My eyelids shut themselves open with the subtlety of an old garage door. My first sight this instant is the ceiling, bleached of its colors by the darkness. I escaped dreamland as my mind was alerted by a rapid shift in temperature. My feet are icy. Which… can’t make sense… because… uh…
Thinking hurts when you’ve just woke up. My neck, hurt from my marble pillow, swivels to the right to orient my head to the alarm clock, at just the right angle for my tired eyes to calibrate.
2:34 AM.
I don’t need trouble this week.
My head dives to the source of my inconvenience. My bust follows, and I scan my surroundings in this blackened reality. The room in front of my bed frame is the way it was when I got in and crashed: the front door in the right corner, my desk with some office supplies and my laptop placed at just the right length away from its mechanics, and my clothes stacked on themselves with haste, of course.
My feet are sheltered from the air changes by my blanket, yet the effects of the cold are still present on them. The fabric insulation must have ruptured or something because it’s fucking impossible for them to be that icy. We’re in the middle of June, so what is happening outside? I never felt such a rigorous cold before at that body part.
I am now shifted to the closet doors on my left. My mind and body acted on their own. I am almost drawn to it. Excitement? Anticipation?… Fear?…
No, though, I’m standing here, waiting at that door. The word to describe my newfound energy to the closet door slips me, but it provides a sense of déjà-vu when I wasn’t… This grown up.
The cold is killing me. My instincts tell me to find the source of this. However, my sudden long yawn reminds me that I must lie back to sleep. I crash down again and wrap the blanket tighter around me, but not too high to not let my feet without protection, as effective as it is anyway.
As I attempt to regain dreamland, my mind decides it is time to investigate the sensation I felt when I looked at my closet doors. It was something I hadn’t felt in a long time. And yet, its power is felt as if it happened yesterday. My feet are cold.
I remember being afraid of the dark as a child. I mean, who doesn’t? That’s a quintessential part of your growth towards adulthood. I used to make a fit over some imaginary creature under my bed, my closet, and all the crevices of my bedroom. Some gray abomination sneaks to its prey while no soul believes what he has to say.
My parents were always there to check these places, which made me feel better. I now know it was to appease my childhood whims. But, whenever their search was over and the lights were off, I still had a tiny gut feeling telling me otherwise. It was just imagination at that time. I recognize it now. But sometimes… I wonder if I imagined it right.
My feet are still cold.
I never really left out the possibility that I wasn’t lying when I cried wolf. The idea of some deformed, eyeless, hungry monstrosity crawling to my helpless, weak human body to yank me away, or worse. I know that things like that aren’t possible now. I have much bigger problems. Effectively, I have reasons to prove it. All of my peers do in the present. But, even with all of my wisdom, I am still afraid of what might come from the dark.
The temperature drop is too much for me to take. It is disrupting my meditation. I need to do something about the popsicles stuck to my forelegs. As I jolt back up to investigate, I’m finding myself drawn to the doors again. The eluding, dampened, half-opened door leading to some indescribable fate. While I remember the content it hides, my imagination drifts to some terrible beings hiding in it. Like, it hadn’t changed since childhood.
As soon as I realized the absurdity of this train of thought, I shifted my attention to the end of the room. My furniture now seems even more shrouded in shadow. I can’t make out the front door, and half of my desk seems blackened by the night. It’s taken me a long time to realize that this is impossible. I’m not fully awake, but I can still tell that this is not how shadows work. The smallest sliver of light coming from the window is shining on the right wall, so it should be reflected near the front door, the desk, and the right side of my bed. But the shadow makes the refraction unnatural. Or rather, not even there.
It is at this moment that my ears pick up the faintest sound of plastic. Despite its triviality, I knew what and where to look for it. My laptop, which had been sitting straight on my desk, began to tilt to the right. It turned a little more to the edge and I lay down again, paralyzed by my last sight.
The last thing I saw was the piece of technology slipping off the desk and plunging into the darkness. Even if I denied it, the lack of sound signaling the object’s instantaneous fall to the floor made me picture the truth in my mind.
This isn’t just a shadow, it’s a hungry, expanding hole coming for me. I can’t escape the room now. I’m helpless against it. I have closed my eyelids like a bunker. My heart is unable to regulate my breathing, just as I’m unable to cope with my impending fate.
All this time growing up, everyone is afraid of what is coming for them in the lifeless compartments of the bedroom. Monsters and creatures of all shapes and sizes come over to take our lives, we never imagine that we might have to worry about existence ending at our doorstep. We never consider the value of life until it comes to a halt.
I stare back at the ceiling, unable to hide my fear to appease my curiosity. The darkness takes over my vision. Its smoke tendrils are twisting maliciously as it penetrates the construct. My feet are numb from the unbearable cold. The feeling of dulled senses creeps from my legs to my torso. The temperature was beyond unlivable, though it felt like I was being punished for being the only spectator of its effects.
The darkness traps me in the dimensions of my room. As it grows closer and closer to my position, I begin to feel absolutely nothing from my hands. The cold has made its way to my neck, blocking all signals from my limbs. The turn came to my head. My facial expressions no longer responded to the commands of my brain. Before it happened, I was able to cast my eyes down the room one last time.
There is nothing here anymore. My world has been taken away by the black void that has consumed my surroundings. I am paralyzed, helpless to help myself out of this predicament. Not that it would matter. There is nowhere I could go, even if I moved.
Suddenly, something that should have relieved me puts me back into paralysis. I can feel my right foot again, but it can’t stand still. The darkness begins to take over my bed. Soon I will also fall over.
So there I am, with neither mobility nor escape, just waiting to be devoured by the void. I will be surrounded by eternal silence, falling endlessly. No one will be there to calm me down.