Desire.

She opened her eyes, yet nothing was absorbed. Her eyes immediately felt as dry as her mouth in the chilled air. She could feel the stone brick walls in her bloodied palms. Her wrists were shackled, yet she did not know what to. A scream filled her ears, and once again her eyes opened wide. No longer was she in the pitch black cold, but rather in her bed. The scream continued shortly before she learned it arose from her throat. She stopped and replaced it with panted breaths. Her frantic hands grasped her shoulders. She attempted to soothe her troubled mind. Curled up on her bed rocking back and forth. She focused on nothing but her breathing. The things she saw in her sleep felt more real than reality itself. An oozing darkness fell upon her room, enveloping the walls around her. It began racing to her bed, creeping over the blankets, and slowly making its way to her. It swallowed all light. All shape. All color. Everything folded into itself with the darkness. She was helpless as it inched closer and closer to her. Finally, it touched her. It moved slowly up her legs. Reaching her hands. Creeping up her shoulders to her face. It swallowed her. It felt calm. It was cold yet warm. Frightening yet soothing. It was everything yet nothing. It was darkness.
Lilith's eyes sprang open once more. It was a nightmare inside a nightmare. Or, at least, she thought and hoped it was. All those feelings felt real. It felt as though she really was shackled in that freezing, damp room. It felt as though she really awoke to the darkness encompassing her. It felt as if she had woken up in both places and this one was fake. She took in the scenery. It was the same room with the darkness, yet it was bright from the sun. A wooden floor, red walls, a desk and mirror to her left, a closet in front, and a nightstand to her right. She could see the rug on the floor just under her bed frame. She stared for what felt like an eternity until her alarm clock shattered her fixation. The clock showed 7:00 as it beeped. Lilith just stared longer, unaffected by the alarm.
"LILY!" a voice shouted from outside her bedroom door. "Get out of bed before you're late for class again!" Finally, Lilith dragged her body out from her blankets. In the corner of her eye, she saw her open closet door. She walked to it to get clothes with the nagging feeling that she had definitely closed the door the night before. At least, she believed she did. She turned to get dressed and leave. A faint movement in the closet made her pause briefly. She stared at the closet for a moment before concluding it was nothing. She left her room and walked down the hallway. It seemed to extend as she walked. The walls warped in her peripherals. She blinked and everything was normal. "You look dead but good to see you up finally," the same voice from earlier spoke. Her roommate Sarah sat on the couch with a tv remote in hand. Lilith let out a sound that vaguely mimicked words. All Sarah said in return was a commanding, "Go! Now!"
All eyes were on Lilith yet she could never meet them. Everyone was staring down Lilith but could not prove it. She never could. It has always been this way. The weight of a dozen lost pairs of eyes on her but no one to claim them. Even in class, she sat in the far back of the room and yet she could claim everyone to her side stared still. She could feel each judgemental thought about her through their eyes. She would try her best to ignore them and scribble on her paper. Every class was like this. Lilith had lost interest in the topics being taught. At this point, she did not even know what the topics were. All she knew was that everyone was out to judge her. Judge her every movement. Judge her every thought. Judge everything about her. Scrutiny lay in her mind infesting thoughts like a swarm. Her biggest fear was being seen by others in a lesser light than she saw herself. She was afraid that everyone would reject and judge her. She kept to herself at all times. Sarah seemed to be the only friend she could make and even she was a forced circumstance being Lilith's roommate.
Lilith spent so much time in her head that her imagination started to blend in with reality. Her dreams felt so real that she woke up unsure if they happened to her in the past night. Her daydreams felt like actual events. They were so strong sometimes in her mind that she often could not parse her delusions from fact. The time spent outside of the walls of her brain was limited, yet filled with music blocking the sounds of life. She did not view the world in objective means, everything to her was emotion and feelings. She loved poetry. She loved art. She loved to have an interpretation of everything. Everything was as set in stone as the thoughts in the confines between her ears. She loved the supernatural. She loved gothic literature. If only it never turned on her in her dreams.
She lay awake all night. Her arms felt like they were full of something foreign. Her nails traced along her veins to free the foreign feeling. Drifting through the black, endless night; her consciousness slipped slowly. Her thoughts became a reality behind her eyelids. A world began to form around her. A torch was left in her hands. She shone it on the area near her and let her surroundings fill her eyes. A large, cold, stone building. Candelabras lined the floor and tables in the long hall. Lilith walked along a rug that appeared to run the length of the building. Massive stained-glass windows plastered the walls, no light shone through them though. The tall ceilings held chandeliers that were lit with candles. A staired spire sat next to her leading up into the dark. A sudden hunger overtook Lilith's body. Her thoughts were sent in a flurry. She could no longer focus on her surroundings. All she could see was red. The back of her eyelids filled with the color. Her mind focused on one thing, a dark liquid. She had no idea what the liquid was, yet she knew exactly what her body wanted. Lilith ran up the spire. Unsure why she was running, her instincts told her what to do. At the top, she saw a hallway with plenty of wooden doors. She was still in a flurry of hunger for that single liquid. She did not know what it was, yet she knew she needed it. A door creaked open. Light poked through the crack and grew. Footsteps started to sound in the air. Lilith was filled with desire, or was it rage? The light met her face. She stood in front of a shadowed figure. A voice lingered, no words filtered through Lilith's ears. An act of revenge. She attacked. She leaped on the figure. Her teeth sank into the throat of the victim. Blood. That hunger was for blood. She was finally able to focus on her surroundings. She saw Sarah's face next to her mouth. She tasted her blood. Lilith's arms were covered in scratches and leaked with blood. Her hand no longer held a torch, but rather a knife. It had cut into this Sarah's abdomen. The stone walls crumbled as they became the kitchen of the apartment that Lilith and Sarah stayed in. Lilith's dream slowly succumbed to the light that was overhead. The kitchen light had brought Lilith back to a sense of reality yet, her visions of Sarah did not change. The castle no longer existed. The candelabras faded into hallway lamps. The long rugs faded into a carpeted floor. The only person she could consider a friend laid underneath her covered in a dark red liquid. A dark red liquid that originated from her abdomen and her throat. Her friend did not fade from her mind like everything else. Sarah's body felt more real than her other delusions. Was Sarah's body real? Had Lilith done this to someone she could have trusted to be a friend? The thoughts spread in Lilith's mind like a weed. She realized she was not asleep. She realized she was sleepwalking through her dream tonight. Tears started in the corners of her eyes. She had no idea what she was doing. She was lost in a dream. Nothing was real. Everything was real. Lilith could not tell. She never could tell what was real and what was imaginary.