Untitled "Short" Story Collection

Two

Darkness, that's all I can see when I wake up. I don't know if my eyes are open or not. There is a metallic tang in the air- the scent causes bile to rise in my throat.

I feel around, trying to ascertain some idea of my surroundings in the pitch black. A rough, hard barrier beside me, behind me. A metal frame beneath me. 

Wall. Bed. My mind sluggishly supplies the words.

I try to think, it's like swimming through mud- slow and virtually impossible. I convince myself the scent is the bedframe- despite the protests my body makes to the contrary- and move on, I have no time to dwell on such notions.

The frame squeaks as I manoeuvre around to lean against one of my walls. A shiver wanders down my spine from where it touches the wall, my body responds with a rapid twitch.

I reach up to my face, intending to check that my eyes are open, my hands find cloth. I rip it off.

I blink in the dim, blinding light as my eyes adjust, wincing and squeezing the rag-turned blindfold in my hand. Little has changed. At least now I can see the outlines of certain objects in the room, not that I would know their names- I barely remembered bed.

The odour seems more pungent now, I still choose to believe its origin is the rust of the bedframe, or even the door. Half-recollected memories tell me otherwise, along with various flares of pain- but I ignore them, and stuff them all down again. 

I vaguely recall the last instance of waking up, when I entertained the flowery notion that this was all some strange- albeit terrifying- nightmare. Foolish. I should have known.
I had berated myself, I remembered, when they had arrived to escort- read, drag- me to the other room for my daily punishments.

This is no horrifying dream. I know that for certain. I know that because dreamers always wake up. Dreamers wake up to find that they have none of the scars they thought they did. Dreamers wake in a warm, well-lit room, surrounded by people they can trust; not a cold, dim cell, alone.

No, this is not a dream, this is the truth. This is reality, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. And I try, but it is useless. Every. Single. Time.

The shadows leer at me, to think I once found them soothing. They seem to thicken, but perhaps instead I am simply over-exhausted, and on the verge of blacking out. It would be far more welcome than my present existence. It's funny, we seem to have an instinctive fear of it, this absence of light. But we have never understood its true purpose, it hides the true monsters so that we may go on with our lives, it warns us so that we escape before such creatures arrive. Only a handful of us ever progress past this naïve belief that the shadows are what we fear, and when we do- we wish we could return to blissful ignorance.
But what is done is done, and you can never go back.

The dimness deepens- and I sense that it is not a trick of the light- or lack thereof. 

It collects, and coalesces into a figure. I shake my head, this can't be real. The shade reaches forward. I freeze, the sound of approaching footsteps turning my blood to ice, it can't be that time already. I wave my hand at it, shaking my head again, it isn't real, I tell myself, yet I still don't want it to be caught. 

Sensing my urgency, it surges towards me. Tendrils of the umbra wrap around me, the door clicks as the mechanism turns and unlocks, just as we plunge into the void. I screw my eyes shut.

When we arrive at our destination, I find myself wrapped in a secure, protective embrace. I want to weep. I want to sob. I don't do either, yet tears still squeeze from their ducts, tears still race down my cheeks in some mad fight to reach the ground. I don't open my eyes, too afraid that I'll wake in that dark tomb, alone and hopeless, again. Something grounds me, and the dam breaks. 

The tears pour like rivers, each stream diverting into many channels like a delta. The arms, once protective are now consoling, and restraining as my body convulses with sobs and hiccoughs. I still don't open my eyes- I won't risk that this is some fantasy.

AN: Huge shoutout and thank you to my amazing beta fuzzyellie! Who stayed up to help me start this even though she was exhausted, thank you so much dude! I really appreciate it!

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