My head rested on the book “The Grapes of Wrath,” that I was required to read for school. I had gotten about a chapter into the story and had already fallen asleep. I’d like to thank Mr. John Steinbeck for providing me with a book I was so incredibly uninterested in, that I had fallen asleep after the past week of restless nights. But I suppose my disinterest in the story had worn out, because I woke back up, my heart pounding. I must’ve been dreaming about something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. It probably wasn’t pleasant, because my breathing was heavy, and my palms were clammy with anxious sweat. I took a deep breath, four seconds in, four seconds out, like my therapist had suggested. I loved her, but she wasn’t helping. She was just like everyone else who tried to help me.

            “Odessa, it’s all in your head, you’re just going to worst case scenario.” I knew all that, but it didn’t help. I was still scared. I couldn’t make those irrational thoughts in the back of my mind go away. I looked around frantically, trying to find something other than “The Grapes of Wrath,” to distract me from my thoughts, but nothing grabbed my attention. So, holding the book under my arm, I retreated to my bed, deciding perhaps I’d be more focused on reading while surrounded by the comfort of blankets. But I was wrong, because as soon as I laid down, I cast the book aside, closed my eyes, and pulled the blankets overtop my head. I was alone with my thoughts as I stared into the black of my mind. My heart was beating fast.

You’re overheated. Deep breath. You’re too hot, get out. I scrambled out from under the blankets. You’re going to throw up. I didn’t even feel sick. You feel sick. I felt sick. Go. I clenched my jaw and sprinted to the bathroom. I slammed the door and locked it behind me, even though I was the only one in the house. I sat in front of the toilet, my head buried in between my knees. I knew I wasn’t going to get sick, but then again, I didn’t really know.

            I slid across the floor of the bathroom to a drawer at the bottom of the sink and pulled out a hair tie. I put my hair up, and slowly stood up. I stared at myself in the mirror. God, the circles under your eyes are so dark. They were. Are you going to throw up? You seem nauseous. I knew I wasn’t nauseas at all, it was just my brain tricking me into thinking I was. I retorted back with a thought of my own.

            “Stop.” I thought to the voice in my brain. Arevus. His name was Arevus because my therapist made me give it a name. I hated Arevus with a passion. He just didn’t know when to stop.

 You’re going to get sick. I gulped and reached towards the medicine cabinet, my hands trembling. I fumbled around with the many pill bottles until I found my sleeping pills. I dumped a few of the pills into my hand and set the bottle down. I held my hand up to my mouth. You’re going to choke. What? I closed my eyes and swallowed the pills. I turned off the light in the bathroom and walked slowly back to my room. I laid down on top of my blanket and curled up, hoping I would be able to sleep once more. After laying in my bed for several minutes, I finally drifted off into my Elavil induced sleep.

            Before me sat a classroom. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down at a desk. In the desks surrounding me sat vaguely familiar people that I couldn’t quite recognize. A teacher stood at the front of the class babbling inaudible words. And then a wave of nausea hit me. A real one, not one invented by my mind. I knew it was real; it had to be real. I whipped my head around frantically. I needed to get out of there. I raised my hand.

            “Can I go to the bathroom?” The teacher turned towards me, practically fuming at being interrupted.

            “Did you have to disrupt the whole class? Just go.”

            “Sorry,” I muttered. I rushed out of the class and collapsed on the floor in the hallway. The world, or wherever I was, spun around me, until I was standing in the middle of the pet food aisle in some unidentifiable grocery store. My heart was pounding. I took a deep breath, but my lungs didn’t fill. I tried again, taking an even deeper breath, but it didn’t work. I gasped for air. My attempts at breathing got faster and faster, as the dusty smells of pet food and unsanitary grocery store air taunted me.

            “Help,” I gasped. A woman walked past me. I grasped at her arm, looking at her, my eyes begging her for help. She glared at me and pushed me away. I fell to the ground, clutching my chest and tearing at my shirt.

 You’re going to die. No, I didn’t want to die. I lay on the ground, staring up at the bright fluorescent lights. And then my lungs inhaled. And then they exhaled. I was breathing. I stood up and looked around. A group of people stood around me. One person was filming. A little kid was laughing. They were laughing at me; all of them.

            “Wait,” I said desperately. “Please don’t film me.” Tears were welling up in my eyes. I looked down and tried to push through the crowd. “Please, I need to get through.” I wiped tears from my eyes as I finally broke through the crowd. They all turned to face me. Their faces were blank as they slowly moved towards me. I backed up, but they kept coming. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran. I ran to the front doors of the store, but they didn’t open. I pounded my fists on the glass. “Let me out!” I wailed. “Please!” The mob was getting closer to me. I still didn’t know what to do, so I ran again. I pushed past the “Employees Only” sign on a set of double doors and ran into the first room I could find. The bathroom. It was lit with dim yellow lights, one of which was flickering. The sinks were caked with dirt and built-up soap, yet the soap dispensers were empty, and it appeared that they hadn’t been refilled in quite some time. I warily opened the furthest stall from the door and struggled to lock it behind me.

            I slumped against the off-white tiled wall. I closed my eyes and placed my head in between my knees.

You’re probably going to get sick from this bathroom, there are like a million different kinds of germs on that toilet. I looked to my left at the toilet and scooted a little farther away. You think you can hide from the mob? They will find you. I was scared. They hate you. I knew they hated me; I could see it in their eyes. You’ve just embarrassed yourself in front of the entire world. It wasn’t the entire world. You did the wrong thing, everybody hates you. I was just trying to save myself. You shouldn’t have tried to save yourself. My thoughts weren’t making sense, but I believed them despite their nonsensical nature. I took a shaky breath. The bathroom smelled rancid. The smell is making you nauseas. The smell was making me nauseous. I scooted closer to the toilet. There’s something seriously wrong with you, why else would you not be able to breathe for so long? I was dying. You’re dying. I tried taking deep breaths, but it didn’t help; all I could smell was the bathroom. You’re dying. You’re dying. The edges of my vision were getting blurry. You’re going to pass out. I felt dizzy. You are going to die.

