This was the time of day she dreaded the most; after light's out, after she set her phone aside for the night. She wouldn't be getting to sleep any time soon, it'd take at least an hour and a half for that, but she was used to it by now.
How many years had it been? Probably not that long. It had only been recently that she'd started using that coping mechanism to deal with unwanted traits. But the voices never stopped.
"Okay you gotta get to sleep, you and Sora need to watch last night's thing remember? No, you idiot we already watched that, it was that episode with the contract. Bet you that Retinz guy's the killer. Shut up you idiot. You shut up I never asked you."
She couldn't actually hear them, she wasn't having auditory hallucinations, but her brain was wired in such a way that she was compelled to voice every thought when she was alone. Her mind was so loud she couldn't make sense of her thoughts otherwise.
Her coping mechanism wasn't very healthy either. It had seemed like a great idea at first; give her traits and emotions faces so she could actually fight them when they got out of hand, but as a result, those self-same characters became bound to her soul. She felt their pain and they messed with her. Some weren't so bad; the face of her resolve and level-headedness for instance, he was always the voice of reason. But it was the less than favourable traits that caused trouble.
The messy-haired, coal-eyed face of bloodlust.
The digital face and cold eyes of manipulation.
The elven face of suspicion and fear of attachment.
These faces were the worst. While Bloodlust and Manipulation had all but faded, their whispers still bothered her sometimes.
"You still need a scene for tomorrow's spooptober entry y'know. Yes I know I'm thinking. Why're you thinking you should be asleep. I KNOW SHUT UP!!"
Her mind was too full, too loud. It was either full of ideas screaming to be written or completely silent and she didn't know what was worse.
And the new arrival of the day hadn't helped, she thought it was over, she'd hoped it was over.
But it was back.
It was anxiety in video game form and she couldn't take it anymore.
Sometimes she just wanted everything to stop.