I was only nine when it started. It was when I stopped sleeping. Mom was deeply concerned about it. The terrors that came with sleeping were too much for me. So I stopped. The feeling of not being able to move and the figures surrounding me. I couldn’t handle it. I was a stupid kid. Staying up late every night. Why do kids do such things, I could not tell you. But I can tell you that the sleep deprivation was the cause and effect in this situation. My therapist told me to write down what happened every single night. It doesn’t help, but I still do it.

Night 1093: Last night it happened again. It has not happened in awhile. It lasted a long time. Longer than usual. I awoke to a presence in my room. Of course, a shadow figure stood just at my feet. My head throbbed, and although this often happened, my fear of them grow more intense every time. This time was no different. I tried to move, but not a muscle twitched. I wanted to run, I tried to wriggle my way out of my covers. Nothing. The figure crept closer. My heart beat grew faster. The thudding in my chest was so hard and loud, I thought my heart my burst. Tears streamed my face. The figure kept shifting, I watched it. Until eventually I fell back into my slumber.

 Night 1097: This is probably the worst sleep I’ve ever had. Well I can’t really call it sleep, when most of if was me trying to sleep and get away from the towering monstrosity. I decided that, I will only sleep in the day, and only around other people. It might not help, but at night and alone is much much worse. This time it was just one big demon-like human, crawling up and down the walls. Touching my face, my arms. Saying stuff. I tried to scream. Nothing. I felt the fear grow inside of my chest. Like a ball. It was like there was a certain carved out space for all my fear to go, and each and every night, the fear grew outside of that carved out space. Cutting more and more out.

Night 112: I can’t take it, they’re coming for me.

 “Suicide.” The detective said. 
 “I don’t know about that, take a look at this.” 
 He held up a notebook, full of writing

A beautiful creature he was. Calm and collected, even when it was raining. Not an elephant in the courtyard could disturb him. But that is what he saw. A gray prickled elephant stood on the other side of the gate. This was unusual but not completely abnormal. You saw all kinds of odd things in that under world. Paz walked silently past the elephant. He’d seen things like this before. The council liked to bring animals down for the under world to enjoy. They had a much better life down here anyways. Paz loved being in the under world. His life on earth was filled with hatred and sadness. He’d lost his lover, his children, even his dog.So when the council took him in. It was a good thing. Most people are scared of the after life, but not him. Paz walked down the street, rounded the corner, and finally. He was home. Rain dripped down his black rain coat. He came home to his skeleton dog. She ran up to him wagging her boney tail. “Ah, my pretty girl.” He said as he smiled. Darla was the only thing that would send him off the edge. He would dive a thousand meters for her. But he knew his time with her was coming. The council was going to send her up above to Earth. Paz dreaded it. He had begged the council to not make her go. He could not live without her.

That next day, Paz went to the council, like he did everyday to beg. 
“Please, she is my life, I cannot live without her!” He pleaded but to no avail. It was the law, you went back up after a certain amount of time in the under world. Paz decided to change it. 
He’d lost everything, but he will not lose her. He went home, too sad to even use an umbrella. You could not cry in the under world. But he tried, he wanted to. Again to no avail. 
He saw Darla in the window of his two story forest green house. She was standing on the ledge patiently waiting. Oh what a good girl, he thought. 
He scrapped up a plan. His long boney fingers had blisters by the time he was done. His face was even paler than usual from staying up so late. But, now he had a plan. 
That next morning he bought a ticket to the first train to Earth, he could find. A very long trip it was, but all for Darla, so it was worth it. 
I hope this works. He thought. A man with a long face and pale green body tapped his shoulder.
“You ain’t supposed to be on this train, are you?” He questioned.
“Ugh, no its not my time to go up, but I’m tryin’g to save my dog. How could you tell?”
“Because I’m apart of the council.” The corners of his mouth tugged at his cheeks.
“Oh.” Is all Paz said. He didn’t want to be caught. The man looked at him again.
“Don’t worry, ain’t a soul to tell on Earth.” The man smiled a big cheesy smile now. Bugs crawled in between his teeth. A normal sight. 
Paz let his worries drop. After hours upon hours of riding the train, they were finally there. Earth, big green and beautiful. The humans weren’t, but the wildlife was stunning. So sad to see it polluted by humans. 
Paz shuddered at the sight of cities. But he was here for one thing and one thing only. And that was his dogs body. If he brought his body down with him, there was nothing to fill in earth. But the only part left of her, was some black fur, from when he owned her. 
The train stop was not visible to humans, nor were the under world creatures. He stepped out and saw his beautiful old green house. Deep in the forest
 “Here I go.” He said as he began walking. “Halloween I see, what a beautiful time to be here.”

You know those people who you meet, and they’re just off. Well that happened several years ago. And I can’t seem to escape him. When I was fourteen, my class went on a school field trip to Ellis Island. Me being me, I went off from the group and explored everything myself. I touched everything, feeling the grooves of the paintings, the notches in all the wood, the dipped in and out. Now I couldn’t see the paintings, but the clumped up paint, and the ridges in each and every burlap canvas, ran beautifully under my fingers. When I was younger, I got attacked by a dog. It left me blind. It didn’t make me scared of dogs, just skeptical around them. “Ma’am, do you need help finding your group?” A man called from behind me. The tone in his voice gave me shivers but the good kind. “No,” I responded, “I’m okay.” And thats where it started, we meet each other and I got his number, and then I fell back into the group. I noticed how smiley he seemed to be, I couldn’t see it, but he would giggle at everything. He knew exactly what to say, and was so optimistic about me being blind, as well as everything else in the world. “I think I just met the happiest person in the world!” I told my best friend Anya. “Yeah, yeah, by the way I rolled my eyes.” She said.

