Quinn had night terrors; they crept up during the still of darkness and suffocated her body. When she was a child she was so seized by the terror that she broke her lamp in her struggle with the invisible creatures that haunted her head. Quinn would wake up with bruises or scratches in a place that wasn't her bed. Sometimes she found herself in the floor or even in the living room. When she was fourteen she woke up in the kitchen floor with a knife in her hand. Quinn started locking and barricading her door after that.
During middle school Quinn wouldn't sleep. She would stay up for hours doing nothing, but she left the TV on for static noise as she stared out her window. Sometimes she would curl up the edge of her bed with her stuffed dog and wish she could sleep, but usually she wrote in a journal she kept hidden in her underwear drawer. She wrote a lot of stories, stories she never got the chance to dream because she was too scared the night terrors would grip her. She drew pictures of faraway lands and ugly creatures. One time she drew the man from her night terror and lit the paper on fire with her sister's lighter. Her sister had to buy a new one that was yellow, and Quinn liked the yellow one much better than the black one. Her sister was confused when the yellow was replaced by the original.
Quinn liked yellow. It reminded her of the sun, of the light, of the stars. She was drawn to it like a moth to the porch light, because it was her escape from the dark. Without it she floundered, and Quinn was so scared to be dragged back into her helpless dreamscape. She never realized the dark was her reality. She was so tired from running down the dark tunnel chasing after the light, that she couldn't even tell when she had found it. All Quinn's life she had a pressure put down on her, like she was coal that needed to be turned into a diamond. No matter how much heat or pressure was applied, she would not turn into something beautiful.
She was insecure, but her concrete shell developed well and she was able to frighten other people. Quinn was the dark. She was the monsters that pulled her muscles and controlled her like a doll and she was the slickness that wouldn't let her ownself sleep. Quinn was the dark and she so frantically tried to cling to the light. It was a magnetic pull that tethered her to the ground, and as Quinn sought the light she destroyed herself. She just didn't want to know that no matter how hard she tried there would always be the fact that her insides were pitch black. Quinn kept running through her tunnel.
Her sleep was fitful, and sometimes Quinn had to take medication to trick her mind into going still had that yellow lighter and notebook tucked away in her drawer, and tonight Quinn needed them both. She lit the candles on her dresser then sat indian-style on her bed staring at the notebook. She wanted to draw bambi eyes. The ones that soothed the terrors when she could gain a grip on reality. Quinn sighed and decided to write instead. She woke up in the bathtub with her stuffed dog and a picture of a girl with bambi eyes.
She was almost eighteen when she finally slept peaceful for more than three hours. It was weird to crack open her eyes and be submerged in total darkness, but not have a panic attack as she stumbled for the nightlight . She felt warm and safe for the first time since she could remember and Quinn smiled. She pulled the dark haired girl closer to her body, wrapping her arm over her waist. Rachel stirred, and rolled over to nuzzle her head under Quinn's chin and fall back to sleep. Quinn had been for so long in the dark, she never realized what had been the light