Haunted Mind

It was just another day of fighting.
Another day of the world trying to rebuild my ruins, without me even asking. Making me feel guilty simply for… existing.

This rotten and corrupt world. Hiding absurdities in plain sight for all who pretend not to see. This world that destroys dreams and buries potential. Always wanting to end who we are, always wanting to destroy those who are different.
But I am like this.
And I will not change to be accepted.

The cycle begins as always.
The alarm clock blaring, my body too heavy to get up. My mind tired even before the day begins.
And getting out of bed is torture, involving calculations to understand if it's worth it. And each movement requires a silent negotiation with the ghosts that hold me back — "just five more minutes," and then another five, and another five, until, finally, guilt pulls me up.

Taking a shower is a victory. Brushing my teeth takes longer than it should.

And I don't celebrate any action. It may be difficult for me, but for others it's the bare minimum, and nobody celebrates the bare minimum.

The day drags on like sand in the desert. People talk too loudly, and I hear more than I'd like. I smile when I need to smile. I answer just enough to avoid being noticed.
It would be too much effort to keep up this mask if people looked at me too closely.

But nobody sees the effort. Nobody sees the weariness in my bones. People don't see me.

And me…

I pretend everything is fine.

But there's always someone to steal my peace.

And then she arrived. Smiling with her eyes.
She looked at me as if I were the imperfect shadow of her day.

She strutted up to me, her expression a mixture of hatred and concern, and without realizing how much it would hurt me, asked:
"Why are you sad?"

That question. Again. I'd heard it every day for as long as I could remember. I heard it from my parents, at school, at college, at work. Nobody left me alone. And all I wanted to do was scream at them, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"
I don't want them to worry. I don't want them to help me. I don't want anything. I just want to be alone.

But she was still bothered, as if I should be grateful for her concern, as if I should be happy just to be alive. And then, with impatience in her eyes, she continued, with a smile that tried to be sweet:
— Nothing happened, so be happy!

“Be happy,” I repeated to myself. As if happiness were a button I liked to keep switched off. As if it were a choice. As if I didn’t already try every day.

I could feel my fists clenching. Anger rising through my body. But I managed to control myself. I took a deep breath and started to leave. I started to walk away.

But…

Something happened there. When she grabbed my arm and stopped me from leaving.

She grabbed me, and I turned to protest. And in that moment… It made the world stop for a second.

And I saw a tear fall from her horrified eyes.
It wasn't for me. Not yet. It was for her. For what she saw when she touched me and didn't know how to name.

Because of the emptiness that suddenly became visible, as if for a second she entered my mind and understood that happiness was more difficult for those who struggled to stay on their feet.

I looked at her for longer than it seemed. And then I realized we were no longer in the same place.

I looked around and saw that the world had ceased to make sense.
Up was down. Down was up. Corridors of stairs in labyrinths that led nowhere. Some doors had warm doorknobs. Others, cold. Some, I knew I shouldn't open. They groaned softly when I paid too much attention.
The ceiling didn't exist. Or it did, but its height changed. The floor sometimes tilted without warning, and my foot sank as if stepping on soft sand, and with the next step the floor was hard stone, and with the next, something sticky that wouldn't let go.
A clock without hands floated in the center of an empty hall. And the sound of the gears echoed through the room, making everything seem urgent, but unimportant, making everything too late, everything dangerous, everything needing attention.

My warm body protested against the cold. And the weight of the pain seemed to triple there. But it wasn't the pain of an injury. It was the pain of existing. A dull, old pain, clinging to my bones like a tenant who refuses to leave. I didn't even remember what it was like before it. Perhaps there never was a "before."

And the woman was with me. She was screaming and crying like a child. She looked at me, trying to understand.
And then I replied:
"My home."

She, even more horrified, didn't understand.

For her, being there was like being covered in needles trying to tear her skin and corrode her bones, but I seemed calm.
— My mind. That's where we are.

She looked around. She saw the endless corridors. She heard, for the first time, the echoes. Voices that weren't there, but filled the space. "You're exaggerating." "It's just laziness." "You have everything to be happy." The phrases bounced off the walls, bounced back, bounced again. She covered her ears, but I already knew it was useless, there was no escape.

Still horrified, with her eyes closed and ears covered, she asked me:
"How do you manage…?"

She couldn't finish; the pain was too much. But I already knew what she was going to ask. "How can I live with a mind like this?"

— I am alive, and dead at the same time. As if I had taken my fate from Magöhorror . I survive. Every day. — I said, settling into the comfort of this chaos. — But you don't need to understand. Nobody understands. And that's okay. Just… Don't tell me nothing happened. Because everything happened. Everything happens. All the time. Inside me. And I can't switch off. So let me be at peace, at least on the outside.

And she started to cry. Because she couldn't take it anymore. Because five minutes in there was already more weight than she could bear.

But I knew. I always knew. That's why I never let anyone in.

Written by:
Caellum Noctis

Caellum Noctis was born with a mission: to explore the world through words. He doesn't write tragic love stories and unhappy endings by choice, but out of obligation, to release a wound from his soul and transfer it to paper. His journey began with poems, the only refuge for his feelings. However, verses soon became insufficient. The pain demanded more space. That's how Caellum turned to short stories and the creation of entire worlds, to which he now escapes when reality gets tough. Writing, for him, is not a pastime: it's a necessary escape, a way to breathe....

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