Everything's An Illusion

"Emma?" my mother's raspy voice came from the hallway upstairs.

Suddenly the light was switched on as I closed and locked the front door again, and my mother appeared at the top of the stairs. She was wearing her robe and looked dead tired. There were large circles under her eyes and she looked as if she was about to keel over at any moment. I knew that what I had to go through with Deeana every June was nothing compared to what my mother had to go through with Deeana and Dustin's mother.

"Hey mom," I said, turning to face her.

"How is she?"

I shrugged.

"Same as always." I replied.

My mother nodded.

"Go to bed, you still have school tomorrow," she said, forcing a smile.

I nodded and headed upstairs into my room as my mom turned out the hall light and went back into my parents' bedroom. Instantly my senses went on high alert. Even at seventeen I was still terrified of the dark, something I wasn't proud to admit but everyone still knew anyway. My dad always teased me about it, and so did every one of my friends as well. It wasn't funny to me though, because the pitch black always sent me into panic attacks and the feeling of my chest closing in on itself never actually left me, even when the lights had been turned back on again.

I nearly sprinted into my room, slamming my bedroom door shut behind me and leaping onto my bed. I felt silly, but it had been a nightly routine ever since I was a child. When I was little it was because I was terrified that the monsters under the bed would reach out in the dark and pull me under with them. As I got older, the fear of monsters went away but they were replaced by the voices. I had never told anyone about them, because half the time I thought I was just insane and didn't want to admit it and the other half of the time I just figured I was half-dreaming them.

The voices were in my head mostly. Sometimes I would think to myself, There's nothing here, there's nothing wrong. But then something in my own head would answer with, Yes there is, everything's wrong. And sometimes I would even hear the voices as if somebody was in the room next to me, as if someone was hiding in the dark corner where I couldn't see them. Because of the voices I rarely got any sleep, and when I did it was broken by nightmares and me being jerked into consciousness every couple of hours.

"Go away," I muttered to the air, half hoping that there would be no response tonight.

There was silence for a moment, and for a brief moment I thought the voices had been silenced for even a little bit. But, no.

"Not likely," a voice whispered in my ear.

I jumped and dove under my covers, whimpering and closing my eyes tight. My breathing quickened, and I tried to focus on my iPod that was playing softly on my nightstand to calm down. A single tear trickled down my cheek as I squeezed my eyes shut even more, silently praying that sleep would come quickly.