Samantha+S

Memoir: They said it was just an "overactive imagination." They would smile, and try to talk to me, but all I wanted to do was play hangman. It was always bad. There was never a night I would be okay. My night terrors would only get worse and worse. The chilling senstation sent up my spine, making me become sweaty and paranoid. Too scared for anyone to handle, the sensation of being alone added to the feeling of being afraid. The thought of death, heightened by the thought of being alone, haunted you with every flick of the light switch. One night, when me and myh brother were still sharing bunk beds, my mind was out of control. I heard a creaking noise in the floor boards in the hall way. HE was here, the man who would take me away from my family, take my life, was here. I hid under my covers. Sweaty, I slunk to the end of my bed, and tried to stay quiet. Another creak. Salty tears fell into my mouth, and the dark surounded me better than my blanket. I started to shake, fear consuming my body and mind. The air was still, no noises were made. I stated to sob. My brother saw me and screamed out my name. My parents ran into the room. My mom grabbed me, and rocked me. "It's okay." she said, trying to calm me down. By the time she had tried to help me, my mind was already gone. I was succumbed into my own reality, and my imagination had taken over. I whispered in her ear, "He is here mommy, don't you here him?" The next Monday, I was brought to Margo, my "helper." I knew what she was, a women who helped those crazy people. "I AM NOT CRAZY!" I screamed at Margo, unaware that I was brought here without my permission. She smiled, and patted my hand. "Don't worry, Samantha, I am here to help." She said. No one called me Samantha. I was eight, and Sammy. Who was this girl she kept talking too? It surely was not me. Once the two hour session was over, I ran to my room. Determined to get out of the crazy lady helpers session, I turned my light out and tried to sleep. I knew my family was awake, and would be for a while, so I turned off the light, and hid in my room. I fell asleep, until the darkness was back. I looked around, put my head under my covers, and waited for Him to come. At the next session, Margo asked me who He was. How could I explain Him to her? He didn't have a face, He didn't live in the real world. He lived in my world. He was the lighting in thunderstorms, the planes that hit the twin towers, He was unable to be described. How could you describe Hell, and the Devil, and the murderers and the rapists and the robbers, all in one? He was not a man, He was not a person, but an imaginative figure that lived in MY reality. The reality I was thrown into every time the light turned off, every time I heard a creak, every time I pushed the covers over my face, every time I woke up to silence, I was there. In the world where no one could protect me, no one could help me. The feeling of being alone could eat me alive. "He is just some guy," Samantha told her. Sammy couldn't tell her that. Two seconds later, I told her the truth. "HE is the devil Margo." I stated as we began our regular game of Hangman. She looked at me, confused. But she smiled and said, "Oh, i understand, the devil is not real Samantha, the devil is not real." I stared into her eyes, but Samantha said nothing. Sammy could scream in the middle of the night, "HE TOOK SHAUNY, HE TOOK HIM!" but Samantha was mute. Samantha was the reason why I was thrown into the world, Samantha was afraid of the dark. Sammy knew the truth, that she was being thrown into a world where everyone, and everything could hurt her. Sammy knew that the dark could take her, scare her, and throw her back sobbing and scared. Samantha and Sammy personified me, my two faces, my reality, and my imagination. Most people can comprehend how to keep these two differences separate, but I could not. If i screamed, my brother would die. If I didn't I would die. He was smarter than me, smarter than Margo, smarter than my parents. My parents could not protect me, it was impossible for them to understand how He could get through them, but he could. Margo's smile was no shield to His power, and could only protect her, not me. After about a year in Margo's sessions, my parents took me out of it. Margo, the crazy persons helper, was not helping me. I was too crazy for her, she didn't understand how I could feel so alone, how I could feel so afraid in my own mind, in the dark. Once we left Margo's my family got a dog. A beagle, he would bark at whatever shadow passed the window. For once, I felt safe. My dog would protect me, my dog would protect Samantha, and he would protect Sammy. Three weeks passed, and I was allowed to sleep. If he did not bark, there would not be a man there. Then, he ran away. I should have known, i told myself. HE took him. HE took my dog. I cried every night, thinking that he, to torture me, took my dog, and killed him. HE was dangerous. Three days passed. My dog was found. My mind was already lost, and in a delusional state where my imagination had taken over all the time. HE was hiding in the trash can. HE was the knock at my front door. I tried to train myself how to separate the reality, and the imagination, but it wouldn't work. I thought I would be stuck in this world forever, no one could possibly understand how I was feeling, how I was scared. How I was alone. I was saved by a disease. I had gotten the stomach virus, and I would be up all night, sick. My mom had bought me a portable DVD player, and all nights I would watch movies. It saved me. It taught me that there was no one in the night that would take me, and I was no longer alone. The movies were my friend, they never stopped playing. To this day, I still keep a bat under my bed. My eyes have to see every locked door. If my bedroom door is closed, I have to open it. There is only fifteen steps to the phone, five to my brothers room, six steps to my sisters, and thirteen to my parent's. My cell phone is always charging next to me. Although there are now ways to get me asleep, I will always be afraid of what happens in the dark.

