Page 33 of Outlaw Witch

Despite Alabaster Clement having died over a decade ago.

And now there’s no way I can turn down this job.

It’s official, I’m so fucked.

10

Fabian

Some days, I’ll wakeup and see how long I can go without opening my eyes. I can stare at the darkness of my closed eyelids for ages.

Some days, the darkness seems absolute. It’s like I’m daring myself to keep holding eye contact.

I never win, though, in the staring contest against the dark. Eventually, I get a jolt of panic that forces my eyes open.

Or someone knocks on the door, needing something.

There’s always something someone needs.

Having a parasite is exhausting.

Not surprising, I know. Considering there’s athinggrowing inside me, growing stronger every day. I can feel it in the way my body moves more sluggishly, like I’m wading through treacle. I feel it when I haven’t slept for more than an hour at a time in days.

I’m pretty sure I’m losing my thread of sanity, probably thanks to chronic insomnia.

When you have days and weeks on end of not sleeping, the world turns into a weird place. It’s like being on a tilter-wheel only to step off into a house of mirrors.

I’ve watched green vines snaking up the walls, the houseplants I’ve so diligently taken care of trying to take over the house. There are days where I have hours long conversations with people that flit in and out like ghosts. Spent entire days with them, only to realize in the evening that the mug of coffee they drank from remains full.

Because they were never really here.

Figments of my imagination. Tea parties with the products of my sleep-starved imagination.

It’s exhausting not knowing which way is up. Not being able to rely on yourself and your own senses to know when you’re dreaming and when you’re awake.

Still, I feel thething. The darkness. Biding its time.

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