Phobophobia

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt


Trial 1

It was dark. Nykolas could barely see anything, but the scent of rusted metal filled her nostrils. Where am I? She was going to say it, but when she opened her mouth to speak, a small, muffled almost screech flew out instead. She noticed her mouth was really dry. She began walking around the outline of the metal bars. It was rather small, and it felt like she was in a, a cage, maybe?
“Hello?” Nykolas managed to spat out in a creaky voice.
“Ny-Nykolas?” It was her friend Ari. Her voice was relatively normal.
“Ari? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’m scared. Are you in a cage too?”
“Yeah.”
“Guys?” It was their friend Sixx. He sounded like he had been drugged.
“Are you okay, Sixx?” Nykolas asked.
“I think. I’m just dizzy.”
“I think we all are,” Ari chimed in.
“Can you guys see anything?” Nykolas asked.
“Yeah,” Ari told her. “It’s really dark, but there is a little light. I see it. It’s a candle. It’s casting a small light on the table it’s on, and I can see part of the cage I’m in. You guys there was a woman in here earlier. She had these two children, a boy and a girl. She really freaked me out. She was wearing this white dress, and she… I don’t really know how explain what kind of vibe she gave me, but it was really freaky. I just-” Ari stopped in the middle of her sentence. “Oh, crap, something’s coming.”
Ari heard footsteps walking through, and she saw a white thing flash by. She backed up in her cage and curled into a little ball. Don’t kill me, she pleaded.
“What are you-?” Nykolas started.
“Hush, before it gets you.” From there, Ari was silent. Nykolas and Sixx heard nothing from the hallucinating girl for a while… But Ari was seeing things differently.
Ari saw the candle burn out. She started to back up more, trying to find the back wall of her cage as it was the only real thing she had anymore besides the ground, but the ground told her nothing besides the fact that she knew she was on the floor.
She never found the back of her cage. Instead, she found a wall. As soon as her hand touched the cold cement, the room became visible. Nykolas and Sixx had disappeared. She closed her eyes tightly and started saying, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
“Ari, snap out of it!” Sixx commanded, snapping her out of her trance. Both him and Nykolas saw something over Ari’s head, but they couldn’t quite make out what it was.
“Wh-what?”
“Ari, what happened?” Nykolas asked.
“Wh-what do you me-mean?” Ari stammered.
“You were silent for a few minutes, but then you started freaking out. I think you almost broke the chain on your cage, Ari,” Sixx explained.
“You guys, that was weird. Something strange is going on. I felt something odd. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it coming again.”
“Let it happen. It might save us.”
She was back in the room with the four cement walls. It was rectangular, and she looked around with a confused look.
“What’s going on?” Ari whispered. Then the walls started moving.
Meanwhile, Nykolas and Sixx listened as Ari broke out of her cage. She tore the lock to shreds and got out just as a woman with a long white dress walked in. “I’ve been waiting for you to break out. Now I get to have my meal.” The room lit up. It was a white room with three rusty cages and a desk with a half melted candle on it.
Ari was still trapped in whatever was going on with her was while she walked out of the cage. Her eyes were blank, but her facial expression was filled with anger. Her friends read the word over her head, and they realized what was going on. It said, “Claustrophobia.” They knew Ari was claustrophobic. So this has to do with your biggest fears? Nykolas asked herself. The woman came closer to Ari, and she sunk her teeth into her neck.
“Get away from her!” Sixx screamed.
“Leave her alone!” Nykolas contributed.
But Ari didn’t need that. She had it covered. Ari blew up on the woman. She pushed the woman off of her like she had super powers. The woman flew across the room, and she got up with no scratches despite the huge dent in the wall. She brushed it off like it was nothing.
“Strength. I like it,” the woman snickered. “Fighting for my meal is alright.”
Ari and the woman had a full-out brawl while Ari mentally fought off the walls closing in.
Ari escaped the walls closing in on her, but she lost the battle against the woman who wanted to eat her. That’s why she escaped the walls.
The woman looked to Sixx and Nykolas with a devious smirk.
As their bodies disintegrated, she chuckled evilly. “Who’s next?”

