Achluophobia.

Prologue.

Dark.

I'm afraid of the dark.

It may sound ridiculous for someone my age to be scared of the dark with no sound reason, I am nineteen after all. But I don't believe there is nothing to fear lurking in that darkness. To me it always feels alive, waiting for the right moment to swallow me whole, devour me into its depths. A void of endless darkness, nothing and silence. I will be thrown into that void if I let my guard down, if I let the dark swallow me I will disappear the world as we know it and live the rest of eternity being tormented by that black mass forever.

Perhaps it is what lies in the dark in the dark, the shadowy outlines of countless people that only I can see. The ones that stalk me, hiding in every nook and cranny as they reach out to grab me. They disappear of course, if I turn on the lights but they just appear elsewhere. I can always feel them waiting patiently outside my bedroom door for their next chance I wander into any sort of darkness.

It's easy to say it's all inside my head, that it isn't real and it's just my imagination playing tricks on me. Even I once tried to convince myself that's all it was, it's what everyone says after all, my parents, my psychologist too. I don't blame them for not believing my, it sounds so utterly insane after all. So with that little ray of hope I took every pill they prescribed, tried every treatment they assigned me too but each one was completely useless.

I thought I was crazy until I adopted a ginger Burmese cat from the animal shelter. With her heightened senses, she knows they're there. Cowering and hissing she tries to protect me from the monsters circling around but they take no notice of her, solely focused on me. But it is enough for me, it reassures me it is real. Because if it was all just in my head, then my cat would not act if they were real and fear them.

She does it because they are real, it's all real. The darkness and the shadow people, they're all very much real and for whatever reason, they're after me.