Not Alone

Sometimes...I have this dream. Now I don't know what it says about me as a person, or whatever state my subconscious might be in, but the one thing I do know is that the fear and the pain are real.

I've been having this same dream for maybe a month now, every single night. It's terrorizing me. Every night's sleep is interrupted at about three in the morning when I gasp myself awake in a puddle of my own sweat and tears. I clutch my pillow and my blankets like they're my only hope, but nothing brings me any comfort. I lay awake for the rest of the night just trying to process it, and I tremble as I recall the dream. Maybe someone can tell me what is going on? What's happening to me...?

It always starts out the same: I rock back and forth by myself in a blindingly white room. I realize that I am naked, and that only intensiﬁes my rocking. I feel hopeless, defenseless and helpless, and I don't even know why. A sense of impending dread ﬁlls my veins, and I feel a sort of heaviness envelop me. I can see myself as if I am observing another person, but even though my eyes cannot see what he sees, I know it is me in that room. I feel what he feels.

My eyes are closed so tightly that I fear- or hope, rather -that I might destroy my eyeballs. That I might not have to see what is coming up toward me. But nothing ever does. Nothing ever comes. Nobody ever comes. It is just me. Alone. Watching myself, feeling myself, go through this excruciating torment. Maybe I just don't want to realize that nobody is coming. Maybe I'm not terriﬁed of someone being there, maybe I'm dreading the absence of a person. Maybe I'm dreading my loneliness.

But this rocking doesn't go on for long, and as the dread bogs me down, I feel itchy. It starts with my ﬁngers, then spreads rapidly across my body. I stop rocking and scratch at my hands, my feet, my legs, my arms. My nails dig into my own ﬂesh, but I still refuse to open my eyes. I scratch and rend and claw, but the itching only intensiﬁes. Soon it spreads to my face, and I rake my nails quickly across it again and again. The pain increases, the itching increases, my dread increases alongside. I begin to twitch, to ﬂail, and to grind my body against the white walls and the luminescent ﬂoor. I appear to be having some kind of electric seizure, though no outside stimulus was evident. My view displays nothing and nobody but myself, the writhing, panicking, sightless mess. I am the only one there; I am the one doing this to myself.

Just as I realize this, the clawing of my face reaches a fever pitch; I watch myself grab hold of my own eyelids and tear them off with some kind of demoniac strength; I let out a blood-curdling, shrill scream and come running toward my observing self. My body wriggles around in front of my eyes, covered in red marks and scratches. My body looks me in the eye, its eyes bleeding red; it bears its teeth at me with such a look of terror upon its face as I never could have thought possible, it screams.

"WhY!? WhY dID You LeaVe mE AlOnE?!"

My vision goes red, and as I open my eyes, I am ﬂoating. Over a city. A city full of light and people and activity. I am inside my body, but I don't feel the pain any more. I feel almost happy, thought the dread is still there in the back of my mind. I breathe a long, slow breath.

People. Companionship. I'm not alone any more. I call to them, I greet those cheerful people walking down the street, in their homes, in their ofﬁces. But they can't hear me. I'm ﬂoating in the sky, yelling to them, pleading for some recognition. But none comes. People continue on their merry ways. Without me. Leaving me alone.

I can't take it any longer. My breathing intensiﬁes, grows contemptuous. How DARE they not recognize me. How DARE they ignore me. I can't take it, I can't take it, I can't take- NOTICE ME! Don't leave me! I scream at them, but they are ignoring me. They are ignorant. They don't want to notice me. They don't want to help. They're all selﬁsh, they all only care for themselves! They want to leave me, but I won't let them. By some miracle, they are all torn from the ground and shoot up in the air to be with me. Now they come- when they're forced! They need to be punished. I swing my arm, and a man is rent in two; I kick my foot, a woman's head ﬂies off; I pound my ﬁsts in the air as an infant, a little girl's head is smashed open. I ﬁnally have some control. And I like it.

Before long, they are all nothing more than motionless, emotionless gore ﬂoating in the sky. The city is desolate, the sky above red as hatred. I begin to sob, not out of pity for the lives I have just eradicated, but out of remorse. They weren't the ones who left me alone. I was the one who caused myself to be alone. I was not the only one who was hurting, but I was the sole persecutor. The carnage begins to swirl around me, and I start to cry. I open my arms to embrace the swirling cloud of entrails and blood, crying out:

"NoW You'Ll bE WiTh mE forEveR...Now I won'T BE AlonE...anYmOre."

But the words are empty. I am alone, and I know it. I caused it. I am smacked down from the sky and reawaken in that white room. I can't move my arms, and I can't move my legs. They are bound by some kind of canvas jacket. I cry out, but nobody can hear me. I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be alone, I don't want...

tobealonewith...

myself.

Because I am my own worst enemy. I drive everyone away, even though I can't stand to be away. I hurt those I love, and I hurt myself. If I were to end it all right now...It might be labeled suicide...but I have not a doubt in my mind that it would be anything less than murder. I realize that I am not alone. I realize that it just wants to make me believe I am. In my own body...I am not alone.