Trial 2

Nykolas’s body regenerated in a dimly lit room. She was lying on the ground, and she seemed to have this weight on her that made her want to keep laying there, but she knew she needed to get up.
A flashlight seemed to spawn next to her as she raised the upper half of her body off of the ground. It seemed a bit odd, but Nykolas didn’t question it.
She grabbed the small flashlight, and she stood up quietly. Her hand twisted the top of the flashlight in attempts of powering it on. The flashlight did what flashlights do, shine on everything within about a 10-foot range.
In the room, there were 2 ways to go, and they were both lit very well as if meant to pop out at her. There were stairs. and there was a woody area, which was quite odd for a house, but maybe it wasn't a house. Who knows?
She lied down on the ground, feeling rather sleepy, but she didn't stay there long. She saw a lady coming from up the stairs. She figured it was the one who got Ari. Nykolas didn't get that great of a look at her, though, because it was still pretty dark, and she started rolling into the woods. Nykolas didn't know why, but she felt sort of drawn to it, like she was meant to go down the path. Maybe that's why she didn't want to get up before.
She rolled for what seemed like hours. [It was only 15 minutes.] She kept her flashlight covered in attempts to not be caught if something was chasing her. When she stopped, she was very lightheaded, causing her to lie there for a few moments to get herself together.
When she felt relatively stable, she pulled up her upper body, and she uncovered the flashlight. She looked around. There was the woody area from which she had just came from, and there was another way that was pitch black. A sign stood by the abyss that said, “Go this way, or just wait here. Beware, death is a possibility.”
She figured it would be her turn seems how she was by herself this time, but she didn’t have time to think about it because she had to roll into the pit before something got to her. She ended up in the same place. Everything was the same, except for the fact that was blood dripping down from the stairs. 
She heard a little girl playing close by, and her voice was drawing closer. Nykolas panicked, and she ran up the creaky stairs, carefully, making sure she didn’t step on the blood that was coming from the stairs so her shoes wouldn’t track anything. She couldn’t be caught.
There was no way this was her phobia. The setting was too… Well, she wasn’t really too sure what it was, but she knew it wasn’t her phobia.
The stairs lead to this one door. Pushing aside her fear of not knowing the contents behind the door, she pushed it open.
The room behind the door had a lighter feel to it than downstairs had. The room sort of made her feel like she was somewhere safe even though she knew she wasn’t. Her brain knew she was in danger, but her body felt more relaxed than before. It was just a lot less eerie in the nearly empty room.
Maybe it was the window on the wall opposite of the door. It casted a bit of sunshine, something she hadn’t seen since she started the trial. The door was one of the only 5 things in the room. One for every wall, and one for the ceiling. The door was the first thing, the window was the second, the bed on the wall to the right of the door was the third, the set of doors placed on the wall left of the door was the fourth, and the ceiling fan placed in the middle of the room on the ceiling was the fifth. Nothing else was visible from her stance.
Nykolas closed the door behind her gently. She took a few steps forward, and she noticed that the floor was a lot less creaky than it was on the stairs, but she still kept her footsteps light, just in case, and she began looking more closely at everything in the room.
The ceiling fan had two strings. They were both numbered with a one and two (obviously). It was a dark brown color that popped against the white ceiling immensely. There were no light fixtures built into the fan.
The bed, she noticed, was decorated with satin sheets and two snow white pillows. The bed was neatly made up, like it would look like in the stores before it was sold. The frame was a light oak wood and was polished intensely. As Nykolas walked closer to it, she noticed that there was a sign on the bed. “1-Don’t come in; 2-Come on in”.
The window had a plastic exterior that kind of seemed to not belong in the room again the lightly colored birch wood. It looked a bit too synthetic. The window was very easy to see through, but all that was visible was grass. It looked like an empty background. There wasn’t even a sky. The window seemed to serve no purpose other than to serve as the only light source in the room.
The doors were painted white, and they were eye catching. The paint looked freshly dried. It all looked too fresh, too new.
