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Dread envelops your chest.
In a state of sheer panic, you seek out anything or anyone that can help you, desperately trying to see through those round holes. When you hear someone whistling in the distance, false hope has you believing that they’re your lifeline.
It’s fleeting.
No matter how much you scream, cry, and beg for them to help they suddenly go silent. They know their incapable of rescuing this person calling out to them, so they turn a deaf ear to your pleas. Water is up to your knees now, and you know. You know you’re going under and there’s no one coming to save you.
You’re going to drown.
Deep underwater where it’s cold and dark you’ll be all alone as you run out of oxygen. You’re acutely aware of everything happening. You know in just a few minutes your lungs will begin to ache and burn, desperate for air. It will be a quiet death, but that only makes the situation even more petrifying.
Suffering in silence.
It's a hellish nightmare you want to wake from but can’t. You’ve been wide awake the entire time.
The evolution of insanity, this is how I perceived it to be. It was agonizing and lonely. There wasn’t anyone reaching an understanding hand out to help because no one could ever understand the chaos wreaking havoc on you from the inside out. They left you to stand in the rubble of a ruined mind all by yourself.
Lyssophobia.
That’s what my mother self-diagnosed me with. It wasn’t from a place of love or concern, but frustration during one of our weekly disagreements. More of her trying to force me into a situation I wasn’t comfortable with. She did that quite a bit.
I’d looked this phobia up after the fourth time she proclaimed that I suffered from it.
This lyssophobia was an intense terror of becoming mad, insane or having a nervous breakdown. I’m sure my mother came about this by stringing all the adjectives she felt described me into one search engine. She conveniently left out that it was also a fear of rabies.
It was these kinds of moments that convinced me my mother was ashamed of who I was. I’d seen so many doctors at her urging before refusing to step foot into any more sterile waiting rooms just so that I could be picked apart by another stranger. I didn’t want to keep popping different serotonin inhibitors into my mouth.
They couldn’t solve all the issues I had. No drug would. That’s how I knew—why I had a valid fear of going insane. I was a prime candidate for the affliction.
I lay staring at the wall of an unfamiliar room, knowing I was dangerously close to that very precipice. The one that would see me plummeting towards an extremity that had no return. I was scared—terrified of what it would feel like to hit rock bottom.
Who would I become when everything that made me sane was stripped away? I breathed in deeply, inhaling citrus and spice instead of the sea scent I longed for.
Naked and half-buried beneath a plush dark-colored duvet, rays of sunlight warmed every exposed part of me that could be reached through the sheer canopy cocooning the large bed. It was this small, trivial thing that reminded me of my cozy little house.
I never thought I’d miss it so much.
My life was drastically different before I took that call after midnight. There wasn’t anything remarkable or enviable about it.
Things were…bleak. Grey and extraordinarily ordinary. There was little to no excitement.
I spent almost every waking hour with a furry rodent or Chloe when she had time to spare. I would trade this ominous silence for all of that back in a heartbeat. I rolled my lips and swallowed, trying to cure my mouth of its heavy cottoned dry spell. I had no recollection of how I wound up like this.
I didn’t remember taking my clothes off or climbing the stairs, much less getting into this bed.
Had I drunk another glass of Alaric’s special poison? An experimental cocktail, that’s what he had called it. I had no idea how long he’d been giving this to me or why. The night before was mostly a blur but two distinct moments stood out against the backdrop of darkness.
Alaric taking full possession of my body and me playing the piano. I’d done as he asked and given him a private performance.
The hauntingly beautiful melody he asked me to play was still resounding in my head, trapping distress in my troubled heart. I flexed my fingers and toes to try and get a feel for how my body felt. There was a lingering soreness between my thighs, but otherwise, I felt fine—physically. Pain or not, I had to get up and sort this situation out.
I needed to gather the fragments of memory swirling through my head—bring back even a little of the clarity that was missing.
