Darkness

She was awake.

Awake in the dark.

She longed to sleep… yet there she was… wide awake.

Eyes open, in the dark black night.

She wondered when it had gotten so dark. It seemed to have taken eternity while happening overnight.

She rose hauntingly from the bed where she laid and moved toward the mosaic frame on the wall. Dreading what might be reflected in the mirror it cased. Hoping against hope that she’d see the girl she’d once known, rather than the girl she’d since become.

She no longer recognised that hollow face in the mirror. Those sad eyes that stared back at her, must certainly have been the eyes of a stranger. A ghost.

She moved closer. So close her breath fogged up the glass. She was alive. She opened her eyes wide and stared deep into them. Searching. For something.

But she found no light…

She’d known light as a child. Inherently, she’d known nothing but light. But, that light seemed so distant, she could barely recall the details. She now only knew wicked black clouds that smothered sunshine. Downpours that tripped her up on slippery side-walks. And fogs that loomed so thick, there seemed no way through them.

The thunderous pain that had built up inside her soul had become too heavy for her to hold.  It was so suddenly too loud to ignore. It had overtaken all else. Become all she was. The only semblance of self that remained was a knowing voice, echoing in the vast black voids of her mind. A powerful whisper that somehow convinced her, ‘this is not you’.

The only thing she knew to do was to watch.

So she watched the throes of her mind and waited… for something.