The Shadows In My Mind

Lydia woke up that morning entangled in her sheets. A voice woke her up. That voice. Her own voice. It whispered to her, bringing her consciousness to surface. By now, Lydia was used to waking up with a chill running down her spine.

Lydia tried to clear her mind, the remainder of the nightmare still haunting her. For the past few months, she’d always awoken to someone whispering to her. But now since Calista had revealed herself to her a few nights ago, she was able to hear who it was. It was her own voice filled with Calista’s evil words. Lydia shivered, pushing back the image of Calista. Her own image.

She slowly unraveled herself from the sheets. Her her body felt like led. Her hands were freezing, one of the several unexplainable side effects that came from the night terrors. She rubbed her palms against her thighs, using the friction to warm them. It was useless, her hands still cold as ice.

As the terrors had become more consistent over the months, something heavy and sick in her stomach told her that this just might be real. She had no idea what this meant, but something wasn’t right. These nightmares weren’t anything she’d ever had before. Like the line between her dreams and nightmares had been blurred.

She rose from the bed, walking into the bathroom that conjoined her bedroom. She peered into the mirror, an exhausted person staring back. She had dark circles under her sharp blue eyes, another side effect of the nightmares. She ran her fingers through her dark golden brown hair, pushing it back from her face. She gathered it up in one hand and tossed it over her shoulders. She’d always worn her hair long, never too fond of cutting it.

She decided to take a shower. The noise of the water driving into her tired body seemed to be one of the very few things that drowned out the whispering. The water was hot against her skin, driving into her tired soul. The nightmares were what wore her to rags. They took her body and broke it, making her feel as though she couldn’t carry on. Why was it that every morning she literally had to pick herself up out of bed and force herself to live in the shadows? She wore a mask. A mask that convinced the world she was alright. A mask that that lied and said that she was not broken. Because she was broken. But they’re just nightmares, she told herself. But they were more then that. It was a fear living inside of her like a monster nestled within her ribcage. Because they left her with a bad feeling in her heart like a bad taste in one’s mouth.

Reaching out to turn the knob that shut off the water, she opened her eyes. Stepping out of the shower, she dried off quickly and dressed herself in a white summer dress. She decided she needed some fresh air moving through her lungs. The shrill sound of the city of LA would drown out the memories of the nightmares, at least for a little while.

Even though it was a blazing hot day in Los Angeles, Lydia’s hands were ice cold. Her fingertips were like icicles that refused to melt. It didn’t matter how much she rubbed them together to warm them, they were still freezing. But by now, she had gotten used to it. It was like a numbness that no longer bothered her. The attempt of warming them was just an automatic reflex that she couldn’t shake.

She strode down the streets one steady step at a time, allowing herself to be swallowed by the crowd of people. Their voices were loud, crashing through her ears and invading her unwanted thoughts. She cringed, because the voices of the crowd weren’t helping her, they were scaring her. She felt like they were watching her, waiting to spring and attack. Like the world was looming over her like a ghost, breathing down her neck. The city felt dark, even though the sun was burning bright. She used to love the swarm of people. She used to bask in it as though it were the sun. But not anymore. Now she felt out of place, like she was drowning in a sea of people. She swallowed, finding it hard to breathe. But she forced herself to stay outside, frightened at the idea of going back to her apartment, seeing her bed, the place where the nightmares embrace her like a hostage.

She’d lived in Los Angeles for the past three years, feeling as though she belonged there. She’d adjusted to the city and it’s lights, along with the rush of the crowd and the buzz of their voices. But for the past few months, she felt like a stranger. A stranger that didn’t belong and possibly never would again. Ever since she started having the nightmares, her world felt as though it had been tipped off of its axis. It was slanted, making her feel as though she were walking sideways through life. Every day she fought that sick feeling in her stomach, telling herself none of it was real. She fought it with everything she thought she had left, determined to snuff it out. Determined to feel right again. Because she didn’t feel right at all. She felt fractured.

