Fear

Nighttime is the worst. Alone in the dark, it finds me. Slipping in bed next to me, it's long cold fingers wrap around my heart. It's grip tightens with each breath.

It whispers to me, filling my head with unwanted thoughts. Thoughts that can be pushed aside in the light of day, become obsessions in the dark. Pain. Dying. Death. Children motherless once again.

Thoughts growing like tendrils in my brain, filling the empty crevices. I begin to question my sanity. Maybe it is all in my head, maybe none of it is real. I am crazy. I am crazy. The words repeat, echoing through my head. I welcome the thought. Alone in the night, insanity is preferrable to death.

I am suffocating. Drowning in an icy cold lake. My lungs fill with water. My limbs flail, trying in vain to keep me afloat.

I am alone in the dark. Isolated.

I can see salvation in the distance. Reality, sanity is there just out of my reach. The space I so desperately wanted, the few extra inches of room I reveled in just hours before seems like miles.

I reach across the tangle of blankets. I find solid mass. An elbow. A shoulder. A life preserver in a warm body. I hold on with all I have. I let it pull me towards reality. I feel the grip around my heart lessen, the thoughts dissapate.

I am safe for now. On this night the fear does not win. Not yet.