Tenebrae intra me

Prologue

Over the Dim sky, the moon shined brightly to the floors of earth. The moonlight reflected on the waters, glass, and glossy metals-alike. It's 12:35 AM, almost all the houses within the vicinity have their lights closed-except for one.

‎A house-no, an apartment. Almost all the lights were turned off, except for one room within the apartment; a young man's room. He had his earphones on, listening to geeky music as he sat in a very uncomfortable position. In his face, a desk, where a sketchpad is placed surrounded by pencils, pens, and sn eraser. In this hour, here he was, sketching his heart out under the silent plea of the night, accompanied by the music crawling in his ears.

‎"Is this... It?" he said in a struggling voice. "Dammit. I can't get this right..." he grabbed his eraser in frustration, he rubbed it onto the paper to erase the lead off of it. Clearly, he was struggling; the sketch on the paper was about a certain anime character he had made by himself, a fragment of himself translated into an ideology that has now been depicted through art. And somehow, despite his time being an artist, he still struggles with drawing hands.

‎After a Painstaking 20 minutes, he stood up in frustration-because his creation never met his expected criteria inscribed within his head. He calmly closed the lights and went to bed, as if he's wary to not make any loud noises that will provoke his slumbering mother and little sister. He wrapped himself up in his blanket, staring at the ceiling, reminding himself on his own inadequacy in this pursued interest. After lots of overthinking, eventually, he fell victim to his exhaustion and slept like a baby.

‎However, things aren't always sun shines and rainbows. During his dream, he saw flashbacks of his own pasts. Fragments of what was, and the things he has done to others and himself. Images flash by; a crying baby, someone tearing up, police officers arresting someone, a computer showing pictures and videos of naked women, and the faces of his relatives and peers. However, that's not just the butter in his bread, multiple mixed voices came clashing to one another. It was tiring, but one stood out from the rest: a voice he recognizes, yet couldn't recall. "You are not enough", the voice whispers to his ears. It repeated itself over and over and over and over again, as if the goal of his dream was to demoralize him. In his mind, he was spiraling out of control.

After that mind-boggling situation, the scene shifted drastically to himself, standing on the edge of something. Below is just the void of nothingness, a ground with nothing but absence. The wind hit him perfectly, as if he felt he was truly needed here. Soon enough, he stepped off the edge, letting himself be pulled down by gravity-it was then he realized; the void is in fact, not a void, but a solid ground. He was falling, fast, he was terrified, he screamed for help. Seconds pass by, and little by little, he gets closer to the ground, his head was aiming first but then- *Riinnngggg* *Riinnngggg* *Ringgggg*

‎

‎His eyes opened desperately. It is now 7:30 am. He turned off his phone's alarm, and sat up on his bed. He held his head as if it was heavy, as his breathing calmed down. "... Fucking hell. " he whispered to himself, as he stood up from his bed, running his morning routine in auto pilot, dismissing the dream earlier as nothing but a nightmare.