Every morning she woke up, after a night filled with terrors, she told herself it was all in her head. But the whispers told her otherwise. Because she always heard them. They were never formed into words that she could understand or syllables that she could depict; just a constant sound nagging in her mind, like white noise, like static of a radio without a signal. She always felt as though someone was looking over her shoulder, breathing down her neck or brushing against her cheek. This was the consumption of her soul by the nightmares. It were as though they owned her, and she f*****g hated that. She hated the sinking feeling they brought, the horrible chill that was always sent down her spine. 

Her mother back home had begged her to see a psychologist.

“I’m fine mom, really.” she’d lied through the phone, trying to calm her mother. This had been two months ago, when she first told her mother about the nightmares.

‘If you were fine, you wouldn’t be having nightmares.’ her mother had protested. It was her mother’s job to be worried, and Lydia adored her for that. It was in her blood. She and her mother were close. They had a relationship that any daughter would kill for. It took every bone in her body to leave her mother back home and go to culinary art school here in the city of angels.

“Ma, they aren’t even that bad anymore.” she’d lie, regretting that she’d worried her mother at all. “I’ve been sleeping better too.” 

They were all lies of course.

She wasn’t sleeping. The nightmares hadn’t gotten better.

She was worse now then ever. But she decided her mother needn't worry. She could handle it on her own.

Besides, she was twenty-one years old. She shouldn’t be running to her mother with every problem she encountered. She could handle it.

Lydia made her way deeper into the city, in which was alive with summer. She could feel the heat from the concrete seeping through her thin-soled shoes. Her arms swung loosely by her sides, the warm wind lacing through her hair. She clenched her cold fingers, not realizing they were digging into her palms. Her senses were dulled and magnified at the same time. Like she was very aware of everything going on, and yet she was distracted at the same time.

Her mother worried enough as it was, her only daughter going off to California to attend a culinary art school.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to support yourself with that?” She’d asked as her daughter held the acceptance letter. She was clenching it tightly with excitement, a wide smile spread across her face.

“Of course, mama. People make good money from doing this.” her mother didn’t seem convinced, but nonetheless supported her daughter’s decision in moving to California. She was eighteen when she found an apartment in LA. The culinary art institution didn’t provide dormitories, forcing her to live on her own. She hadn’t minded this, greeting the opportunity to learn how to be independent.

She’d received impressive scores throughout her two years, becoming the favorite of her professors. But now, everything was unraveling. Now, it was a miracle that she even made it to class. All because of the nightmares, the whispers, the lack of sleep. 

Lydia had no idea what drug in the nightmares. One night, she just started having that strange dream. Then it started to grow into something more terrifying like a monster emerging from its cage. Something horrifying that caused her to wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

Even though it was hot from the summer sun, chills worked their way up her spine as she remembered how the shadow revealed itself to Lydia the other night. How it gave her it’s name. 

Calista came to her twice more after that night, saying the same thing to her. That she wanted her. She’d heard of dreams where people watched themselves do things, like out of body experiences. Or how they would be doing something without any control. But Lydia had never heard of a circumstance where an identical replica of themselves would look at them with such malice swimming in their own eyes. Lydia was looking at herself, but it wasn’t her. It was something evil. And Lydia wasn’t evil. The worst thing she’d ever done was pour red kool-aid down Vicki’s shirt when she was three. And that was only because Vicki Sanders had stolen her balloon that she’d gotten from the zoo.

But Calista. Though the sharp blue eyes that Lydia stared into seemed like her own, they were not hers. They were filled with an evil, a desire to cause harm. It scared the s**t out of Lydia. She wanted to cower every time Calista approached her from the shadows. She wanted to retreat from the depths of her mind, to wake up and greet reality with open arms. But she never could. It was like Calista had a hold on her until she allowed her to wake up.

It was like Calista was real and inside of her, waiting and watching to spring and attack.