they say it's apart of my condition and stem from PTSD; the horrors, the voices, the fears, they are all my doing.