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You can call me Anna.

I'm twenty-one. I live in Sydney, Australia.

I'm going mad.

I thought I'd share the process with you.

You can sit back, eat some popcorn, have a cup of coffee, some ramen, whatever, and observe, week by week, as the world dissolves around me and this blog - this screen glowing on my desk - becomes my only reality, the only thing I can trust, because last night I saw something that just didn't make sense. Something that broke the rules of this world and terrified me... Because I was the only one who saw those rules break.

I need to calm down.

I haven't slept. It's dawn now and I've opened up my laptop and sat down to write this because I want a measured, rational, record of my thoughts. Of the events around me. Of my reality. Because a few hours ago, it splintered. And I'm afraid of what I saw in the cracks. Of what I saw.

Maybe I should start from the beginning. Tell you who I am. If I forget, you can remind me. This blog can remind me.

I trust words. They're solid. Published online, like this, they can become a map to myself. To my mind. Maybe, when I look back at this in a few weeks time I'll laugh, and it'll lead me back to the girl I was just twenty-four hours ago: an English major at UNSW who writes poems and stories in her free time. Who has a mum and a dad, two brothers, and a dog that loves her and a cat that hates her. Who has memorised a bit too much Shakespeare and quotes it to her unimpressed friends when she's drunk - partly because she had to learn chunks of the Roman tragedies for one of her English subjects, and also because the words are beautiful.

But this isn't a blog about how much I love some writer who's been dead for hundreds of years. This isn't about my drinking habits. This is a blog about what I saw last night.

This is a blog about my safe, predictable, beautiful world coming apart at the seams.

I know I'm being dramatic. I know I'm being hysterical. Maybe I'll look at this tomorrow and be embarrassed. Maybe I'll delete it. I hope so.

Please.

It was cold. The streets were empty. I'd been to see a play. It was almost midnight. I'd had two glasses of wine. I got off the bus. It's a ten-minute walk to my house. I love walking home late at night. There are a few scattered streetlights, but not many. I live in the suburbs, where it's always dead quiet.

 You know the buttons that you press to cross the road? The beeping sound they make? In the streets where I live it's so quiet that the sound of that beeping echoes up and down the road. It's eerie, beautiful. I love walking home late just so I can listen to that sound.

I was tense. Over the last few months a dozen women have been assaulted late at night in my area. It's all over our local newspaper because that sort of thing just doesn't happen where I live, not in these quiet, pretty suburbs.

Maybe the wine had gone to my head, maybe I was on high alert. Maybe it was a psychotic break, I don't know.

But I swear, I wasn't imagining it. It was real.

I looked up from the pavement and noticed someone standing in the middle of the road. I couldn't see their face, couldn't see anything except their silhouette. They were wearing a big, chunky jacket, half-lit up by a streetlight.

It was stupid, but I had goose bumps. I was certain there was something wrong with them. Standing so still, so late at night. Something unnatural.

My rational mind was telling me that they were drunk, that they had to be on drugs, they were trying to hitch-hike... but everything else in me was stretched tight, brittle with a sense of... something bad. Something wrong.

I clenched my fists. My nails are short, but I was pretty sure I could get a swipe in if they tried anything. Adrenaline started to pump through my veins. I felt dizzy when it rushed to my brain. I felt sick.

Everything was wrong.

I couldn't make out their features, but I could tell they were facing me, perfectly still, as I walked closer and closer.

I saw them. I could see their shadow cast on the concrete. I could see their jacket moving as they breathed in. I know I saw them there.

They took a step towards me, and I heard the scrape of their shoe on the road's surface. I still couldn't see their face, but I heard it.

They were less than two meters away. The light behind them.

Their silhouette, so clear.

Then that silhouette, that person - just, dissolved.

It sounds ridiculous. Writing it here, it looks bizarre. It looks mad.

I'm rational, I'm well read. I have an imagination, but I know what's real and what's not.

Their form broke apart, fell apart, like it was made of sand. Then, that sand disappeared into the air.

They were gone. Almost within arm's reach, a person dissolved, disappeared - became nothing in front of me.

I know I'm not mad.

I've been awake, terrified all night.

I know I'm not mad, tell me I'm not.

I'm sitting at my desk, my laptop open in front of me, my mirror hanging on the wall next to me... And I swear, I swear, just for a moment, a few seconds ago, out of the corner of my eye - that the girl in the mirror wasn't me.


^^^


Author's Note: 

Hello! Thanks for looking at Awake - If you enjoyed, please hit the star or give me a comment - it's so wonderful to hear from you. If you want to see what happens to poor Anna next, keep swiping right - or click on Chapter 2. A few important characters will be introduced... *duh duh duh*

(Also, if you're interested in more character info - pictures, and free soundtracks for each chapter — check out ...

http://annawakes.tumblr.com (I also included it as the external link!) - thank you!

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net