Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

So a few days ago—it could have been just yesterday—I was in a state of paranoia. Growing up, I always harboured an irrational sense of fear. It wasn’t that I had something to be scared of... Rather, I do hope I didn’t have anything to be scared of. I suffered from regular episodes of hallucinations.

When I found a cat in my backyard a years ago (and got it registered as my family’s household pet), these hallucinations dwindled down to a minimum. Perhaps my hallucinations persisted, but I had and still have something to blame odd noises and sights on; that thing being my cat. His name is Skittles and I can’t recall whether or not I’ve mentioned him in a previous entry. I’ll have to check.

Anyhow, whenever I hear something unusual or whenever a shadow passes by in the corner of my field of vision, I carelessly ignore it, pretending that whatever phenomenon happened was due to Skittles. Skittles therefore became my comfort. Without him, I have nothing to blame the weird occurrences on.

Back to the topic of the first paragraph, yes, I was in a state of paranoia recently. I could not find my cat despite having looked where I deemed to be everywhere in and around the house. It was late at night and my house was beginning to darken. Perhaps it was a tad past midnight.

My parents and two of my three siblings were gone. My remaining sibling (my youngest-but-still-older-than-me brother) was in the basement where he kept to himself. It seemed to me that I was alone. I began to worry and fret. Where had my cat gone?

It came to a point where I hunted my brother down to inquire about Skittles’ whereabouts. Then, out of nowhere, my cat just walks up to us. I was relieved in the sense that I now knew where my cat was. However, I was bothered by the fact that I got to hung up over his absence. If he was just chilling on the main floor (where I met up with my brother), then what caused my sense of fear to trigger upstairs (where I was prior and normally am)? Just the usual hallucinations? Probably.

Being filled with the oddest emotion, I decided to write. It’s nothing spectacular, but I thought it was interesting what was going through my mind at the time. The story is no way connected to myself as a real person. Unlike my regular Written Doodles (of which I only have one currently, two if you include this entry), I won’t be providing any form of analysis. Perhaps I’ll consider doing so in the future, but I highly doubt it.

Without further ado, here is what I wrote:


From the corner of her eye, Elsie saw for the ninth time that night, another humanoid shadow. These dark figures have been haunting her immediately after she left the examination room of the final course of her first high school year.

“I think I’m being followed,” she had told herself while walking home to the familiar old bus stop. “I know you’re being followed. I’m scared. You are scared. I want help. I am your help. Show yourself. Look in a mirror. I’m terrified of those. You’ll be terrified of me. I won’t be. Liar.”

Elsie was sprawled facedown across her bed, as she has been since she arrived home late in the evening. In the dead silence of her own company, she contemplated on life. Where will she be in the future? Where can her current self take her? Where has she been in the past? Where has her current self taken her?

Then suddenly, Elsie realized a sound originating from somewhere very near her. It was a dull, ongoing pounding, resembling a distant beating of sorts. Elsie strained her ears to focus on the noise, attempting to clarify just what exactly it was she was hearing. It was arrhythmic yet somehow it gave an orderly impression.

“It’s almost like...” Elsie thought aloud to herself as she leaned over on one side, “two overlapping heartbeats.” She rolled over completely so that her back was as flat as can be against her mattress—which was covered in a mess of faded blankets—and acutely listened. Indeed, the more she concentrated, the more she heard two distinct beating hearts. “There’s something quite peculiar about this,” she whispered cautiously and placed her palm gently over to the left of her chest. As she expected, and almost gladly did she realize, her own heart was beating, pumping blood throughout her arteries and providing her with the oxygen and nutrients her body required to continue living.

Elsie was spontaneously paralyzed due to a shock of fear. Once again, she saw a shadow swoop across her peripheral vision. A black thin cloud of an unearthly substance it was, like the leftovers of a soul compiled of the ashes from a recent cremation.

“Enough with the hallucinations!” Elsie harshly hushed. “What if they aren’t hallucinations? What if they are? They’re not. They’re not? They’re not. I trust you. I want you to trust me. You’ll keep me safe? I’ll keep you in the mindset of safety.”

When the shadow passed by for the eleventh time, the clock was steadily approaching midnight. This time, however, Elsie did not tense up. In fact, she hardly even cared. That’s when the shadow materialized before her. The whole sight was extremely real and Elsie had no doubt, despite the Sun shining on the opposite side of her planetary location, that she was awake in both mind and body.

“Greetings,” Elsie spoke in a tone so calm she was thrown off guard. The shadow as well, being so casually addressed, seemed taken aback. “You seem to have developed a considerable amount of interest in me. I, too, am interested in you so, if you please, do tell me about yourself. Reveal to me just what exactly your purpose lingering in my presence is, if such a reason exists.”

There was a pause. It was a short absence of audible thought for both Elsie, who was patiently waiting for a response from her conversational partner, and the shadow, that was unable to understand and deliver thoughts. Then the shadow shifted into the form of Elsie, several years younger than she was at the moment. The shadow pointed to the wrist on its left arm and made a gesture to check the time. Abruptly, the shadow slid the same pointing finger across its neck, both body parts of which flowed at the touch of the other, and faked a death scene. On the ground, the shadow had sunk.

“It’s time to die?” Elsie asked curiously. Her innocent voice comforted her, leading her to dream that she was in a world where no harm was due upon her. She smiled at the shadow on the floor, which seemed to stare back at her with empty eyes of pity. As it did this, it condensed into powders, all particles settling into a small collected pile.

Elsie took the initiative to kneel down beside the dust. She dragged a finger through the debris and stuck out her tongue. Needing absolutely no drive—no courage or fear or desire to discover—Elsie tasted the remnants of her former stalker. As she revelled in its sweetness, a drummer ceased to strike.

And there you have it! A second Written Doodle. These bursts of inspiration to write seldom come, but I’ll be sure to post most when the time comes. I hope you enjoyed reading whatever it was that I wrote. Now, if you do excuse, I’ll be off~! I hope to write more soon, though not just Written Doodles. I know I’ve been slacking on quite a few series as well as some regular, life-recording entries. Anyway, I really do ought to go. Toodle-loo! yum_puddi

Oh! And as for the lyrics of this entry, here you go~!

I'm gonna miss you
I'm gonna miss you when you're gone
She says I love you
I'm gonna miss hearing your songs

I actually like this so so incredibly much, dear readers! I had to go check if I used it yet, in which case I have not. Like with all end-of-the-entry song lyrics, comment the artist and title of the song and a reward shall be granted~! Or just comment because you’re cool. It gets lonely sitting by myself behind this laptop screen, aha. Now then, I bid thee farewell~ yum_puddi