Flash Fiction - Night Creeper

Based on my actual experiences with anxiety

I am alone again, but I fear it will not be for long.

In the daylight hours, things are as they should be, save for the occasional intrusive thought running through my brain like a stray tumbleweed. As night falls and the inner gloom settles in, that is when those thoughts stick and begin to grow.

Every night spent alone becomes a personal war against demons. They don’t want to escape, as they are perfectly at home in my head, whispering messages that fray my nerves like a mountaineer’s worn ropes. I am close to freefall, and I know the demons would love nothing more than to see me land on hard-packed earth, my guts spilling out for all to see.

I kill time by reading or watching mindless YouTube clips, putting off the moment when sleep will take over. My eyelids betray me, wilting like spring flowers at first frost. They will eventually close, and the voices will begin.

Snippets of sound and broken conversations will arrive, like some spirit box set to eternal scan. I can never tell if it’s a late-night DJ or the voices of tortured souls crying out for help, but I hear them all. On a good night, those voices will slip away, allowing peaceful sleep. But then there are the bad nights.

Oh, the bad nights.

I awake, soaked in sweat and reaching for my love, only to discover an empty space by my side, the sheets there as cold as the long dead. It is then when I feel the touch of the thing with too many arms. I can almost see it moving in the shadows. I tell myself it is shapes made from normal things caught in the glow of the outside lights, but nothing in my room looks like the silhouette on the wall. Nothing has that many limbs, or a head that is swollen and filled with eyes.

The sweat comes faster, my body a sticky swamp where nasty things lurk just below the surface. The demons in my head call to them, encouraging them to move. They willingly oblige, turning my stomach into a series of knots that can never be untangled, a mobius strip of terror where those infernal monsters march as one.

These are the moments where I welcome death but the part of me that rages against all of it calls out meekly, like a child lost in the woods. I need to protect that little one at all costs, and so I fight. My slow breaths placate the things in my belly, which in turn upsets the demons, who flee to prepare for the next assault. The thing with too many arms reaches out for one more caress, sending a chill through my body that cools the sweat and sends it into the air like smoke through a chimney.

The moments of calm that follow are where I find comfort. It is temporary, though. I know it is. This is a war that will rage until my last breath. Whether I find comfort then is not guaranteed. Perhaps my passing will simply open the door to some fresh new Hell.