Schizo

Part One

I was eighteen when it started.

Eighteen, and halfway through my first year at university.

Eighteen when she found me.

At first it wasn't so bad. I'd skip class here and there. Forget an assignment or two. Sleep a little less at night, never more than an hour or two at a time.

Never more than two.

Every once in a while, I'd say something strange, as if unable to filter the thoughts trickling through my mind. My friends would give an uncertain laugh, unsure of how to react before brushing it off.

He's just stressed, they'd say. He'll be fine. Just needs some rest.

Part of me believed that, too. I'd trick myself into thinking that if I could just get some more sleep, if I could just get a little reprieve, things would straighten out. I'd find that drive to go to class again. I'd actually want to see my friends. I'd stop feeling so off about everything.

Unbalanced. Off-kilter. Disrupted.

Disturbed.

It was all the same to me, just as the sudden unwritten rule of sleep was burned into my brain: never more than two. I didn't know where that came from. It didn't make sense, but it was there in my mind, as real as the fact that the sky is blue.

You may only sleep two hours.

Never more than two.

I felt that drive with every move I made. I was tired. So tired. Yet despite being exhausted, I couldn't sleep. Something in my mind didn't let me, holding me back from the rest I so desperately desired.

This went on for a while-a few weeks I supposed. It was a vicious cycle of my body craving sleep and my mind keeping me from it. No matter what I did, it stopped me. This silent urge had a hold of me, slowly dragging my life down with it.

It was a while before I actually heard it.

Don't you dare sleep.

Don't. Don't sleep.

The first time it happened, I shook my head violently and clamped my eyes shut, fighting off the very real voice in my head. I'd glanced around, expecting to see someone beside me, but there was no one. All I saw was the shocking state of my dorm room. Clothes and random objects were strewn everywhere, garbage and scraps of food thrown around as if a wild animal had been living there.

Don't sleep!

When the second voice started, I stopped eating. I didn't leave my room other than to use the toilet for a week. My body started it's desperate attempt to keep me alive, burning what little energy it could off my own body as I refused to eat. Every time I'd look at food, the voice would sound again, frightening me away from it.

Don't touch that food.

Stay awake, Harry.

No food!

No, no, no!

Still, even then, when I was forced into an exile of my own mind against what my body needed the most, it wasn't the worst it would get. At the time, it was terrifying. People don't hear voices in their heads, right? Voices that tell them what they can and cannot do?

Worse, people don't actually listen to them, right?

I knew this, but at the same time, all the control I had slipped between my fingers as soon as the two voices spoke. They were different, and very distinctive, forcible and terrifying in their own right. They were dark, demanding, petrifying, and I obeyed them.