Sleep. She used to hate it. Nightmares would plague it, composed of memories, mixed with monstrous delusions. She would not only hear her family shriek in the daylight but also in her slumber. Unable to move, trapped by her own exhaustion, she could not close a door to shield herself from it. In the night, those yells would take form, shattering any obstacle to reach her. As well, instead of seeing their faces, she would see distorted masses of flesh, which would open their maws to continue their cacophony.

Sometimes, the dreams preferred to taunt with the usual unending sterile corridors, only exchanging mocking laughter with harmful stones, which would bury her until she could no longer breathe. The days were as terrible as the nights.

In youth, she avoided sleep as much as possible. Now, in contrast, she sought it. It was strange; gone were the screams, far away her despotic guardians. There were no more hallways and sneers that would drain her. No pressure… And still, she felt like drowning. It was an unending void, in which she was sinking. A voracious pit that was swallowing her, inside out. A parasite she could not see, but one that was there.

Depression, that was what they called it. Instead of in her dreams, the memories would assault her in her daily routine. Nothing filled the numbness inside her, nothing could make her smile for long. Things she had loved did not invoke the same laughter or joy.

At first, she hated the meds. It all made her feel dazed, and it was something she would fight. Until she realized that with it, there were no thoughts. There was only rest, peaceful quiet. No reflections, no doubts.

And so, the more she sank into that lethargic abyss, the more she sought to lay down and drift off. It eased her unreasonable sorrow, gave her a temporal escape. Every day, she would struggle more to stay awake, she would sleep more. It reached a point in which she would only lay in bed all day. 

Her idleness was not only caused by her tiredness and reluctance to open her eyes. With each dream, she would feel more eager to witness the consequent ones. Her long slumbers would present her with a beautiful dark starry sky, after spending hours struggling to drift off.

At first, she was keen to greet those inner sights. She had come to love the stillness of her heartbeat. Lately, however, she could not avoid but notice how it pulsed strongly, as if afraid. One night, her dream did not display the usual bright stars she had come to cherish; there was only blackness instead. What had been a greenfield turned into a shadowy marsh, rotten and deep.

She wanted to wake up. There were no screams or jeers, but she wanted to wake up. Somehow, this was worse. Soon, the shallow waters turned into something… fleshy. Still black, decomposed, but very much alive. The roots that had tangled around her began to convulse; in seconds, they too had their own mind. Hundreds of serpentine tongues latched onto thousands of pulsing giant bulges, fusing into a shape that she could not comprehend, extending far in the unseen horizon.

The last thing that emerged, from what she had believed to be water, was a mass composed of a million eyes. Big, small, some of the same size as hers. Did not matter, for all were fixed on her with intent. Looming, some attached to the flesh, others on the void-like sky.

Wherever she turned, that was all she saw, gazing shadows. Even when she would close her eyes… because she could not control her dream, the nightmare, no matter how she tried to run. There was no hiding, no awakening.

It spoke. With a voice that was not human, with words that were not real. Yet she understood. She knew then that this thing had always been there. It had always fed off her nightmares. With her worries fading due to time and autonomy… it had gone hungry.

Like a hook dangling with bait, it had offered her a peaceful beautiful dream, after assaulting her with horrible reminders. It made her see what she had avoided her whole life. Then, it let her sorrow drag her down, to tire her and allure her. It waited to strike, not wishing to scare her off with a nightmare that would make her reluctant to sleep again.

At last, it would feast, for she surrendered her will to the slumber, willfully and wholeheartedly. The tongues rose around her, not rushing to twist and strangle. The flesh sunk her deeper into the shallow darkness, with a force she could not contest. And the eyes watched while she drowned.

She awoke no more.