I was five when it started.
My whole life, my dad told me, I had been a happy child. I was always eager to try new things, go new places, meet new people. You would never see me without a smile on my face.
I don’t remember much, but can still feel the sunshine on my face and the cool breeze kissing my cheeks. I loved to spend as much time as possible outside with my dad.
My mom was never in the picture. Gone. Dad always told me she didn’t want the responsibility of a kid, but I didn’t care because I had my dad.
I’d spend the day with him and we’d go to the beach or swim in the pool before bed. Life was good.
Until it wasn’t.
I stopped sleeping at 5.
It wasn’t something my dad noticed. I didn’t even notice at first. I just… stopped sleeping.
It started with just a few hours. I’d lay in my bed and stare at my nascar clock above my closet door until the early hours of the morning before drifting off. I never knew when I’d fall asleep. I would just wake up to my alarm, with no memory of my head hitting the pillow. My room would be freezing, despite the fan having never been turned on.
I was always cold. I didn’t think much of it, since my dad was the same way, but I always needed a jacket to keep from shivering.
Then the dreams. In the hour or two of sleep I’d get every night, I would never dream. Not a memory or a hazy image or anything.
I snapped my eyes open one morning, a few years after it had started, dim sunlight already filtering into my room. The world was misty, like sometime had placed a twilight filter over my vision.
Dad sat across from me at the table during breakfast when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I paused in the middle of my bite and frowned.
“Marra? You okay?”
I stared at the corner of the living room, light so dim it might as well have not been on. I could have sworn I saw a shape moving but there wasn’t anything there now.
“I’m fine, Dad.” I took another bite of my food. “Just thought I saw something.”
It continued like this until I was twelve, until I just stopped sleeping completely. I was perpetually tired, my body dragging everyday yet unable to relax enough to rest. Dark bags had formed under my eyes over the last few years. I constantly wore baggy sweatshirts to cover my thin frame.
My pale blue eyes had dimmed, and flickered about the room every waking moment. Following shapes and movement that I was convinced only I could see.
Dad noticed. He was growing increasingly concerned with my lack of sleep and got me to a therapist. When I told her about the shadows - the whispers that had grown in the darkness of my room - (oh, God, the whispers, hissing spitting eating at my brain until the sun rose) - she prescribed me a sleeping pill to take every night. She told my dad I was sleep deprived and hallucinating, and suggested I rearrange my room and consider a night light.
It didn’t work.
I would sit up in bed, for hours, watching the shadow figures dance in front of the small lamp, twirling and twisting in my mangled mind.
I stopped talking.
My dad took me to doctors and therapists and specialists and no one had any answers. I wasn’t schizophrenic, or bipolar, or depressed. I didn’t had any family history of ailments nor did I have the symptoms of any particular mental illness.
“Marra, sweetie, can you hear what I’m saying?”
I stared blankly at my father. A small part of my brain - a thought pushed deep in the back of my mind - wanted to hug him (hug? what’s a hug?). The whispers grew louder.
My heart broke when my father received no response.
I stopped eating. I stopped drinking. I watched through my saturated vision as the nurses inserted the IV in my arm.
The shadows flickered in and out of the their hair, all around their eyes and face. A heavy weight settled on my shoulder and i sobbed for my dad. The shadow behind me hissed softly in my ear.
(How delightful my father smelled)
(How delicious he would be)
(How they could wait for dinner to be served.)
The darkness spread. Every day the word dimmed a little as I was dragged further and further down. I couldn’t tell anymore what was real, or what was alive. Was this a dream? Or was I really dying?
(I wanted to be held by my dad. I wanted to finally wake up and see the sun and know it was all one big nightmare. I wanted to be okay)
My father knelt beside my bed. I wanted to grab his hand and let him know I was okay.
My hand stayed still.
His eyes - icy blue like mine - were filled with tears. “I love you, Marra. Please come back to me.”
I’m trying, Dad. I cried. I’m here!
The room was dark, lit only by a single nightlight behind my father. The one he had gotten me so long ago to scare off whatever was keeping me awake.
I’m sorry, Dad. It didn’t work.
The whispers crowded my ears and I felt a set of soft lips press against my forehead. The cold spread across my body and I finally relaxed.
Mind numbing relaxation. Funny how so many people consider it calming. I watched in detached horror as my father’s face faded from view, ebony shadows racing around the room in a frenzy. Picking up speed until a tornado of wind formed.
Hissing turned to screeching beside my ears and I couldn’t bring myself to care. My mind was finally settled and I could rest.
I’m sorry, Dad. A single tear ran down my cheek. I let the demons win.