It's only once it's over that you allow yourself to scream.
You lie for a long time, perhaps three or four minutes, in stoic silence, as though a heart were still just a scattered dream...
...Like a far off memory...
... Until everything hits you, battering ram force, breaks down the barriers and you scream. Cold, sticky sweat pours from you and you could almost drown in it, suffocate; it clings to you like some kind of beast and you have to wash it away.
The water is cool and warm and you let yourself be lost in the steady, reassuring roar of water through pipes, the steam rising from your feet like a theatrical display as you crank the heating up.
You're safe for a moment until it hits you again and you stumble, clutching at your head, your face, the tangle of sodden hair plastered to your forehead, in your eyes, your cheeks, your neck. You feel just how vulnerable you really are, naked, defenceless, terrified of recollections and memories of a time that never quite simply went by...
You quickly finish showering and dress. Pale colours. Whites, baby blues, pastel pinks. You don't wear black any more. You pretend that it's merely a change in preference, but the truth is that it scares you. You're so paranoid of the shadows that you've filled your house with lamps and lights so that there's nowhere for it to pool. You leave them on, always. Even at night, you sleep under the comforting glare of unshaded, iridescent light bulbs. So bright that when you close your eyes you don't see black, but the red latticework of veins running through your own eyelids.
You're better than you used to be.
When you first arrived, you collected all the furniture and piled it into one room. You locked it away for weeks, months, maybe. The rest of the house was left bare. You painted it all white. Walls, doorframes, ceilings, cupboards, floors. You left the lamps bare, too, perhaps seven or eight in every empty, cubic room, until there was nowhere for the darkness to hide. Yet you'd still jump at your own replicated shadow dancing on the floor, or the rustle of dappled shade from the sun and trees outside. You cowered. Cowered by your artificial light every evening and all night. You rarely left the house.
It wasn't a precaution, it was a compulsion. You couldn't let it see you.
You're better now. You're not so afraid to step out when the weather is good. The furniture has slowly returned. But you're still not quite right; you put lamps under white painted chairs, you still have all the lights, you never brave the darkness of even the dusk. And you still never wear dark colours.
Your old self would have laughed at the gaudy hues of your new attire, but looking a little ridiculous is a price you're willing to pay to feel safe.
You hate feeling weak, but after so many months the insistent self-revulsion has faded to nothing more than a simple annoyance in the back of your mind as you go about your obsessive, psychotic rituals of darkness-evasion. You're getting better at hiding the fear.
It's cold outside. You pull a white scarf away from the coat rack, wrapping it around your neck, don a pair of gloves. On the way out you happen to catch a glance of yourself in the mirror. Your eyes are drawn to the blackness of your pupils and for a horrifying moment you can't look away. It's always there. You'll never escape.
You tear yourself from your own gaze and leave into the freezing air.
It wouldn't be so hard, you tell yourself, if you weren't so alone. Your thoughts immediately turn to her, and you imagine her by your side, where she should be, arm casually draped over your shoulder.
She wouldn't fear the darkness like this.
And him, on your left, so tall even you could lean on him without also leaning down. He wouldn't fear the darkness either. But neither of them were ever quite so tied to the shadows as you were, you try to convince yourself.
A stab of pain and grief pierces your gut and you have to stop, clear your mind and tilt your head to stare directly at the sun until blotches appear on the insides of your eyes. You look away, blinking, and continue.
Where is there to go? You never stray far, for fear of the darkness. The need to feel safe drives you. It's crushed you, you know that deep inside, even if you'll never admit it; you've been comprehensively broken by the very power you once foolishly believed you could control.
A cloud crosses the sun and you visibly cringe, stiffen, freeze, out of primal instinct and fear before conscious thought forces you to relax. You recognise one man on the street, the baker you occasionally visit when you can't hold out to the hunger that keeps you with your white rooms and white lamps any more. He gives you a concerned look but you don't respond. The sky is darkening with storm clouds.
You hurry home.