07/30/2021
I had hoped when coming here that the internship would keep me busy enough that I would manage to keep my mind off what had been taken from me in this city. But it has quickly become evident that that is not the case. Within a week of arriving the nightmares had come back.
Honestly, at first, I allowed myself to live in denial long enough to be convinced that the rumors around the opera house were true and that the building was haunted. I had begun seeing and hearing things, I would see quick flashes of black or stark white from the corners of my vision or swear that someone was watching me.
But then something happened that opened my eyes to my own dishonesty with myself and brought into stark relief just how far into my depression I had fallen once more. His beautiful voice was back.
It's now been a few weeks since I first heard it drifting through my mind in my sleep almost as if singing me a lullaby. But now, as the weeks have passed I've begun to hear it almost everywhere I go. At first I heard it when I was walking through the hall leading to the different boxes on the second floor, it was coming from down in the theater but when I got into the box and looked there wasn't anyone there but I know I heard singing. And that is a voice that I will never mistake for another.
08/02/2022
I haven't been able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time in days. I'm really starting to wonder if this has all been a huge mistake. My sleep deprivation is starting to lead to hallucinations and I am really not sure what to do at this point. I swore to myself that I wouldn't do it but I may not have a choice but to resort to medication to get myself to sleep.
The people around me are starting to notice that something is wrong and I know that it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong or someone reaches out to my parents. I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning to get into the office on time, I am lethargic, easily agitated and so exhausted that my body has begun to weaken to the point where I am physically unable to help backstage.
The only reason I've continued to write in this journal is because journaling helped me so much the first time and I want people to have something to refer to should something happen to me. It's only a matter of time before I injure myself or worse in a state of delirium.
Yesterday, after dozing my way through a meeting where the Presidents, Art Director, Theater Manager and several patrons argued about the removal of several of the private boxes in the theater I skipped lunch to come to my room and try to take a nap, thinking that the day light streaming in through the window would chase away the beautiful doe eyed ghost in my mind. But as I lay back on my bed I realized that there was something underneath my head, it was a piece of paper on my pillow that simply said "Leave the boxes as they are."
In the past 24 hours, I have shuffled back and forth between thinking one of the other interns was trying to play a prank on me, to thinking that I imagined the whole thing, and being convinced that the Palais Garnier really is haunted.
But then some semblance of logic creeps back in and reminds me that ghosts aren't real and that if this was meant to be a practical joke, it's a very bad one. But if it isn't a ghost and no one is intentionally trying to drive me insane then there's only one explanation left... I already am going insane.
