somnium

three.

It was early morning. The sun was trying to peek through the clouds, attempting to burn off the shroud of mist. It had yet to be successful.

The world was still, as Fear made his way down the streets. He made out the sound of water dripping from a gutter somewhere, away down the road. Other than that, all was silent.

He swirled a hand through the mist absentmindedly as he went.

His journey soon ended at the edge of a lake in the nearby park. This time of day, the park was deserted.

He stood for a moment, staring over the water, his eyes focused on nothing. He'd been here before. His mind was trying to wrap itself around a years-old memory, and he struggled for a moment, grappling with himself, before pushing the thought away. It did him no good to remember anything from before. It was not as if he could change anything that had happened. The years would march forward, and no amount of wishing or thinking could alter the past or the future from its due course.

He allowed his gaze to refocus on the solitary figure pulling a rowboat to the water's edge and preparing to shove off. Her actions were slow and methodical, yet Fear could almost distinguish a thinly veiled desperation in her movements. Her grip on the oars was white fingered and tight.

Her fears sprang, unbidden, to his mind. Yes, he'd visited her before, several times. She was one of those people who seemed to be made up of their fears. Among the rest, one rose to prominence. A fear of water. She couldn't swim.

He frowned, studying her.

His feet carried him to her side, where he watched her final preparations with detached curiosity. When she got into the boat and sat down, he stepped in as well, keeping his balance without effort, even as the boat rocked with the girl's movements, and seating himself across from her.

As with any other of the number of humans he interacted with every day, she stared right through him, unseeing. Her eyes were big...sad. She held too many sorrows for one this young. She was only eighteen. This age should be the beginning of the rest of her life.

She rowed out into the middle of the lake. By the time the boat had reached the center of the water, she was shivering, the boat shaking along with her, sending little ripples across the water in increasingly larger concentric circles.

Fear watched as she set the oars down, tears welling in her eyes.

She didn't say anything aloud, but her thoughts were clear to him. She was kneeling in the bottom of the boat now, looking hesitantly over the edge, trying to see into the depths of the water.

Fear tried not to think about how much this reminded him of that other day, years earlier.

This girl was miserable, that much was clear. She was contemplating things. What if I did jump in? Would anyone miss me that much?

And as he waited, she answered herself. Of course people would miss you. Your mom and your dad would miss you. They love you. Stop being so silly. You really don't have it that badly.

He folded his hands in his lap and watched her, the profile of her face cutting a curve through the mist.

After all, there are people with worse problems...Everyone says so...And you know it's true. So why do you feel this way?

Tears were streaming down her face now. Fear felt a strange desire to reach forward and brush his thumb across her cheek...letting her know it was alright. But he didn't. He couldn't. It was against the unspoken rules of his job. Don't interfere with the humans. He'd told himself this from the start.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I've tried to do well at university...but I'm falling apart. I'm sinking. And my parents don't even know the half of it. They don't understand. They can't understand.

Fear leaned forward slightly, getting a better look at her face. Her fears weighed upon him, growing heavier by the second. This wasn't unusual; he'd met people like this before, with fears so heavy that he wondered how they carried them. He bore them as he'd born the fears of every other person who he'd visited before her.

I've always been afraid of dying...now I'm afraid that my other fears are going to eventually outweigh that fear and I might...

She didn't seem to want to think it, even to herself, as if consciously saying the words or thinking them would make it that much closer to becoming a reality.

This too, was something he'd seen before. He knew what came next. Unless she found a way to fight back against her fears, unless she faced them...she'd eventually meet the fates that the others met, choosing to greet Death instead of Fear.

And all too soon, perhaps, she'd row out to the middle of the lake, and tip herself forward, letting the water embrace her.

I don't know what's bigger...the fear of dying, or the fear of going on like this.

Fear was the only thing stopping her right now. For now, at least, her fears, while they were making her miserable, were the only things keeping her safe.

Time seemed to stop as she sat there, crying, until her tears eventually dried. She seemed to draw herself up.

And she stood, the boat rocking dangerously beneath her, the water lapping at the sides. She closed her eyes tightly until the rocking stopped.

One step forward.

Her thoughts rang through Fear's mind as clearly as if they were his own.

One step forward, one final fear to face, and then it would all be over.

So what is holding me back?

Fear had stood now too, silently, not even rocking the boat. His mouth was dry, and his heart was beating wildly in his chest, hammering against his ribcage. The girl's form seemed to shift and merge with that of a boy, her own age or at least close, his own cheeks tearstained and his eyes empty. He felt, again, the coldness of the water as it embraced the boy, almost as if it were taking him into its arms.

The girl took a step forward and the image was shattered into a million pieces, replaced once more with mist and fog, and her.

She held her arms at her sides, and kept her back straight and head held high.

One more step, she thought. Fear swallowed. The girl stepped forward. He cried out, knowing it was in vain, and grasping for her hand, even though he knew he couldn't keep her there.

Desperate, he gave her the only thing he knew how to give: fear. Fear of death, fear of drowning, fear of darkness and the end.

She hesitated, and he wondered if it had been enough.

The splash of her hitting the water echoed through the misty morning, and then was muffled under the sheet of heavy fog. The boat bobbed along in the water, some residual ripples spreading out over the surface of the lake.

Then all was still,and all was silence.