Sitting in a dark room,
completely alone,
not a single light.

Are you afraid?

Or can you sit there,
ignoring what your mind creates?
Can you pass it off as false,
what’s lurking in the shadows?

Just sitting—trying to stay calm,
watching—for any movement in the blackness,
waiting—for a hand to grasp you from behind,
straining—to hear any sound of a presence.

Reality—
clear and defined
when glimpsed in the light,
but when in isolated darkness
it’s blurred with the nightmares;
the monsters of the mind.

Shapes and forms
bloom before your eyes
in the absence of the light
and its familiar protection.

The creatures of the unseen world
stalking your every move,
looking for the perfect chance
to attack you when your guard is down.

Though they flee from the light,
faster than you could imagine.
Making it seem
as if there were never any threat.
But oh, how wrong you’d be
to make that fool’s assumption.

The darkness is a battlefield,
and you’re the only fighter.

Can you handle the Dark?