This is a very short story that I wrote as an opening from a roleplay a while back, only edited.
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Formless silhouettes danced across the four walls, looming over her like tall, eerie shadows waving in the fictitious wind. Her breathing was shallow and her azure gaze stared forward, wide and void of any emotion. Her small frame was lodged in the corner, stuffed animals piled around her as though they would serve as a shield from the faceless ghosts.
They're not real. She gently reminded herself. None of them are real.
Her gaze flickered to the right wall as a large, opaque shadow cast its form in the light provided by her nightlight plugged into the wall adjacent.
They're not real.
Her friend, as she was told to call the woman, had advised against her having a nightlight. She assured her that if she couldn't see what was around her then she had nothing to fear. Her mind would stop playing tricks on her, and the darkness would envelop her and hug her close. But she knew better than to take heed to such foolish reasoning. She knew better than to think logic would be on her side. Because here, she was more afraid of what she couldn't see; the shrouded terrors that lurked right in front of her face.
"Find something real, Aria," The woman had told her during her most recent session. "And cling to it."
Ariandel snatched the stuffed animal to her left, a medium-sized child's pillow pet-like toy in the shape of a whimsically smiling jellyfish, and hugged it tightly, so tightly that it was squished flat up against her body to the point where she was practically hugging herself.
She curled over into her lap, squeezing her eyes shut as indecipherable whispers began to flood her ears, starting with one or two, then gradually building until they were overlapping in several layers.
"Golden slumbers, kiss your eyes," She whisper-sang to herself as she rocked back and forth slightly in desperation. "Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep, pretty baby, do not cry.." She paused as something wet fell onto her head with a heavy drip, slowly traveling down until it streamed her forehead and dribbled onto her nose. But she didn't dare look up to see what it was; she only squeezed her eyes tighter.
"Listen to this lullaby."
She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled slowly. Lullabies always eased her nerves, if only somewhat. They drowned her in warm nostalgia, as though she had a mother that she didn't remember: a mother that wrapped her arms around her baby and lulled her to sleep with her soft, melodic words. It made her feel as though there were invisible strings connecting her to someone far, far away, and hence she was never alone; but no matter how hard she tugged, she would never feel the weight on the other end.
"Cares you know not, therefore sleep while over you a watch I'll keep."
It took her a few seconds to realize that she was hearing words from a mouth other than her own. A cold, clammy hand with long, bony fingers crept down the side of her head and lay against her cheek, a long, sharp nail braising her skin.
"Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry," The voice moved closer to her ear, and continued in the softest of whispers, "I will sing a lullaby."
Aria's eyes popped open and she raised her hand, shoving whatever it was away at full force. With a whip of her head, she watched the skinny, dark silhouette fall to the floor. It got on all fours and hissed, its long, stringy hair shielding its face like a curtain, and crawled up the wall like a spider.
Her eyes followed it as it traveled to the ceiling and hung upside down above her, and she blinked as something wet dripped onto her eye. Its hair fell with the gravity, revealing its face, and her heart stopped. In place of the creatures eyes, nose and mouth were empty sockets seeping with liquid - just what, it was too dark to see, and frankly, she didn't want to know.
"Are you afraid, little one?" It asked; the voice like nails on a chalkboard to her ears.
"No," She hissed. "I don't fear things that cannot hurt me."
"What?" The creature tilted its head in confusion. "Who is trying to hurt you? Mother would never hurt her child."
"You're not my mother." She hugged her jellyfish even closer and sank into her pile of stuffed animals. "Go away!"
"Go away?" It asked. "Go away? Go away. Go away!" It repeated several times over, swirling about her head. "She wants us to go away! Do you hear their screams?"
Aria barely opened her eyes, going against all the nerves in her body that screamed for her to keep them closed. The shadows that danced along the walls began to waltz in angrier movements, shifting into the shapes of distorted people with large, pointed teeth, some even having long claws as they faded in and out of the light that shone on the wall.
"Do you hear the screams?" It repeated. "The wails of the dead dancing the dance of the deceased! They want you to suffer just as they did!"
"No," Aria whispered, her small voice trembling. She leaped from her bed and dove towards her door, but a pair of hands reached out to grasp onto her ankles, bringing her to the floor.
Several voices began to chant wildly, overlapping in foreign tongues that she could not comprehend. A scream rose up inside of her, but her voice got caught in her throat. She began kicking as hard as she could, still holding onto the jellyfish for dear life, and eventually broke free. She scrambled to her feet and pulled her door open, and ran out into the hall, slamming it behind her with such force that the walls around it shook and trembled as though it experienced the horror as well.
She sprinted down the hall, only able to turn a single corner before tripping over her own feet and crashing to the floor. She shoved her face into the pillow, digging her nails into it deeply.
Watching the scene from a different point of view, the girl had simply leaped from her bed in a frenzy and tripped, then kicked at some invisible force. Nothing was in her room, and nothing had grabbed her leg, and she knew it. She had, somehow, unintentionally created it with her mind. The whole scene.
It was not a dream, no -- it was more like an ominous vision that fed off of her twisted imagination, worsening as her fear grew; a hallucination. And although she knew that her own mind could not physically harm her - and even if it could, she would survive - it could so easily trap her and choke her, both physically and mentally.
It was something that she could never escape.
