The Creature

Deep breath. 

In and out. In and out. 

Take a step, Leena, take a step. Don’t fall on your face. Smile. 

Sharp needles piercing my heart. 

Deep breath. 

Something fluttering in my stomach. 

Deep breath. 

The crowd is watching, silent as ever as they wait for me to trip or fall. I clench my paper harder in my fist. Time seems to slow and I hear my own heavy breaths as I make my way to the front. 

One step. Two steps. Stop. 

Deep breath. 

I open my mouth to speak until the sight of all those people suddenly rush at me and I realize exactly what I’m doing. I’m speaking in front of my own school. Every single face a blur of judging stares.

Fear wraps his black claws around my heart and drags it down with a scream of agony. My breathing stifles and the words stick in my throat, binding my windpipe shut. I cough and try to speak again but the words just won’t come out. 

It’s too silent. Too many stares. Too much pressure.

In an instant, I’m flashing into the past, where I spent so much time practicing this speech over and over. Where I deemed myself a great public speaker. 

I grab my paper and proceed to scream my next words so it finally comes out my blocked throat. 

“HELLO STUDENTS AND TEACHERS!”

I’m mortified. Every single person in the crowd jumps. My heart is pounding in my ears, painfully ramming itself over and over again into my chest. I’m silent again and the crowd shifts uncomfortably. 

My eyes dart between my teacher who is trying to hide his clear embarrassment and my friends who look afraid. For me. 

I just want to leave. I just want to get out of here!

My pounding heart doesn’t stop, even after I’ve run far away from the very place I was just standing, leaving an empty podium and an entire school of people waiting.

The Creature. 

That’s what I call it. 

It comes out when I’m about to experience or do something essential to my life. A test, a speech, a presentation, when someone talks to me.

He untangles himself from the dark parts of my brain and slithers across my throat, winding it shut. He claws my stomach and bites deep into my heart, crimson blood dripping down his yellow teeth. 

He won’t leave me alone.

Day by day, I live in fear of him. If I study hard enough, would he leave? If I practice enough, would he leave?

As soon as I pick up my pencil, my entire hand begins to shake, visions flashing behind my eyes, making me dizzy.

What if I fail this test?

What if it affects my average?

What if I don’t get into a good university because of this?

With a horrid scream, The Creature is possessing me again as it takes control of my limbs and forces me deep into darkness and fear. 

He has taken my breath away and I’m choking in his grasp. “Please,” I plead, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Please let me go!”

I’m jolted back into reality by the thousands of stares I’m getting in my class. The teacher is in front of me, her face filled with panic. 

“Leena!” she cries. “Are you alright.” I gingerly touch my throat. It’s wet and for a panicked second, I think its blood. But no, it’s only water.

Water from the tears that are streaming down my cheeks. 

The Creature laughs.

He whispers things into my ear. “Someone’s trying to kill you and you know it.”

My food looks weird today. It’s true. What if someone did, in fact, put something bad in it! I would die quick and fast and never live to see my future. 

“You’re right,” I admitted to The Creature, dumping the food away. 

“Leena,” he grabs my shoulders and hisses into my ear. “You’re going to get into a car crash and the people you love will die.”

The road is icy. There would be a good chance the car would slip. Instead, I walk home. 

“Leena,” he says again. “You’re going to get kidnapped.”

I protest. There’s no chance I would get kidnapped. But when I finally disagree with him, he flies into a fury and begins his harming process again, claws in my stomach, teeth in my heart, breath forced into my throat until I finally admit he’s right and run away before I get kidnapped.

“That’s funny,” my friends say. “The Creature? It sounds like a horror movie. We’re too old for this”

“Please!” I beg, sinking deeper into this hole as I throw my hand to them. They only laugh. They can’t see the hole. They can’t see The Creature pulling me deeper.

The Creature has a new name.

“Anxiety,” they told me. “You will call it anxiety. It’s a mental illness where you worry too much.”

The Creature has a new name but it only makes him laugh harder. 

 They say they would help me. They gave up. 

Instead, I hear them calling me crazy behind the walls. The Creature tells me it’s because everyone hates me. I think he’s right. He has a lot of evidence. 

The main clue is when they put me in a white room. No windows, no doors, only a bed. 

The Creature is in a frenzy. He screams in my skull, over and over again, a movie playing inside my head. I’m going to grow old here and never come out again. Never see my family.

“No,” I argued. “They’re going to bring me out. They’re going to help me.”

The Creature slashes his sharp claws at me, tearing my chest. I stumble back, placing my hand on my beating heart. 

Even though he attacks me and I feel the effects, I know they’re going to take me out. 

They promised they would help me. 

They never came back for me.

The Creature has a lot of new names. 

Mental.

Crazy.

Insane. 

Until I realize that they’re not talking about The Creature anymore. 

They’re talking about me.