My heart beat, conquering new heights with that one feeling. . At the time, I thought I invincible, but the night would bring me back We met at a party. She was there because it was her good friend’s party, and he had been a wrestler. I had seen her before, he used to bring her to practice sometimes and tried to introduce me, but I was too cool back then for her. Of course, I could get her number any time I had wanted, and when she asked me to hang out, I was caught off guard. But after being introduced, I walked off, thirsty and looking for a beer. She seemed to follow me. “Stalker,” I laughed. She blushed again and said something under her breath. I pulled her close. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.” Although she seemed like the type of girl that would be okay with hanging out with me anywhere, I always felt it would be better to keep our life together a secret, and she understood where I was coming from. After that night, we were an “item.” Two nights later, he was in my bedroom. Two weeks later, she was everywhere and everything to me. And by week three, I realized how much she was controlling my time. he seemed to be wherever I was. . She helped my lie to my parents about everything that was going on, when I started to skip school, when I quit the wrestling team, and why I was always tired. Damn, only she could lie like that. And the best part was she made me feel like I was better than everyone else. She made me feel the kind of energy you get when you make a perfect shot in the championship basketball game. That kind of feeling that feels like all the adrenaline in the world is running through your body, the feeling that makes your heart beat three times faster, and your feelings and mind spiral out of control. The feeling that makes you think you’re in love, and the feeling that makes you think that your small heart will never be broken. When I quit the wrestling team, the coach asked me about her. It was like an interrogation and for some reason I refused to talk about her. He told me she was ruining my life, and that I should break off my relationship with her. How could he try and take her away from me? My face blushed a beat red, and my heart was thumping loudly in my body. She was the only thing important to me, and was he really going to take her away? I stormed out of his office, saving him from the punishment I really wanted to give him. After the conversation, I went straight back to her. My mind and body was going a mile per minute. I must have missed the signs telling me I should stop, and all of the contagious energy was quickly drained. She was silent, but my body couldn’t take it anymore. I shot one more time, and that was when my whole body began to shake violently. Suddenly, she started shaking too. She fell to the ground. I tried to grab her, but she hit the ground hard. It was like she was broken, I had broken her. I fell to the ground, shaking, and tried to grab her lifeless body. “What’s happening?” I asked myself. I could feel myself slipping away. I started weeping violently, and puking up my breakfast. Finally, I slipped away from the real world, and the last thing I saw was the blue and red lights of the ambulance, glimmering on the ice under my palm. “Shay, that was months ago. You have to live your life.” He shook his head. As his father, I should have realized what was happening. He laughed miserably. “You don’t get it, do you dad?” he accused, as if I was someone he had just met, and someone he never cared about. “She tried to kill me dad, kill me...” he faded off. It had been six months since the accident at the basketball court, and still I couldn’t get through my old son’s mind. He wasn’t my son anymore, but a lost spirit that took over my once perfect son’s body. I looked away, hiding my tears. “What happened to you?” I begged. The cold look that he gave me iced over my heart. I walked out of his room and sat on the couch. There, my exhaustion trying to crack Shay’s code overcame me, and I wept miserably. Ever since his mom had died of an accidental drug overdose that June, Shay had become a different person. His twin sister, Melody, noticed my lack of