Nykolas walked over to the door as quickly as she could while she was being as careful as possible. She was still scared to even think of what could be behind the door, but she took a deep breath. She wasn’t really sure how to make it stop, but it was causing her hands and breath to tremble.
Get scared later, she told herself. She was quoting her favorite character in a book she had read a couple of years back. She took a small but deep breath, pushing aside all of the fear she could, and she pulled open the door.
“Aah!” Two voices. Not Nykolas, but Nykolas and Sixx.
“What are you doing in here, Sixx?” Nykolas asked, offering him a hand to get up.
“I was transported here, and when I got here, I saw the lady who ate Ari,” he told her as he took her hand and was pulled up.
“Sixx, this isn’t my phobia. Let me see yours,” she commanded.
“No, it’s embarrassing,” he said, looking down in shame.
“I need to see it. I have to know what we’re up against.” She placed her hand on his shoulder with a small reassuring smile, thinking of how scared she would be if it was her fear. “I’m not going to tell anyone or judge you. You just have to get over this, so we can get out of this mess alive.”
A word flickered on above Sixx’s head. Phagophobia.
“You’re afraid of being eaten alive?” Nykolas asked, knowing the word from another book she had read. “That’s not irrational, not at all. I wouldn’t want to be eaten alive either. Why are you so terrified of it, though? It’s obviously really bad.”
“I don’t wanna walk about it,” he said, looking down. Nykolas gave him a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry about it. We just have to get you over this, and it needs to be quick. Sixx, you have to let her do it.” Sixx looked at her like Nykolas had just killed his best friend. Well, if Sixx’s best friend wasn’t Nykolas.
“No, I can’t, Nykolas. I can’t do that.”
“You have to realize, Sixx, this isn’t just about you. Whoever put us here, they want us to survive. They’re testing us. We’ve got to get out of this.”
“Well, why do I have to get over my fear and you don’t? What kind of sense does that make?”
“We don’t know if it’ll be over after this. I could be next.”
“What do I even do?” Sixx asked in a low voice. His gaze was thrown to the ground. “I-I let her eat me?”
“I don’t know what else you can do, Sixx. We can’t just wait here forever.”
Sixx hesitated.  His breath trembled as he stuttered, “Fi-fine, but yo-you have to ge-get her up he-here.”
“Is that what the numbers on the fan are for?” Nykolas asked. Sixx shrugged. “Have you tried them?”
“Only 1.”
Nykolas walked over to the fan, and she pulled number 2. The door flew open, and she could hear someone coming up the stairs.
“Hide!” Sixx told her in a panicked whisper. Nykolas nodded as she hurried for the closet, closing the doors behind her.
“So my meal finally decided to let me come up. What a surprise. I was just beginning to starve,” a woman’s voice sneered. Nykolas could see through the cracks of the door, but it was sort of difficult. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
Nykolas could see through the cracks what was going on. The woman was a complete opposite to Sixx. First off, she was a woman, and Sixx was not. The woman was of a tall and confident posture, like nothing could bring her down, whereas Sixx was hunched over in a stance of extreme fear. The woman was dressed in an elegant white dress that looked to be made of silk or satin or some sort of fabric like that. Her skin was a much darker tone than Sixx’s, whose was nearly snow white it seemed. Her tone went with her hair that was on the other side of the color spectrum from Sixx’s. Her dark hair made Sixx’s blonde hair look very like it had been bleached. The only thing that looked the same about the two was their species. They both looked human on the outside.
But she wasn’t a human.
There was no telling what she was, but Nykolas knew she wasn’t human. She figured that out when the woman sunk her teeth into Sixx’s neck. At first, Nykolas thought she was a vampire, but she was something a lot weirder than that.
The woman sucked everything out of Sixx’s body: the blood, the bones, the organs, everything, just like she had done in Trial 1 to Ari. Nykolas cringed at the sight of that and the woman practically inhaling the epidermis.
Once she was done, she exhaled a satisfactory sigh. “Don’t worry. Your friend isn’t dead, but he has served his purpose in this. You’re free to leave, go to your next place.”
Nykolas wanted so bad to just burst into a fit of rage. She wanted to hurt the woman, and she also wanted to ask her a bunch of questions, but in fear of being eaten as well, she just left. Her body turned to dust it seemed as she vanished off to the next trial.

