❝In which two people call up a helpline in order to find someone just as broken as they are. ❞
"Does...does it bother you that my dad's in prison for murder?"
"Well, judging by the fact that I moved away from America to get away from the memory of a...
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Without the distraction of someone to talk to, Isabella's mind was able to conjure up its own black magic, the darkness becoming darker as she was lulled into an inharmonious slumber. It did not matter how much her eyelids valiantly fought to stay open because, unlike her eyelids, her mind did not know the consequences of sleep.
No matter how many dreadful experiences she had overcome in the past, her head continued to insist that her eyelids should remain closed. That she sleep. That she forget the pointed claws of darkness and give in. Give in to sleep. Give in to exhaustion. Hand over the consciousness of her mind and the key to the chaos. To allow her head to take the reins. To permit the imagination permission to do what it did best. Imagine. In dreamlike form.
But she wouldn't sleep.
She couldn't.
She wouldn't allow herself to.
She couldn't.
Giving into sleep was like allowing someone else to paint on your canvas. You control nothing. It is only throughout something as peaceful as sleep that the mind can truly take control, manhandling the brush and splattering paint and colour in a way that would not be possible during full consciousness.
In dreams, her mind was the author who created the tale and spun the threads of the story. And Isabella knew just what sort of fable her head would conjure up. She would never dream of anything else. Could never. She had dreamt it a thousand times. Relived the moment enough to last a hundred lifetimes.
