FANTASY WORLD || 18+

• Maladaptive Daydreaming || Mini-Story Four •

Maladaptive Daydreaming: a mental health issue where a person daydreams excessively, sometimes for hours at a time. "Maladaptive" means this type of daydreaming is an unhealthy or negative attempt to cope with or adapt to a problem.

It was around 7 pm and lucki I heard the same argument from her parent for the fifth time that week. She rolled her eyes before lifting herself off the bed and closing her door, yet it didn't quite much. She belly-flopped back on her bed with a groan of irritation.

Irritated with her parents for the constant arguments that weren't worth arguing over and at herself for managing to put up with it for so long. Her parent wasn't always this rocky, things were perfect up until senior year for her.

It started as little bickering from here to there to full-blown arguments til her dad left and didn't return til the next morning hoping he got there after her mother left for work. Despite the strain in their marriage they try their best to keep the bandaid on their family for the sake of luck. After graduation, her parents insisted on her staying home and doing online schooling, and at first, she was convinced seeing she was still just 18, but here she is now at the age of 23 and wishing she would've gone to the farthest school away from home. She did however start saving with the new job she stuck with since the age of 20 and almost had enough for the first and second rent of the apartment she'd been looking at and it was only a matter of time before she packed her bags and left.

Seeing her parents hurt her feelings the most though. Seeing her parents fall out of love was one of the saddest experiences she's ever witnessed. She had days when she couldn't see how they grew to hate each other; separately both individuals were the best parents, but together they were a small ship in a storm. She never understood what was the reason for them staying together, but she figured they were just sticking it out for her.

"Alexa play "I gotta be" by jagged edge, volume 20 please." she spoke softly into the device sitting next to her bed. Alexa replied with the commands given before the music slowly came alive and tuned out the harsh words of her parents downstairs.

'I pray that when I meet the love of my life our love remains strong' Lucki thought to herself. Music and daydreaming are how Lucki copes to escape the reality of her life. Some days it felt so real that hours would go past and she'd receive texts and missed calls, but she was never asleep, that was the shocking part. Sometimes she thinks about being far away on an island with beautiful vibrant colors and dirt road pathways with Jamaican music that could be heard softly in the distance, fruit trees dangling over her inviting her to take one for her delight.

She spent the majority of her daydreaming time however thinking of the perfect love and imagining how cute it would be, what dynamic couple would they be even created an imaginary boyfriend too. In the beginning, she felt it to be a little delusional and sad singing that her mind had conjured up a man in her head rather than give her the courage to speak to one in the flesh, but despite wanting love her fear of any of her relations wanting like her parents was more than enough to keep her at shore.

Endri. That was the damn name she managed to give the man, it had meant dreams and she found it to be perfect seeing that he wasn't anything more but a dream. Endri was Lucki's deepest desire, he was everything she'd ever wanted in a man and happily enough he was no one else but Lucki's.

'Sometimes I think I'm dreamin', I pinch myself just to see if I'm awake or not.....'

Lucki laid her head down on her pillow as she allowed the song to encourage her to project to her alternate reality; her better reality.

"Luckiiiiii, Lucki ma ma," a distorted voice said. The blurry hand became clearer and Lucki smiled at who was in front of her. Endri smiled back before grabbing her hands.