You Are My Light {Larry Stylinson}

Chapter 3: Seeing Stars

He should have seen it coming. The darkness that he had forgotten for the past twelve hours came splashing around him as quickly as they had left, like the low tide coming in in a split second, and he regretted letting his guard down. He hugely regretted coming out of his shell, as he was going to pay for it now.

Louis lay awake on top of his small, single bed. Shivering on top of the covers. He knew better than to try and sleep, then the nightmares would come. It was surprising how in one day, he had just… forgotten what life was really like. He allowed himself to become sucked up in normality. He wouldn’t describe the day as happy, but… content.

He felt the darkness that he had suppressed all through the day begin to rear its head. It began in his stomach, tying knots repeatedly, then moved upwards. His throat clenched painfully, a reaction to him involuntarily biting down on his lips, hard enough to draw blood.

Then it reached his mind. This… sickness. Subtle whispers began whispering in his mind. 

‘You don’t deserve to be happy.’ 

‘You never will be happy.’ 

‘Everything you know is a lie.’

Louis had become almost used to the barrage at this point. His mind, his seriously fucked up mind, was telling him how unworthy of happiness he was. It agreed with everything everyone from school had told him, how they spoke the truth.

The voice never was plain in Louis’ mind, it always remained safely on the peripherary, whispering little things into his ear at will, tearing any form of protection he had constructed in mere moments, whilst never being the focus of Louis’ mind.

Yet in his darkest moments, he had always found something. Something which had pulled him from the murky depths from his mind before he had drowned. Up until now he had always pictured his mother and sister. Their kind eyes, words and touches. The pure image of their love had dulled somewhat, it didn’t fight off the darkness anymore.

He tried to picture something else, something stronger. The same thing that had cast it’s light into the furthest recesses of his mind, illuminating all, and chasing the darkness out.

Yet he couldn’t picture what his mind was telling him. 

‘No.’ He thought to himself. He refused to rely on another person. He had fallen down that trap once, and he never intended to repeat tragedy once more.

It took him a solid hour, tossing and turning in his bed, before he tamed the malevolent voice in his head. He was surprised it had receded so quickly. He had only considered a colour. A thick, pure green. Almost emerald-like. He couldn’t relate the colour to anything, it simply reminded him of innocence and… happiness. An abstract feeling for him.

He looked over to his clock and sighed at it.

“Three in the morning.” He muttered, groaning at the thought of awakening the following morning, yet he knew regardless that he wouldn’t actually sleep. He’d toss and turn for an hour, then wake up screaming, like every night. 

His nightmares were always so vivid, yet they were never traditionally scary, no monsters, no ghouls; his dreams consisted more of silence, complete, dead silence. Particularly the local train station, which, in his dream, was always bustling with people, yet it was bone-chillingly silent, so much so that the silence made Louis’ ear-drums feel like they were going to burst.

He kicked his duvet off and pulled himself into a sitting position, deciding if he should stay awake the entire night, or try and scavenge a few hours sleep. He shrugged, wondering what the point of trying to sleep for three or four hours when he probably wouldn’t get anything out of it.