Darkness' Mind

You open your eyes to pure darkness. You see not any bits or pieces of yourself; you see not your surroundings. It is too dark to know anything, even what you are wearing beyond the general facts your senses other than sight may tell you. The floor is as cold as you could ever imagine, perhaps so much that it burns, just as the air holds an unsettling chill. It seems as if you are alone, through the information you can gather of your surroundings. You hear no other person’s breathing, you hear no footsteps, only yourself. The air is seasoned with the faint scent of old coins, a mix of salt and rust, mayhaps like iron.

Left without sight to rely on, and the musty scent too similar to the liquid that runs through your body for your comfort, you attempt to rely primarily on your ears. You listen closely to your surroundings, as closely as you can. You pick up on a very low, almost unrecognizable and inaudible sound. It’s so far away that you can just barely hear it, let alone recognize what it is. It sounds as if it’s coming from something such as a television, or some sort of music—depends, really.

You attempt to stand, to go to the sound, but something inside of you, something similar to, but not quite, a combination of fear and dread, tells you to stop. To stay seated on the floor like a shivering, helpless little kitten out in the rain. You try your hardest to act on your urge to go to wherever the sound was coming from, but your body denies you this. It feels as if you are being held to the ground by thin, bony hands with fingers that are equipped with long, sharp fingernails. You attempt to touch them, but you feel only cold air and your own being.

The feeling of being watched creeps up on you, crawling up your back and spreading throughout your body, tingling within your spine and onto your other bones. It is almost too overbearing to ignore, too certain. You look behind you, but as always, there is nothing but pitch-black darkness. There are no footsteps, there is no breathing. How could someone be there, watching you, staring at you so intently that you cannot even hear them move the tiniest bit or take the smallest breath? It was near impossible.

But the feeling.

The feeling was so certain. So very, very certain. So certain that you close your eyes so tightly that you can only open them wide and stare. So certain that you begin to hear the faintest of many voices whispering in your ears, indecipherable languages and inaudible sentences, chilly breath upon your clammy skin. The hairs on your neck stand up and you feel a shiver uncontrollably run up your spine. After that, comes the laughter.

The quiet laughter that haunts you within every voice whispering, the taunting, knowing sound of laughter upon your ear, breathing on it so lightly, breaths so subtle that you cannot ignore it. The darkness surrounds you, pressing against your body, and you attempt to move, but a deep guilt burrowed in your stomach for a reason that you cannot recognize and the unshakable feeling of being held down keep you from doing so. Your throat feels dry, but you attempt to scream. You hear nothing escape your mouth, not even a breath. All you can hear are the whispers, the laughter, and your own heartbeat.

Suddenly, all senses seemingly shut off. You see nothing but the darkness. You hear nothing but your shallow heartbeat. You smell nothing. You feel nothing but the ghostly hands withdrawing themselves away from your body, the feeling of being watched tingling through your bones and the inability to move. Somehow, you are thankful for this. You cannot hear or feel the sources of your fear as much as you could anymore, after all.

But the feeling of being watched remains. You know you are being watched. It’s an obvious fact, unshakable and undeniable, lurking in your very being. You cannot ignore it, you cannot forget it. Your heart is racing as if you had begun watching a suspenseful horror movie, your body is trembling as if you had just completed an anxiety attack and, out of shear fear and panic, were trembling. But you shan’t look behind you. You can’t. You just remain there wondering when whatever is watching you will show itself or finally end your life, hopefully without much fear or pain. But you’re a human.

And curiosity is human nature.

You look behind you to see the very thing your racing heart and subconscious mind would expect from the room of such deep fear, but not what your conscious mind would, clinging to such pathetic hope.

One night in the future, near or far, you will prepare yourself for a good night’s sleep. You carry on with your pre-sleep schedule like normal, although something feels off. It’s a very minute detail, something you can’t put your finger on, so you go on without fear. As you lay down to rest that night, you attempt to put the unsettling away and turn something on, perhaps a computer, a television, a CD player, anything to provide you with noise, a little bit of light, or both, as you drift off to sleep. But you shan’t wake up from your dream this time.