Trial 3

A cement roof is where she regenerated. Nykolas didn’t know how high up she was, but she didn’t care. Even just thirty feet was enough to cause a panic attack if she saw, so she stayed in the middle of the roof, where she couldn’t see the ground. She began taking in her surroundings.
The roof was rather empty. There wasn’t a way to get off of the roof, though, and that frightened Nykolas. There was a bridge on side of the roof to get to another roof, and it looked to be sturdy, and it seemed big enough for two people of Nykolas’s size. The ground beneath her was a dark grey brick which told her nothing about her whereabouts.
“Wh-who are you?” asked a boy’s voice. Her head jerked around to see a little boy who she had, for some reason, just blocked out. He had been crying, no sobbing.
He was sort of close to her, but he wasn’t close enough for her to touch. “I-I’m Nykolas,” she said in a small voice. “Are you o-okay?” she stammered.
“No, I want my mommy.”
Is he the skin eater’s son? She knew it could have been, but she couldn’t see his face.
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Skylar.”
“Come here, Skylar,” she requested in a sweet tone. “I think I can get you to your mom. I can try anyway.”
“Oh, will you?” he pleaded in a hopeful voice as he broke out of his ball of protection to walk over to her.
He was a pail little boy, opposite of his mother. He was small, and his body size and shape and height made her assume he was near the age of 7.
Nykolas felt her breath hitch as she agreed again to help him. She knew he was the son of the skin-eater, but she wasn’t heartless. She wasn’t going to let him sit there and cry.
“There she is!” Skylar said, his voice bright. “But she’s really far away. Nykolas, will you take me to her?”
“Where is she?” Nykolas asked. She didn’t see anyone on the roof with them.
“Over there,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction than she was looking. “Mommy!” Nykolas looked over to where Skylar was pointing, and she saw the woman who ate her best friend earlier. The woman looking around, like she was looking for her son. She couldn’t hear Skylar.
“Go to her,” Nykolas told him, nodding his head in her direction. Skylar nodded, and he ran as fast as he could, but he came to a halt when he reached the edge.
“There’s another building, Nykolas. I can’t get over there without crossing this bridge. I’m scared. Please come with me.”
Nykolas walked over to Skylar hesitantly. She saw the bridge. It simply looked like a wooden plank, but it was much, much more sturdy than that. She looked down, and she immediately turned around. 40 stories high.
“Nope, nope. Can’t do it. Won’t do it.”
The sight made her want to vomit. It made her body feel like there were no bones left in her body, and she fell to her knees, and she clutched her abdomen. Tornadoes swirled in her stomach, causing a little bit of vomit to come out of her mouth. It wasn’t a huge pile, but it was enough to worry Skylar.
“Are you okay, Nykolas? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just got a bit dizzy.”
“I-I can’t go over there without you. I’m scared.”
“Heh,” she chuckled. “You’re not the only one,” she whispered, “but I’ll go with you, or at least I’ll try.” Skylar gave her a small smile as he took her and in his. “I’ll go first, and you stay right behind me, you got it?” Skylar nodded.
The female walked over to the edge, and took a look down. 40 stories, that to her seemed like a million feet off of the ground. Her breathing grew rapidly as her legs turned to jelly, and she back a little bit, letting go of Skylar’s hand.
Nykolas tried to say something to him. She tried telling him something, anything. She opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was more puke as her heart pounded against her chest. Her hands were shaking as she held her hair behind her head. She couldn’t even act like she was strong around children, not when it came to her fear. She had clear tears running down her cheeks.
“Please stop crying. You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
Her puking stopped, and she took a few seconds, but her breathing calmed. “I-I’m sorry,” she told him with a reassuring smile. Her tears stopped flowing.
“What’s wrong?” Skylar repeated. “What is… a-a-crop- a-crop-hobia?”
“Acrophobia. It’s a big, big word that just means I’m scared,” she told him.
“I am too, but I want my mommy. Please help me get to her.” His eyes were beginning to drop a few tears. Nykolas nodded. It’s a test. You have to get over your fear. You have to, Nykolas… Nykolas stood up, and she took the little boy’s hand.
She walked over to the edge again, and her body got weak, but she made herself be okay. She made herself travel over the 50 foot bridge with the little boy behind her, trying to get him to his mother. She made herself not look down too much. She didn’t want to fall, and the bridge was only about 2 feet wide.
When she reached the other building, Skylar pushed in front of her. “Mommy!” He ran into her arms while Nykolas sat on the ground, trembling.
“Thank you for bringing him to me,” she said, holding her child tightly. “You may still be wondering why you’re here, why you had to go through all of this. You were being tested to see if you would get over your greatest fears for the sake of others. You all passed, and you will all be set free.”
Her body still shook as she looked up at the woman. “Why would you put us through this?”
“Everyone always asks that,” she said, “but it had to be someone. I just wanted to have a little entertainment, acrophobe.”
“You’re a sick and twisted human,” she said, her voice coaxed in anger.
“I’m not human. Get your facts straight.”
And with that, she woke up in her bed, like nothing had ever happened. Only… She knew it did. She remembered, and so did Sixx and Ari.
Maybe, it was a dream?
Then again, maybe not.