Phenomenon

Chapter 44: Hot Chocolate

The weeks leading up to the Culture Festival were full to the brim with studying, practice, looking after Eri and (unfortunately for me) the stray nightmare. It wasn't just me who was having nightmares, sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night to light knocking at my door. When I opened it, I would look down to see a pale-faced Eri shivering in her nightgown, ruby eyes blown wide with fear and relief. After the first night when this had happened, I had adopted a routine. One such night just happened to occur three days before the culture festival.

My mind swirled with turmoil and my stomach rolled with grief as I stared blankly at the mural of heroes behind my desk. My heart pounded erratically in my ears as I tried desperately to forget the horrid images which had been summoned by evil forces and forced into my dreams. Sometimes, even when I take my medication, the dreams break through and I am left shaking on my bed, my nails digging bloody crescents into my arm.

That night I'd had one of my worst nightmares in a long time. I was pursued relentlessly by the images of Hisashi pursuing me down a corridor, eyes crying blood and tongue lolling from his mouth, he had the overall look of a man crazed by bloodlust and fanciful delusions. I ran faster than the wind in my attempt to flee him, yet my efforts were in vain. My feet pounded against the floor and my arms pumped, still, I didn't move an inch.

The walls bled. Cries of anguish and torture echoed around the halls. The sound of people gargling and choking on their own blood as their throats were slit bombarded me. The crack and snap of bones haunted my very being. I cried out desperately for someone, anyone, to help me out of the hell I was being subjected to. What did I do to deserve such a harsh punishment?

The dream came to an end when the looming shadow of Overhaul dragged me into its shadowy depths and devoured me whole. Darkness consumed every sub-atomic part of me.

I snapped upwards in my bed with an aborted gasp which caused my throat to seize up and resulted in me choking on my own breath. I clawed around on my bedside table for the glass of water I kept there for situations exactly like the one I was in. Whilst it wasn't a common occurrence, I had choked upon startling out of nightmares before, and I knew that I would again at some point in the future.

My mind raced a mile a minute as I stared at my wall. I felt completely lost, as though my soul had been sucked out of me and cast aside. It was like there was no purpose in life anymore. Depression and paranoia settled over my mind, making my vision hazy and my already frantically beating heart speed up into a full force gallop. Scenarios and thoughts better left forgotten breached my mind. Every shadow was my enemy, flickering vestiges of Hisashi, Overhaul, Chronostasis, Shigaraki and All for One danced across my walls in a taunting tango. They laughed mockingly and jeered at me, announcing to the world just how weak and pathetic I was.

My chest tightened and my breathing came in staggered gasps as I desperately attempted to regain control of my body, but I couldn't. My chest imploded every other second and it pained me to breathe. I knew what was happening. I knew why the shadows were taunting me whilst my head spun due to asphyxiation. I knew what was happening, however, I couldn't pull myself out of the spiral. The panic attack was all-consuming. Like a boat at sea during a storm, waves crashed down upon me, depriving me of my basic need for air and safety.

Just when I felt like I was going to tip past the point of no return when ragged screams and heart-wrenching sobs would rack my body, a simple yet familiar three-beat knock pierced through my clouds of fear and turmoil. I knew the knock. I had known it from the first night Eri had slipped from her room and journeyed to mine. It seemed as though I wasn't the only one to have had a nightmare that night.