A dark passage of time was creeping up on myself, slowly from behind. The tension was building shivers up and down my spine. Each time I turned around I could feel a shadow watching over me. Something was looking deep into my soul, and my body was shaking I felt like I was going to be turned inside out. I thought my whole insides were going to come rushing out through my chest, I felt my heart beating and it was hurrying along.
The ether around me was enfolding, suffocating and I wanted so badly to scream at the room, but nobody could hear me. I could still sense a presence sneaking up behind me, and I felt it getting nearer to me. The hairs on my arm were up on end and I felt like I had just walked outside into the freezing cold. I felt so naked, so stranded. Abandoned. More than anything I just wanted him to be next to me, I just wanted to hear his voice telling me it was going to be okay and it was only a dream or that it would go away and it was all in my head.
I looked around again and nobody was there, just the creaking repeat of a beating drum making my heart thud deeper ‘intimate’ inside of my body. The shallow noise was repeated through my veins and it travelled around my mind like a ladybird searching for its home. I wanted to turn around and grab it, whatever it was. I wanted it to stop following me and latching on as if it was a part of me. This darkness was looming nearer and I could hear the noises even closer to my eardrums.
Encircled by the loud and turbulent noises, I held my arms around my legs and tucked them close to my chest in a little ball. I wanted so very much too just hide away from everything, what was the point in carrying on when I felt so helpless and alone? The world is too big a place for me, and I don’t feel like I can be a part of it. The darkness knows.
Reaching out to the side of me I felt the room spinning around, I tried to put my hands on the floor to make it stop but my head was spinning my body around on its own accord, and I had no control of anything. Something was pulling me around, I was racing quickly in circles as if on a swing going backwards and forwards my mind was playing tricks on me and I felt so sick, I could actually taste it in my mouth – I was going to puke and I wanted to know what it was that was making me feel this way. Why me? Why now? I had so many questions I couldn’t ask because every time I tried to open my mouth my lips were glued together and I was so frustrated with myself.
© Amara Hope Melechi
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