The Dark

The Dark (Full Short Story)

The Dark

I am afraid of the dark. Not what lies within it, not the fear of not knowing what is in it, but the dark itself.

I am... well my name doesn't really matter. All you need to know is that I'm a 13 year old girl and I'm afraid of the dark. If you're watching me right now, you can probably tell I'm about 5'2" and wearing my black dress with crimson roses. Not red, but crimson. As you probably already know, I'm sitting in the corner of my room with all the lights off I'm trying something called exposure therapy. That's when they put you in an environment you hate and call it therapy. Kind of like school, except school isn't therapy.

Anyways, I'm sitting in my dark bedroom being almost soothed by the fear that envelops me. Fear is kind of like my drug, except that I don't do drugs. It gives me a rush. It's not like the "I'm watching a scary movie" fear or the "eek spider" fear because I like spiders. It's the "someone has a knife at my throat" kind of fear or the "I'm literally running for my life" fear. Which I don't think has happened to me but for some reason I can't remember. Not that I can remember things because I'm really bad at remembering. But Miss Ashley says its not my fault.

I love Miss Ashley. She always makes me happy and she always makes me cookies, only the good ones though. It's weird, when she brings me the cookies she always looks sad. Then I get suicidal a little while later. I used to think it was because she was sad, but one time, Miss Ashley got sick and Miss Mia came and gave me the good cookies. She looked happy but then I felt suicidal so I'm not sure anymore.

The reason I'm writing this by the way is because Mister Morris wants to hear my thoughts like I do, how they yell at me. I don't like Mister Morris. I have no reason not to its just... I don't know, something about him bothers me. It's like, he's keeping secrets from me. But that can't be it because there's no secrets at school. Don't tell Mister Morris but I have a secret. My secret is that I'm afraid of the dark.

Darkness is an omen, the omen of death. I guess I kind of fear death too. But I love blood! Blood is the essence of life. A lot of things that are living have blood like me, Mister Morris... I think that's why Mister Morris doesn't like me. I got mad at him one time because he was yelling at me and hitting me so I bit him, really hard. He started to bleed, that's how I know he's alive. Sometimes I wish he wasn't.

Mister Morris makes me watch all kinds of scary things. Well not scary but disturbing. There will be white words going across the black screen and then different words being spoken in my ears through the headphones. Every once in a while a weird picture will come across the screen. It makes me want to run and scream but I can't. It's mesmerizing in a terrible way. He says it will make the voices in my head go away; but I'm not sure I want them to. I've grown accustomed to them. Even though they're mean, it's almost comforting to hear them yell what I think are obscene things at me. They say mostly words I don't know or understand or things that I dont even know if they are words at all. Even though I have all these voices that talk to me I have a sense of loneliness.

I'm not allowed to see the other kids at school. Miss Ashley says I'm too special for them but I think she's lying. I think they other kids would be scared of me, just like Nurse Sarah.

I Like Nurse Sarah but she doesn't like me. Sometimes when I yell at the voices to stop she gives me a look, a look of fear. I go to see Nurse Sarah every day. First she takes some of my blood, that's my favorite part. I like seeing the blood drain from my body. It makes me feel alive. Sometimes I forget and I feel like I'm in someone's dream.

I only like my dreams sometimes. When I'm not dreaming about darkness and Mr. Morris being mean, I dream that I talk to myself. Not like I usually do but Like I'm talking to a mirror, I can actually see who I'm talking to. I talk to her about Mister Morris and how he's mean to me. She's always very supportive of me and lets me cry around her. I don't think I've ever cried in real life but I do a lot with her in my dreams. I cry on her shoulder and she rubs my back and tells me everything's gonna be alright. I love her.