Fighting Life

Chapter One

Tana woke up, gasping for breath, her chest tight and her heart beating, fighting to escape her. She felt like she was covered in a cold wet sweat, but really, she was not. The room suffocated her in darkness and she knew it was still very early in the day. Her chest was tight and sore, and she took a moment to regain herself, before she let out a sigh and reached over, feeling for the black phone that blended into the rest of the darkness. She felt it and pulled it closer, hitting the side button, the phone face lit up, blinding her. Tana clenched her eyes closed for a minute, counting to five until they were ready to withstand the onslaught of brightness from the phone again.

11 March 2019, 04:00

It really did tell her how early it was and why things were still dressed in darkness. Letting out another sigh, she knew she was awake two hours before schedule and she was not too happy about it. Shaken from the dream she had suffered, Tana took in a slow breath and let it out again, knowing she was not going to be able to resettle right away. She dropped her hand to her side, holding the phone loosely in her grasp, looking up at the ceiling. She had dreams like the recent one all the time, different things happened, but the same cast always played the scenes. It made her shiver, and as the screen on her phone went into sleep mode, she was yet again submerged into complete darkness.

She laid there, in the bed, replaying the dream over in her head like there was some hologram on her roof, replaying the images for her to relive it all over again. Tana stayed like this for at least an hour, wishing for it to go away, so she could get some more sleep. Yet, sleep was not coming to her and by the end of that hour, she knew that she was out of luck, there was no more point in trying to fight it.

Shaking her head, Tana gave up, shifted and leaving the phone on the bed, she made her way over to the door and walked out into a dark hallway, to a bathroom that was next to her room. The tiles were cold and she recoiled a little against them, but she knew they would also wake her up. She braved the walk to the small shower in the corner and opening the glass door, she reached in turning on the mixer tap and allowed the water to run, to warm up. In turn, her next move was to go to the toilet and sit down, relieving her bladder of the pressure from the overnight build up. She looked to the right, at the sink and the mirror, hair a mess and darkness under the eyes, she looked like hell, trashed. She noted too how she looked pale in the skin, a sign that not all was right, but a sign that she ignored.

Diverting her eyes, avoiding herself, and how much she hated the way she looked, Tana let out another sigh, doing what needed to be done and flushed the toilet, getting undressed and moving to the shower. The glass was already blocked by the steam and she knew it was going to be hot against her skin, the water, just the way she liked it. The moment she stopped under the pelting stream, she could feel the sting of the heated water, but as her body adjusted to the boiling temperature, it was more comfortable and she was able to stand there directly under the stream, wetting herself all over and taking in the heat around her.

She had work in a few hours and being a fresh new day, almost at the end of the week, she knew it was going to be a crazy day. She was not looking forward to it, not after the week she had had so far and not after the dream she had just woken from. Tana placed her hands on the wall of the shower and leaned there, looking down at the floor and letting the water wash away her thoughts, watching as it spiralled down the drain. She had many thoughts in her head, yet the way she thought, she wanted it to stop, knew it was not healthy and wrong, but some days, it was harder than others.

Standing with the water running down her back, she started to think about the dream she had, and all the fears that were pulling at her heart. The thoughts that clogged any cognatic thinking. It was the fear of what was to come, the fear of losing those around her, that she felt to her face people seemed like they liked her, but truthfully, they did not, but they were being too nice to even say anything, for fear of upsetting her.