You can only run

I wasn’t sure where I was going, but the farther I went the louder the voices got. I never imagined that separate Fears would work so closely together like this. The voices were screaming, unintelligible screaming. They were so loud my eyes started to water. It was getting hard to run. I was cold and sick and screaming all at the same time. I think my nose and maybe my ears even started to bleed. I thought I was going to die. I probably would have. They were seconds away from liquefying my brain.

But then I stopped running. I was in front of the door. You know, the door to the supply closet next to Professor Blakemore’s office. I had nowhere else to run. So I ran inside.

It was dark inside. Not like at night where you might stub your toe or something, but that thick, claustrophobic dark that feels like you’re in a large room and a tiny closet at the same time. The kind of dark that gets tangled up in your throat and makes you choke and want to throw up just to get it out of you. The kind of dark that seeps into your skin and never comes out. The kind of darkness that hides all of your nightmares and fears, and tells you they’re all right behind you. And you know that the moment you turn around or you move, they’ll smile with a mouth full of millions of needles and eyes full of fire, cold and black, and they’ll slice your throat and gobble you up. And if you don’t turn around, they’ll do it anyway.

Or maybe you guys have no idea what I’m talking about…