NYCTOPHOBIA

Photo by Elti Meshau on Unsplash

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Every minute, every hour, every day, every year out of my eighteen years of my existence on planet Earth have been spent living in fear. Paralyzing fear. Ever since I can remember, I've suffered from what the human race claims to be "nyctophobia" - fear of the dark. I'm frightened by shadows, petrified of dark rooms; so much so that I have to sleep with the lights on. But, little does humanity know, that it's not the dark that scares me.

I’ve had moments where I went completely mental from fear. Once because my older brother turned off the lights in my room one night and locked the door while I was sleeping as an April fool’s prank. I was only six. Another time, I had a “temporary bout” of catatonic schizophrenia (according to the doctor) when the lights went out during a thunderstorm. I didn’t so much as bat an eyelash until the lights came back on – fourteen hours later, if you can believe it. I was nine. I was diagnosed with said “temporary bout” not too long after that.

Yeah, in a way, humanity is right. I do have a fear of the dark.

In a way, they’re wrong.

And I’ll tell you how.

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Fifteen Years Ago

Wherever I was, it was freezing cold. I felt the cold burrow itself deep within my bones, taking over my body with this incredible, unrelenting chill I still feel.

I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face, but still I looked around, not sure where I was, my three year old conscience not fully processing the grave danger I was in. My little heart throbbed with fear in my chest, the sound of drums the only sound echoing in the empty space of my conscience.

Suddenly, as I blinked, a little boy appeared in front of me and I gasped in surprise. He wore a dingy, ivory button up shirt held shut at the neck with a crooked black bow tie. His hands hung limply at his sides and he stood completely still, as if a statue, locked in place.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice small and meek.

The little blonde boy cocked his head sharply and a sickening crack from his neck echoed throughout the emptiness around us. His cold gray eyes bored into mine, sending an unconscious shudder down my frail body.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, but the voice he spoke with wasn’t his own; it was deep, warbled, and loud, yet, to my young mind, sounded so soft and trustworthy. Without hesitation, I nodded, unaware of the impending danger.

“I don’t know where I am,” I told him while looking down at what would be the ground bashfully, if I could have seen it. But there wasn’t ground. There wasn’t anything. “Where am I?”

The little boy smiled. The corners of his lips stretched across his youthful cheeky face, curling upwards towards his small, round eyes. “Don’t be afraid,” he said to me. He snarled, suddenly flashing gleaming, sharp teeth as his lips continued up his now elongating face, jaw stretching downward, hanging from his skull. As the corners of his lips reached his eyes, they changed from their cold, unforgiving grey color to a crimson red which dripped down his protruding cheekbones.

I gasped as I watched this transformation take place. He was now towering over me, his bloody tears sliding down his bony face.

“Do not be afraid.”

Suddenly large, bony arms grabbed my tiny waist and pulled me backwards, farther and farther into nothing. I kicked and screamed, but the arms that were restraining me quickly crushed me into silence. Their hands like rods, they dug into my sides, searching for my heart, my soul, my core, and invaded. Their voices took the place of any other sound that may have lingered from my screams, whispered into my ears, and the sound of drums got faster and louder as they ripped my mind open.

“We just want to play.”

They were inside of me now. I felt them rewriting me, rewiring me, twisting my insides and breaking my bones, but I ran. I screamed and screamed and ran and ran but I could not get away from the monsters inside me.

“Don’t run away,” the boy called after me.

They wouldn’t let me go.

“We’re coming for you,” his voice beamed throughout that dark, monster world, shouting over the drums, and he was nowhere, but everywhere at once. “We’ll find you.”

The monsters in the darkness were reaching for me, calling my name.

“Come play with us.”

According to the story, my parents rushed into my room in the middle of the night, beckoned by my shrill screams and sobs. My tears and screams stopped immediately after they flipped the light switch and the light illuminated my pink, Barbie infested bedroom, revealing me sitting up and clutching my pink and purple covers to my chest.

My mother rushed towards me, kneeling down next to my tiny bed to look me in my eyes, my father right beside her. “Lilly, darling, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” she questioned me, a frightened look in her pale blue eyes. She grabbed me gently by my shoulders, her eyes quickly scanning my body for any sign of harm.

“They’re coming for me,” I said simply, as I stared directly at the wall behind her, listening to the whispers in my head.

“Who is, Lilly?” my father asked.

“They just wanted to play,” I told them. “They told me they were coming.”

“We’re coming for you,” they whispered.

My mother held my face gently in her hands and forced me to look into her eyes. “Who did, honey?”

I looked directly behind her, at my parent’s shadows across the room as they started to dance across the wall.

“Don’t be afraid,” they whispered to me. “We just want to play.”

“The monsters,” I replied, pointing to the shadows, which shrunk back into themselves the moment my parents turned to see them. “They just wanted to play.” My parents shared a slightly confused, worried look. I continued, now stumbling over my words with my tears, “but they only play in the dark and I don’t want to play with them, they hurt me!”

“Come play with us.”

That’s when it all started.

xXxXx

At three years old, I was haunted. My parents who swore to protect me failed to keep me safe from the monsters that plagued my dreams.

But they were not only in my dreams. Their whispers haunted me even outside the dream world. They were right next to me, they always have been. They followed me and now hide in the shadows and strike when I’m not looking.

In the darkness, I was trapped, doomed.

I couldn’t let them get me.

The lights had to stay on.

All eighteen years of my life I've lived in fear. I'm frightened by shadows, petrified of dark rooms, so much so that I have to sleep with the lights on. But, little does humanity know, that it's not the dark that scares me.

It's what’s lurking inside it.

xXxXx

ABOUT NYCTOPHOBIA

Written sometime in September 2012, Nyctophobia is a short story I submitted into a contest on Figment. I am publishing it here in all of its unedited, unaltered glory, to humble myself ever-so slightly.

Wow, my writing skills have come a long way. It's crazy to look back at some of my early works that, at the time, I would've submitted for a Pulitzer Prize or something. I believed in it so fully... but it was so awful in comparison to where I am now.

But... I couldn't have gotten here without it.

So, here it is, for your viewing pleasure. Please be kind, and don't throw tomatoes.