Finding the source.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Says the clock a millionth time. I have been trying to sleep for the past three days now, but I just can’t do that.

"Oh, take a sleeping pill before you go to bed for a good night of sleep," says the doctor. No shit, Sherlock. I can still sleep, or at least I think I can. No, I am sure I can sleep just fine. It’s just that I know it's here.

It has been here ever since my childhood. "Oh, you silly boy. It’s just your imagination playing tricks on you." Says my mother. Yes, I would think. The room I am in didn’t change. The shadows didn’t just rearrange. Correct, the only thing that did change was what I could perceive at night.

But I wasn’t correct. My mother wasn’t right. I am not a silly boy. How glad I would be if that were to be the case. It would take shape in the faintest spots of darkness in my room. Then, I would hear it crawling, prowling, and playing with whatever it could put its hands on. I could only shut my eyes and pray that nothing would happen.

I moved the bed to the center of the room and laid every lantern, every night lamp, and every item that could provide a source of light on every wall. But it was still there. I could hear it behind or under my bed. I just couldn’t sleep.

I started taking sleeping pills, but the thought of being at the mercy of that thing kept me awake, and I needed to sleep. My eyes were crying out sand, my brain was tearing itself apart, and I could only sit there and wait for dawn. I couldn’t live like this. There had to be a solution.

One pill turned into two, and when that didn’t work, two turned into three, and eventually these additions resulted in a visit to the emergency room. That was a pleasant experience. Their room was surprisingly well lit. I suppose my family was done with me by that point, as I was put in a psychiatric hospital. I didn’t fit in there because, unlike the Toms and Jerrys there, I was right. It was real. It was waiting.

"Is it really, though?" asked the doctor. I couldn’t say for sure. 

I never actually saw the thing. Thus, it must have only been me, right? In hindsight, everything could be explained as the hyperimagination of a child or as noises that would only be considered logical when the source was found. I have read somewhere that wooden boards can creak by themselves in the colder seasons of the year. 

I was released a week ago. I was deemed fit to live as a normal member of society. Thankfully, my uncle allowed me to use his old apartment until I could provide for myself. I am really grateful to him, and I have really tried to find a job, but I am just too tired. I will try again once I stop this. I need to be normal.

Is it truly the dark that I fear, or is it what is hiding within it? I don’t know. It is natural for living beings to be scared of it. It is written in our genes, after all. For centuries, we have developed this instinctual fear of predators hidden in the dark. It is quite strange to think about it now that fears are passed down from generation to generation. And the only way to resolve it is through logic itself. I have left my lights on constantly for the first few days, but I can’t do that anymore as the electricity within the entire apartment has stopped working.

Looming over this room, awaiting the last candle to burn out, lays the being that shows itself mockingly at the corner of my eye. Every time I turn to look at it, its shape fades back into whatever item it was formed from. I'm trying to not acknowledge it, but the very act of ignoring it is a sign of acknowledgement.

The knocks. The creaks. The voices. I can hear them. Whenever I turn to look behind me, something darts back into the dark. I am running out of candles, and outside this room, a shroud covered in darkness awaits me. Tick tock. Tick tock. Marches the clock onward, and so on. How many hours has it been since I last slept? I look at the clock. It's 2:02 AM. The voice is whispering to me. I talk back, but there is no response. This procedure happens time and time again. What seems like hours pass by. The clock plays the same old tune. And eventually I look at the clock again. It's 2:03 AM. The fine line between reality and fiction is coming to a close. Every time I move, an afterimage seemingly emerges before disappearing back to where it came from. I have decided to light up the final candles. I placed four of them in the living room and kept the last one to myself. I will find it, even if it's the last thing I do.

I get up and start heading towards the source of the noices. I find myself walking from the living room to the long hallway. I turn a corner, then two more from there to the kitchen, and make my way through another hallway before I arrive at the end, where the bathroom is. Nothing meets me, but the voices are still there. I followed it again. From the bathroom to the kitchen and then to the hall. Then to the long hall, and then another and another, only to find myself in the bathroom. The voices seem to come from where I came from. I open the sink and arrive in the living room. All of the candles have burned out. The ticking tocks and the tocking ticks. All that is left is a pool of soot formed out of the remains of the burned-out candles. A single candle lights up. I pick it up and answer its calls, and yet there is no response.