After the trip, we went back to Rhode Island. Home. I called him. He said his name was Carter, and he was there for a trip too. Well thats an odd coincidence, I thought. 
We became best friends. Talking everyday, trying to be normal, long distance. 
There was something off about him, and I just couldn’t pin point it. He was again super happy about everything, his grandma died and he didn’t cry at all, nor did he even mourn. It was like someone took his emotions and crumbled them in a million pieces, into nothing. 
When he turned seventeen and I was sixteen, he decided to come down to Rhode Island. He’d been before and his aunt lived here. 
We had a time and place set up. It was perfect, I was going to see my best friend. Until it wasn’t so perfect. We hung out the whole day, we got food, went to the park, went swimming, all of it. But he was weirdly happy now. He kept saying how good it is that I’m blind. And how happy he was that my best friend wasn’t there. 
It concerned me a lot, he never got excited, he was just too happy. My head began to ache. My legs hurt from swimming so much.
I told him I wanted to go home, and that I was tired and needed to take my meds. When I told him, he flipped out on me. Fear raced through my head as I could hear him swimming closer to me in the pool, he was almost growling, but also not.
I swam towards the stairs, or where I thought they were. What? I thought, they were gone. No no no no, this can’t be happening. He grabbed me and slammed me back down in the pool. When I came up he was gone. I couldn’t hear his breathing, him moving, nothing, it was still. Completely still. 

That was three years ago, he found me. He stalks me at night tell me how much he loves that I’m blind. And the police call me crazy.

Sirens blared. Fire swallowed people up whole. Water trickled down my face as I looked up, smoke billowing in the sky. But I’m getting ahead of myself

Tomorrow is going to be the day, Ramsey will hand over the promotion on a silver platter, decorated with golden ivy. 
I checked my phone one last time, maybe he’ll text me in the morning. I laid my head back on the pillow and curled up into a ball.         
The air was freezing in the apartment, but the AC wasn’t working, so not much I could do. I had a mound of blankets on top of me but no matter what I did, the cold air would seep through. But finally after a couple hours of restless sleeping, my eyes shut and slowing breathed. 
My eyes burst open. Panic spread throughout my whole body. I jumped up. 

Wait no what am I doing? Why am I so scared? I calmed my breathing and looked through my bedroom window. I could see it all. Smoke gushed up from the North building. I fumbled my phone in my hands. I texted Ramsey as fast as I could. We worked in the North building, but I didn’t have to come in until later, but Ramsey had already been there for an hour. I texted him asking if he was OK, and what was going on. No reply. Oh god I thought. I jumped from my bed and slipped on some sweatpants. I ran down the flights of stairs and out the apartment complex’s front gates. I could see the smoke everywhere. It consumed the sky. One cloud at a time. Calm down Ari. It’s fine, he’s fine. I thought to myself. I round the corner and was basically sprinting now. I knew this morning felt off. How would I have known that the building was on fire though? Thoughts races through my mind, I didn’t realize where I was going until I tripped over someones shoe. The lady didn’t move a muscle. No sorry, no nothing. She was staring at the towers. When I got up I coughed and realized the smoke was traveling alarmingly fast. And the lady was covered in black ash, and had burns on her face and arms. I looked at the towers. “What happened?” I asked to no one particular. “A plane, it- it hit the tower,” Someone muttered from the sidewalk. He shot me a worried look. I turned back to the towers. A small black spot started coming towards the South tower. It came closer and closer, until the wings shaped themselves, the sound of the engines roared. It teared through the sky.

 My ears were ringing people were screaming. I could hear my heart pounding, faster, and faster. I was on the ground, knees were scratched and bleeding. My elbows had rocks buried in them. I heard sirens blaring. People were running and screaming everywhere
“The South tower has been hit!” The man from the sidewalk screamed. He grabbed my hand and helped me up. Apparently I had been trampled, the guy said as soon as it happened people were pushing and screaming and jumping over others to get away from the towers. 
“What’s your name?” He asked. His hand was placed on both sides of my face shaking me awake
“Uhm-“ My eyes burned every time I opened them. “Ariana.” I said. Smoked fell down my throat and I choked trying to get it back up. It stung my lungs. 
Paramedics and fireman from all around rushes to the scene. They sped past us, since we were alive and could walk, we could live. They were there for the real danger, and the people that were closer to death.
The man held his hands wrapped around my head, he was saying something but my ears were still ringing. My vision was blurry, and I couldn’t read his lips. The ringing went in and out, as well as the screams and sirens. 
I finally got ahold of myself, the man gripped my hand and began running down the street. I couldn’t breathe nor run. So I just let him drag me along. 
We stopped at a little cafe that had hundreds of people surrounding it and few inside. We could still see the towers. We had to have been there for a couple hours, because when I looked out the buildings began to crash down. It began to rain. It trickled down my face, before I saw nothing.