User:Danilovesthatpasta

Fear

Fear. What is fear. Fear is normally depicted as a strong emotion that humans and animals experience in the event that said entity is threatened, like being in the face of danger. But I've never heard anyone tell me what it's like to experience fear. Actual, raw fear.

The closest anyone has every gotten to telling me is the sensation of being drowned, metaphorically speaking. You feel as if there is no escape, you can't come up for air. And even then, that's not fear. That's a feeling of drowning; when your lungs are being filled with water and your body losses consciousness due to lack of oxygen, often dying because of this.

While fear may be involved in drowning, drowning is not fear. And fear is not drowning. Both can be connected, but not actually synonymous.

But maybe that is the only thing you could do. With human emotions, it can be very complicated to explain something like love or happiness, as everyone defines these differently. Maybe being told what it's like to drown is the only thing I will ever know is connected to fear with metaphors.

So maybe I will try to explain fear myself. I will do my best to include several different scenarios, but forgive me if you don't see a connection. I am not an experienced writer.

Fear is much more than being scared. Fear is not feeling jumpy after watching a horror movie. Fear is not screaming when your friend scares you for fun. Fear is feeling anxious alone. Fear is much different. Fear is much more powerful.

Of course, there are many scenes where fear would be evident.

Let's say you wake up in your house, inhaling dry black smoke and coughing as you open your eyes. It's obvious that there is a fire, and it's burning big and fast. You feel your eyes sting from the smoke, and try to find a way out. The fir has made it's way into your room, and you've gotten slight burns from the heat.

You try to open your window. The only thing that happens is that you burn your hands. As you cry out in pain, you look around trying to find another way out. There's a wall of flames by the door, and any hopes to smother the flames is lost, as all your blankets and anything is already turning to ash as you sit there.

You decide you have to try the window again, and continue coughing and tearing up as the flames near you. Pushing against your window again and crying out from the glass touching you, you try in desperation to open it again. But it won't budge.

Your head is clouded with panic, and air is becoming hard to find, so you try to break the glass with your hands. You're successful in your attempts, but now your hands are even more injured and glass shards have fallen around you. The holes in the glass aren't big enough to fit through, so the only option is continue breaking the glass.

You try to break away crystals that still haven't fallen, and you can feel the fire behind you. Your hands are bleeding nonstop, and your vision is blurred from crying, your voice broken from screaming. You know you still have a chance, and you gladly take it.

But you don't have enough strength. You don't have enough air, and the pain for the cuts and burns is unbearable. It's pointless to fight on for your life, so why do you try?

That is the closest to fear I can describe. Fear is the knowledge that you are in danger; of harm to your body or you life. Fear is trying to save yourself, despite the odds against your survival. Fear is the will to go on in the face of death. That's what fear is.