Not many people understand what I feel at night, when I look at the ceiling for hours daydreaming about the sweet bliss that is sleep. Not many people understand how when I lay my head on my pillow my eyelids feel light and how my brain begins to race a hundred miles an hour and how when I finally do sleep, waking up is like a thousand tones are sitting on my body and mind. Not many people understand that sometimes the idea of trying to sleep scares the shit out of me. Because as soon as my mind is left to wonder on its own it immediately goes dark. I have flashes of death and pain, all the thoughts I keep hidden away come to the surface. Not many people understand that sleeping sometimes is just not an option. Not many people understand that sleep is one of the few things I crave.
So, as I lie on my bed the clock ticking and hours passing and still the idea of sleeping seems so far away, I pull my heavy body from the bed. I walk around the dark empty corridors making the least amount of noise possible, as far as I know no one is awake, I heard the last person go to sleep hours ago.
I walk to my favourite room, what used to be a meeting room now a dusty old storage room. Chairs, tables and other furniture is pushed away to the side leaving nothing but a path straight to a wall where a long dark window looking into the void of space stood. I believe it reminds me that I am nothing if not a tiny spec in this huge cruel space. But it does remind me of my purpose. Protecting other specs, on tiny planets splattered across thousands of galaxies.
I lie back to look at the ceiling where another window is open to the black limitless space. I raise my arms reminding myself of the promises I made to so many people, so far all have been broken, but I was not planning on breaking it tonight. The white lines barely visible in the dark, but I know they sit there. Teasing me, mocking me, but tonight is not the night. If I did do it tonight someone would find me. Or so I wish.
No one does come. No one notices the pain I feel every day.
It was just another lie I told myself to ease the pain of loneliness. The light under the door begins to brighten enough that it becomes prominent in the darkness of the room. I turn around and sit up at the change. Its morning. I pull myself up and walk to the door. As I stand in front of the door all the horrible thought rise to the surface once more before I actively repress them into the crevasses of my mind. I know they will rise once again at night but it's no longer night. I open the door and I am temporarily blinded by the brightness of the lights, but the smell of the food goo and the soft sound of voices fills my senses.
Walking towards my room the voices begin to get louder luckily for me the voices are coming from the dining room at the end of the corridor. I enter my room forgetting the mess left behind, it probably smells as well but after living in it for so long I can no longer smell anything. I change into my usual black top, jeans and red jacket before pulling my hair back into a bobble and head down the corridor, the chatter from the rest of the crew bringing some sense of peace. The noise of plates and cutlery being placed and the voices booming through the halls, the loudest being Lance of course, the thought bringing a rare smile to my face. I turn into the dining room. everyone stops and greets me with smiles on their faces, unable to smile back I wave to them. Everyone making more of an effort than me to get up and do stuff. Shiro has so many issues it's probably too long to list, Lance is almost constantly homesick, Pidge is obsessed with finding their family, Hunks always anxious, Allura and Coran lost everything in the war. And what have I got wrong with me just a little depression and I can barely function. I sit and watch as everyone starts eating but I know I cannot even the smallest amount of food will end in it coming back up my throat. So, I explain my discomfort and nothing more is asked or said of me so I leave, their chatter continuing the resonate through the empty halls.
I lie on my bed doing nothing, my eyes finally become heavy enough that I think I could fall asleep without my dark thoughts getting in the way. So, I closed my eyes and within seconds I am fast asleep. But as quickly as I fall asleep I am awake again. A rattling at my bedroom door and the quiet whispers of my name had me jolting upright. `Without moving from my bed I reply to the whispers and realise the person behind the door is Hunk.