I’ve always thought I was normal. Maybe not average, but normal. At least I used to. I wouldn’t say that everything just fell apart, like a pillar broke and the whole structure collapsed or something like that. It wasn’t even a fall of any sort. Just a change. Like the tides, or the way the wind blows. It changes, not for good or for worse. It simply shifts.

    My mom struggles with depression to this day. She has medication though, so it’s okay. So do I actually. But the depression isn’t what scares me. Not even close. I’ve seen therapists before, multiple. A lot of time. A lot of money. A lot of memories and awkward silences. All just to figure out what’s going on inside my head, or, possibly, what isn’t. Maybe I’m missing something up there. Maybe there’s a little crack where something escaped. Maybe there’s something that shouldn’t be up there. I’ll never know. All I know is the effects, not the cause.
   
    They say it’s severe anxiety. I could agree. They also say it’s moderate clinical depression. I could also agree. But what they never understood were the dreams. The things I see on the other side. I don’t get as much sleep anymore. Maybe six or seven hours a night. I’ve adjusted. I think the smaller amount of time sleeping gives me a greater chance to avoid the dreams. Occasionally I’ll have one of those normal dreams. Normal. But some of them aren’t normal. All the abnormalities differ a little, but they all have it.
   
    I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how it got in my mind. It never chases me. It never acknowledges my mere presence when it passes by. It stares down, it’s shadowy, thin, lanky limbs slowly shifting to let it move. It might move on all fours. I can never tell. I think if it didn’t hunch over, it would stretch into the clouds. If there were clouds where it was. I’m not sure where it is, all I know is when the dream takes me I’m there with it. It’s a dark, shadowy, purple-black kind of land.  No wind. Dead things lying around. I know what some of them are. Not the others. I think it ended their existence. All I know is when it passes by it gives me this feeling of dread, worse than any mortal pain. I know it won’t end me. It knows I suffer from it’s existence.

    I try to escape. Leave this place. I’m running faster, and faster, but everywhere is just the dead, purple haze. It never ceases. No matter how far I can get away, I’m still there, and I know it is still there too. It doesn’t even look at me. It just lumbers around. It could end me if it willed it. It wouldn’t even have to move. It would just end me. But it doesn’t. When I look at it, I can feel how insignificant I am. I can feel how unimportant I am compared to this great being of immense power. Maybe it’s god. Maybe it’s the devil. Maybe it’s both of them. Maybe it ended them both. It’s a horrible feeling, knowing that it doesn’t care for anything, not even itself, something that simply ends things, whether it knows it or not, exists, and it lets you exist too, only to enjoy the suffering it brings you. It’s then I realize this may not be some strange dream world I’m in. It seems familiar. Like I’ve been there. Or like I’m always there.

    I wake up. It’s then I’m free, and I try to forget the land I was in. But I can’t. I see it everywhere. But I don’t see it. It isn’t there. It ended the wind there. There’s wind here. I like it here.