The Fears Within

Grave Digger

Thanatophobia- Fear of Death

Jenny strolled through the cold night, the buildings surrounding her and towering over her tall frame. It was almost ten o'clock but she didn't care. She wasn't worried about getting mugged or anything. But.

If she were to get mugged, she would definitely give her wallet away. There wasn't a chance of her fighting back. If she did, something could happen. She couldn't let that happen.

Her therapist said everyone was afraid of death to some degree. No one really knew what would happen when they died. It was a mystery that no one knew the answer to. But the thought of just not existing after dying terrified her. Even religions didn't help her.

Some people called her silly. Said it was useless to be scared of death. Just enjoy life while you have it. But she couldn't. It might have been an illness, but doctors and psychologists couldn't find anything wrong with her, she was just that way.

Nothing wrong with her. 

Oh there was definitely something wrong with Jenny.

The cool wind bit at Jenny's exposed cheeks, stinging them into a blush. She could barely feel her toes. Converses were just not the best insulators in the cool January air. Her recent appointment with her therapist, Dr. Linkly had let out late. That was why she was currently fighting her way through the wind, trying to make her way back to her apartment on the other side of town.

Thoughts rang through her mind, quotes from Dr. Linkly bouncing around through her head.

Now Jennifer, every sentence Dr. Linkly said to Jenny started with that.

Now Jennifer, you have nothing to be afraid of. Death can't hurt you. When you die, no one knows what will happen, but it's nothing to be afraid of. You have at least sixty more years of your life to live, live it to the fullest. Try not to think about what will happen. That will make it better for you.

Dr. Linkly always said there was nothing to be afraid of. But what did she know? She had never died. She didn't know what it would be like. What it felt like to have your soul ripped from your body.

Jenny had a near death experience when she was three. Almost drowned in a lake on a family vacation. She had never told anyone, but she knew she had actually died that day. Only to be revived by her paramedic mother. Jenny had watched as her mother tried and tried to revive her corpse, a floating spiral of cool, silver air suspended above her young body.

It was hell.

She couldn't feel anything. Jenny had been a floating ball of silver energy, levitating above everyone. Unable to hear, taste, smell, touch. Only able to see. She couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. She could barely move, only a couple inches to the left or right. She probably could have moved more if she wanted to. Maybe a couple feet in an hour. A mile in a day. And then her mother breathed life back into her body and her silver ball of air had floated down back into her small form, giving her life again.

She was never the same.

Even at a young age she knew not to tell anyone about what happened. It would be catastrophic.

Jenny shivered, turning a corner. Her warm apartment only a couple blocks away. When there, she could curl up with a book and a mug of cocoa. Content to sit there forever. Lose herself in fiction so as not to be aware of reality.

She turned another corner and found herself face to face with a tall, cloaked figure.

"Excuse me," She mumbled, trying to maneuver around it.

Suddenly, it reached up and pulled back its hood, exposing a face Jenny knew all to well. Light hair, pulled up in a tight bun over a thin, almost skeletal face. Glasses perched on the end of her nose.

"Dr. Linkly?" Jenny's voice rose in a surprised question.

"Hello Jennifer." The doctor smiled.

"What- what are you doing out here?" Jennifer stood, dumbstruck, head tilted to the side in inquiry.

The doctor sighed, "I'm very sorry Jennifer, but you time has come once again. I had dearly hoped you would've lasted longer.

Jenny's eyes widened, "Wh-what? Dr. Linkly, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, Jennifer. And you were such a sweet girl." The doctor smiled again and stepped back.

Suddenly, the doctor's image shifted, as if her skin were reflective. Shimmering in the faint street light. Her white-blond hair grew thinner and fell out, landing on the ground in pools of iridescent gold. Behind her glasses, which had fallen to the ground as her nose started to recede into her head, her eyes shrunk grotesquely. Black sockets stared out at the terrified Jenny, matching the one in the middle of the doctors face, sitting where her nose used to reside. Her already thin lips shrunk back, turning white and dissolving. The doctor's skin was terrible, it glowed from the inside as it fell of in sheets, exposing the muscle beneath that, too, fell away, revealing the shining creamy-white of bone.

Soon, all that was left of Jenny's therapist was a tall skeleton, standing over Jenny at twice the doctor's usual five feet. A gleaming scythe appeared in thin air, seeming to come from the air molecules themselves, and floated there until the doctor reached out a bony hand and grasped it around the wooden handle. Dr. Linkly, or the monster that replaced her, drew the scythe in front of her, gliding it towards Jenny, and stopping it an inch from her neck.

"Come my child." And the doctor turned. Jenny immediately followed- about three feet to the next corner.

Jenny was thoroughly terrified but couldn't help being curious as to why they were stopping at the corner right next to her apartment.

"Stand here." The skeleton commanded. Jenny stared and pictured a childhood image of the Grim Reaper in her head. She didn't think it was appropriate to ask the question though and obediently stepped to the curb of the street.

Then she remembered what the Grim Reaper was.

"Wait... Dr. Linkly, what's going on?" Jenny's voice shrunk and shook with fear.

The doctor smiled, or appeared to as it couldn't without lips. Suddenly, a car came careening around the corner, headlights blinding Jenny. She could feel the cool metal of the scythe's blade in the small of her back as it nudged her ever closer to the corner. Jenny started screaming for help, but found she was mute and paralyzed in the doctor's presence.

"Now Jennifer, you have nothing to be afraid of." The doctor's voice sounded from behind her. It gave her one last push with the scythe and Jenny sprawled onto the pavement, in direct path of the speeding car.

As the headlights overtook her and the car's engine noise got closer until it was right above her, Jenny heard the speak again.

"Death can't hurt you."