All that is dark | ✓

4| hallucinations

WHEN SHE OPENED HER eyes, she was lying in bed. Her hand shot up to her tongue, but her fingers were clean of blood and there was no injury to be found. She got out of bed so quickly that she fell, but she didn't pay her aching knees any mind as she desperately searched for any sign of her breakdown yesterday. Why couldn't she find any stains, any proof? Had she hallucinated it all? She couldn't have, not with how real it felt. The sharp pain still was shooting through her, even now, even when she could speak and her tongue was whole.

"Am I going crazy?" she whispered, the words forming too well for her to have been wounded.

She dazedly grazed a hand past her hair, but could feel it had become thinner. At least she hadn't hallucinated someone pulling her hair out, though she wasn't sure which one of her parents it had been anymore. Her heart was beating so loudly it felt like her ribs would shatter, an immense fear consuming her as she placed her hands down on the carpet, but was unable to feel anything. Was this even real? What if she was just back home and had dreamed this all?

It couldn't have been. She jumped up, reaching out to grab the bars in front of the window, but only touching glass instead. There weren't any roses outside, she thought numbly. Where had they gone? Her hands slammed against the window again, more desperate this time. They had been there before, she was sure of it. Two hundred and — Wait, how many had there been? She had counted them over and over, there was no way she could have forgotten. If they had really existed, that was. The sight of them was seared in her brain, but not only her sight seemed to be failing her lately. Her head was filled with mist as she numbly turned around towards the door, her body not feeling like hers anymore.

There was no time for her to have a breakdown right now. First, she had to do her job, if she still had one. She didn't know from what point she had spiraled downwards into what had probably been her third medication-induced psychosis in these last five years, but all she could do was pick herself up again. Though she had gotten off the pills her mother had given her, it was hard not to take some to reduce her anxiety at times, or some to make her perform better, or to treat her insomnia — It didn't matter. All that did was that she clearly had gotten the measurements wrong again for how much she could take a day, even though she had been sure she had perfected it.

Her hand was still resting on the doorknob and she wasn't sure what outcome she was hoping for as she gathered the courage to open it. Did she want to be home or did she want this all to have been real, only so she wouldn't truly have to acknowledge that she had been losing control over herself for a while now? She breathed in, closing her eyes as she turned it, slowly.

With a click, it opened. Her eyes snapped open, wide in surprise as she looked at the dark hallway in front of her. For a moment, the complete lack of sound somehow made it feel eery, but when she switched on the light she knew she was really back home. Her heart slowed down again as she descended from her stairway, the creaking of the third step so familiar she knew this couldn't be fake.

O my God, she really was losing it. Everything had felt so real, the kidnapping, the solitude, but as she looked through the window of her living room and saw her street shrouded in a peaceful quiet instead of blooming with red roses, she could feel those memories fading. She had to do damage control, find out what she had done. Should she call Dante first? Before she could even make the decision her phone rang, gaze flicking towards where it was lying on the table. Thankfully she had at least placed it somewhere safe. She wouldn't have put it past herself if she had thrown it against a wall and broken it in one of her delusions.

With a sigh she sat down, placing it against her ear as she looked at her ceiling.

"Hello, this is Helene," she said softly.