It's nothing.

.

Authors note:

This is literally just a vent with empires stuck onto it.

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Shelby likes the nighttime, she loves the moon and the stars and faint chirp of crickets that she says bother her when in reality she wouldn't know how to live without. She loves the breeze and the dim light that makes the muddy river just a little more beautiful.

That being said, Shelby doesn't like the dark.

She doesn't like the feeling of the world putting a blindfold on everything. Of hiding itself and everything that lives within it. She doesn't like the feeling of not being able to see everything all the time all at once. She feels vulnerable.

She doesn't like the way she can't the source of every noise. That anything could be able to shroud itself within the night and she could be none the wiser.

She doesn't like the feeling of something that is always watching, unrelenting eyes that she knows aren't there but still can't seem to shake from her mind. Judging her every move, just waiting for her to slip up.

Shelby likes the Evermoore.

She likes the way the trees shimmer in the morning sun, how they provide shade on days when the heat is unrelenting. How their sturdy branches and leaves cover over the ground protectively, leaving it free of mud.

Sure, there's some sort of delinquent running around. And the fog is a little bit uncooperative in trying to make the Mangrove feel like a place that people from anywhere in the world could call a home. But it can be worked out with a little bit of magic, surely so.

Shelby doesn't like the loneliness of it all.

She hates the thought of people watching her, but she can't stand them turning away.

She doesn't like to be alone at all. It only brings silence, it only brings empty space. Space filled with the thoughts that flood into her mind all at once. The bad ones pushed to the front each time, the ones she knows deep down aren't true yet she can't help but believe them.

She doesn't allowing the world to fill in those blanks. With a thud or a crash that she can't help but let linger in her mind for a little too long. Thinking of each and every possibility of what the source of the noise could've possibly been.

She tells herself its nothing, she knows it's nothing. She wishes that would make it a little bit easier when it happens. She wishes that just knowing nothing was wrong would fix everything, that she could suddenly will herself to not be afraid anymore.

She wishes her mind would work normally and she wouldn't have to stare at the front door, believing that the very second she stepped outside something would happen, something would hurt her. Something would hurt her friends.

She wishes she wasn't up late into the night in fear that if she went asleep, she somehow, would not wake up again. She doesn't like the way the steadily growing eyebags are growing to be dark as the night.

Sleep itself felt like a risk. An unopened door, something to not be trusted. Her dreams were very rarely plagued with nightmares, but the thought itself of being so vulnerable, so weak. It was enough to deter even thinking of it.

She wishes words were enough to break down her mind. Enough to calm the whirlwind that came when she wasn't with another, when the sun didn't beat down over her head. She wishes knowing the truth was enough to make her think it was real. 

She wishes everything was a little simpler. She wishes every moment of her life wasn't constantly thinking that it may be her last. She wishes words dug a little deeper then they did.