Around me, the walls closed in. I rubbed my eyes, but it didn’t stop. You’re going to die. The walls got closer and closer. I tried to scream, but it was too much work for my exhausted lungs. I coughed. The walls got closer. I tried to fill my lungs with air. I didn’t want to die. You’re going to suffocate in these walls, and nobody will ever know. And then they stopped moving. They were just inches away from my body. I attempted to stand up, but I couldn’t. I was being held down by some invisible force. I sat there. You’re going to die alone. And then I understood. I was a prisoner, chained down by my own mind. So, I gave in to the shackles of my thoughts. I lay down, defeated. I became one with my anxiety, as I felt I always should have. It was all I was. Then, a voice.

“Wake up.” I jolted upright, expecting to be met with the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, but I wasn’t. I lay on the bottom of an abyss. A voice echoed down from the tops of the jagged jet-black cliffs above me. And then from all around me. “Don’t try to run, Odessa.” I tried to run anyway, but a figure appeared before me as I attempted to escape. “You can’t run.” I expected the voice to come from the figure in front of me, but still, it echoed from all around me. “Are you scared of me?” The figure was a blur, somehow darker than the pitch-black void that surrounded us. A mist slowly ascended and descended the figure with every movement it made. I soon realized that the only reason I was able to mildly make out my surroundings was because of the miniscule orb of light in the center of the figure’s chest. The figure stepped towards me again, and as I tried to run, I found I was paralyzed. I wasn’t paralyzed as in the step before fight or flight, but in the sense that I physically could not move. The figures hand moved towards me, slowly placing its cold, bony fingers on my shoulder. An earsplitting scream exploded from my throat. I fell to the ground and as I crawled away, I had a realization. I turned back towards the figure, although my whole body was shaking with fear.

“Arevus.” It was him.

“Yes.” A million different things exploded around me. The smell of hand sanitizer, specifically the brand that my first-grade teacher bought. Every time I got a whiff of the sterile scent, my heart seemed to skip a beat, remembering how Mrs. Hart had said something about how her son swallowed too much of his own saliva and got sick, and how I had then proceeded to convince myself that if I accidentally swallowed my saliva, I was going to get sick. The sound of the fire alarm in my house after a cloud of dust and ash from the fireplace triggered it echoed around me. Once more, I felt the fear just like it was when I was four years old, terrified that my house was on fire. The memories of being too scared to stay inside for fear of being trapped by a fire stabbed me in the gut. Another smell hit me, the smell of the chlorinated pool at the hotel near my grandparents’ house. I’d almost gotten in that pool when I realized I was going to get sick. “Do you smell that?” Arevus sneered. “Are you going to be sick?”

I frantically scratched at my palms and took deep breaths. I couldn’t tell if my vision was blurry because I was going to pass out, or if it was because of the hot tears pouring down my face. “Is it hot in here?” Arevus asked menacingly. “I think it’s hot in here, oh, it’s really hot in here, do you feel okay?” I didn’t feel okay. With one hand I held my hair away from my neck, and the other I wiped on my pants. No matter what I did, my hands stayed clammy. I spun around, praying that I could find an exit to this nightmare.

“Leave me alone!” I bawled, falling to my knees. The blistering heat burned my neck and arms. I tore at my flesh, trying to take away the heat. “No...no…” I muttered. “Please.” I took a shaky breath. I tried to sit up, but my head spun, and my vision blurred.

“You can’t handle it?” Arevus taunted. I let out a cry. “That’s what I thought.” You can’t handle it.

“Please, stop!” I tugged at my hair as I lay curled up in the abyss. Let him win. Let it win. “No!” I screamed. “No, I will not let you win!” I stood up. What are you doing? You are going to lose. “Leave me alone.”

“I can’t leave you alone,” Arevus stated. “I am a part of you.”

“Then back off.” Deep breath in, deep breath out, just like my therapist said.

“I’m just trying to protect you,” Arevus hissed, his voice growing louder.

“You’re making things worse,” I said through my clenched teeth.

“I’m helping you.”

“No, you’re hurting me.” I took a step towards him. “And I need you to back off.”

“I can’t back off, I’m a part of you. I am you.”

“You--” I struggled to find the words. “No…no you’re not…” My voice grew quieter.

“You’re wrong.” Arevus said. The blurry figure in front of me faded away, until its dark exterior was gone, and standing in front of me, was…me. There were dark circles under my eyes, my face was pale, and my hair was tangled and disheveled. “I am you.”

“No.” I stared into Arevus’s eyes. “You may be a part of me, but you are not who I am.”

“No--” Arevus began, but I cut him off, by swiping my hand across his face. My image floated away in a cloud of fog. All that remained was the luminescent orb. Slowly, I reached my hand out towards it. As my hand reached the orb, everything lit up.

On the horizon, I could see a door. There was nothing around me, so I walked towards it. I was halfway there when the classroom reappeared. I walked through, past the vaguely familiar students and the angry teacher, and continued through the bright abyss. I was almost to the door when the enraged crowd of people appeared in front of me. I walked through with no trouble at all, despite the yelling of profanities and abuses directed at me. Now I stood before the door. As I looked back, the classroom and crowd were gone. I stared at the door. It was a deep brown door, with a matte black door handle. In the center of the door was a stained-glass window. I looked through the window and saw the continuation of the white void. I looked back once more, then carefully turned the door handle, and walked through.