Erebus (The Shadow Stalker) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
everywhereyougo) wrote2022-04-26 01:24 am
everywhereyougo) wrote2022-04-26 01:24 am
Entry tags:
Diary: Disappearing
Do you know what it feels like to disappear? I do.
I was born from the mind of a teenager. She was a typical kid, with a less than typical amount of things to do. There was nothing but pressure on all sides. Family. School. Work. A life where she held all the responsibility and none of the freedoms, where the weight of everything was on her shoulder. All of those worries and pressures built up and up and up until she felt like she could never escape from her horrible, intrusive life.
The people pressuring her became an amalgamation in her mind, a tall, twisted beast with many faces that followed her wherever she went, trying to catch her and drag her into the hell her life had become. A literal hell, in her mind; She ran, but the very streets turned against her. The shadows were grasping hands, creeping out from under cars and around corners to try to slow her down to stop the beast chasing her. By the time she awoke, she was in tears, filled with anxiety that'd last half the day. Lying awake in her bed, unable to fall back asleep, she made herself feel so ill that she probably even earned herself a slight reprieve... until she had to make up for it
But as the hours passed, and the fear faded... the nightmare, too, began to fade. Nightmares only live for a night. We're born knowing that we will die. I, who had spent the night pursuing someone fleeing in terror, now felt the desire to run from my own fear.
And then he came. He said he'd been watching me, that he knew a way I could live, but I had to act fast and learn quickly. If I didn't... I'd be dead, and it'd be my own fault. Who'd turn down something like that? The only other alternative was to vanish as if I had never existed. To disappear without a trace... not even remembered, except in faint snatches of a frightened child's recollection. Then not even those.
Life as a nightmare wasn't easy. Night never implied otherwise. It was stressful. We had to keep looking for compatible minds, never daring to rest for too long. Time means nothing to a nightmare, but time keeps flowing, even outside of us. To avoid disappearing, we had to keep moving. We had to keep scaring.
I had lots to learn. We all did, because of course there were more of us. Night taught us everything we knew. Life experiences were filtered through the minds of our hosts, the memories we read in order to create the nightmares we plagued them with. It's true we may not have understood everything that we saw, but... that's fine. We're not human. We don't need to know what humans know. What they live through.
Time is empty and yet time is everything. We don't age. We don't change, except by our own will, and even then, the core of us stays pretty much the same. The minds we jumped to came from different lands, different times, different experiences. We had to find them, seek what would make them sustain us, and then keep their fear going until we had to leave. It was all we knew. It was how we lived.
Through it all, I felt deep gratitude and admiration for Night. Because of him, I was able to stop myself fading away. Because of him, I was able to keep running from that horrific fate. Because of him, I wasn't alone any more. I had him, and then I had Aidan. Sure, there were others, but those two mattered the most to me. Killing's easy, I'd do that for them in a heartbeat. But there's a lot more I'd do for them if they asked. Maybe I'm sentimental because of who I was born from, but... even if Night'd fucking kill me for being this sappy, I'd consider the two of them my dearest friends. Never saying that out loud though. Like I said... Night'd fucking kill me.
And now... I'm free. I'm alive. I won't disappear again, not ever. There's so much I want to do. I'm overwhelmed with choice, enjoying the freedom to just... stop if I want to, to just enjoy things because they're there and I have time. I don't have to run any more.
Now if I make people scream... It's because I want to, not because I have to. It feels good. And anyone who tries to stop me... is going to see just how scary I can get.
I was born from the mind of a teenager. She was a typical kid, with a less than typical amount of things to do. There was nothing but pressure on all sides. Family. School. Work. A life where she held all the responsibility and none of the freedoms, where the weight of everything was on her shoulder. All of those worries and pressures built up and up and up until she felt like she could never escape from her horrible, intrusive life.
The people pressuring her became an amalgamation in her mind, a tall, twisted beast with many faces that followed her wherever she went, trying to catch her and drag her into the hell her life had become. A literal hell, in her mind; She ran, but the very streets turned against her. The shadows were grasping hands, creeping out from under cars and around corners to try to slow her down to stop the beast chasing her. By the time she awoke, she was in tears, filled with anxiety that'd last half the day. Lying awake in her bed, unable to fall back asleep, she made herself feel so ill that she probably even earned herself a slight reprieve... until she had to make up for it
But as the hours passed, and the fear faded... the nightmare, too, began to fade. Nightmares only live for a night. We're born knowing that we will die. I, who had spent the night pursuing someone fleeing in terror, now felt the desire to run from my own fear.
And then he came. He said he'd been watching me, that he knew a way I could live, but I had to act fast and learn quickly. If I didn't... I'd be dead, and it'd be my own fault. Who'd turn down something like that? The only other alternative was to vanish as if I had never existed. To disappear without a trace... not even remembered, except in faint snatches of a frightened child's recollection. Then not even those.
Life as a nightmare wasn't easy. Night never implied otherwise. It was stressful. We had to keep looking for compatible minds, never daring to rest for too long. Time means nothing to a nightmare, but time keeps flowing, even outside of us. To avoid disappearing, we had to keep moving. We had to keep scaring.
I had lots to learn. We all did, because of course there were more of us. Night taught us everything we knew. Life experiences were filtered through the minds of our hosts, the memories we read in order to create the nightmares we plagued them with. It's true we may not have understood everything that we saw, but... that's fine. We're not human. We don't need to know what humans know. What they live through.
Time is empty and yet time is everything. We don't age. We don't change, except by our own will, and even then, the core of us stays pretty much the same. The minds we jumped to came from different lands, different times, different experiences. We had to find them, seek what would make them sustain us, and then keep their fear going until we had to leave. It was all we knew. It was how we lived.
Through it all, I felt deep gratitude and admiration for Night. Because of him, I was able to stop myself fading away. Because of him, I was able to keep running from that horrific fate. Because of him, I wasn't alone any more. I had him, and then I had Aidan. Sure, there were others, but those two mattered the most to me. Killing's easy, I'd do that for them in a heartbeat. But there's a lot more I'd do for them if they asked. Maybe I'm sentimental because of who I was born from, but... even if Night'd fucking kill me for being this sappy, I'd consider the two of them my dearest friends. Never saying that out loud though. Like I said... Night'd fucking kill me.
And now... I'm free. I'm alive. I won't disappear again, not ever. There's so much I want to do. I'm overwhelmed with choice, enjoying the freedom to just... stop if I want to, to just enjoy things because they're there and I have time. I don't have to run any more.
Now if I make people scream... It's because I want to, not because I have to. It feels good. And anyone who tries to stop me... is going to see just how scary I can get.