understanding, and came up to me, grabbing my shoulder. She looked at me tears icing over her cold blue eyes. “It isn’t your fault dad. We should have known…” When I was relocated to Montana, I knew it was going to be hard on the family. Then, when their mom died, I might as well have lost the kids as well. And now, as I sat on the couch, looking down at my palms, I realized I couldn’t lose them as well. They were all that was left of me, and I needed Shay to come back from his new life. After I released all of my exhaustion, I made sure that I had cleaned myself up to the point where Shay would have never known that I had been crying. I walked back upstairs to his room, leaving Melody sitting on the couch, holding a picture of our old life. I opened the door, to see Shay sitting upright on his bed, clenching what looked like an old photo. “I miss her dad.” He said, looking up at me with blood shot eyes. I looked back at him. “We all miss her Shay.” I replied, wondering where the conversation was going. “No, you don’t.” He said violently. “You never even knew her.” I looked at him, confused. “Who are you talking about Shay?” He looked at me, through glassed over eyes and then looked at his bruised arms, brushing his fingers over the vein in this right arm. “Who are you talking about Shay?” “Crystal dad, Crystal…” I looked at him, with only a sense of confusion. I looked at his now fragile body, and wondered again who he was talking about. “Who is Crystal Shay?” This was the most I could get out of Shay since the accident, and for the first time, I felt as if I was going to finally have my real son, not this ghost that sat in front of me, back. “Shay…” He looked at me as if I didn’t understand anything but what I wanted to know. My eyes started to fill up again with tears, but I knew I had to be strong, for Shay. “She was the one that was with me at the basketball court, Dad,” I looked around, and at the floor. My mind was going a miler per minute, trying to revel in my son’s mind. Who was at the court with Shay, I knew about the group next to him, playing that stupid game that Shay was. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.” He whispered. I suddenly couldn’t control myself anymore. I leaped onto his bed and grabbed his upper arms, and although I was expecting to be grabbing some sort of muscle, all I could grab was the skin that gripped his bones tightly, as if the skin wanted to show off what Shay had done. “WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SHAY?” I demanded the burning desire to know the answer of the question showing in my actions. He looked at me, sullenly, and muttered something under his breath. “He doesn’t understand. I told you he wouldn’t understand.” He said, shaking his head. I looked over at the door, expecting Melody to be standing there, but instead, all I saw was an empty door. I was taken aback at the thought of my son talking to no one. He started to sob. “I told you, I’m alone. All alone.” I looked at my son, and clenched my teeth. My emotions were taking over my body, but I had to try to remain calm for my son. I could still feel his bony arms under my palm, and I looked into his eyes, which were glassed over with more than tears, but the remembrance of the past few years. “Who are you talking to Shay?” I asked, afraid of my own question. But all I received was a blank stare, with those same glassed over eyes. “Shay, w hat is going on?” “I told you, daddy,” he said crudely. “I’m talking to Crystal.” Again, I looked around the room. There was no one there. “There is no one here.” I answered, tears starting to flow from my eyes. Panic was running through my body, matching my adrenaline. What was happening to my son, who was he becoming… the thoughts were running through my mind like a stream after a large rainstorm. Again, he looked up at me, unafraid of anything. What had happened to my little boy, the one that would come up to me and sit on my lap, the one that only wanted to make me proud. I had to save my son. “Who are you talking to Shay?” I asked again. “Where is Crystal?” He looked at me and crackled. The laugh shook the room, and I was taken aback. “Silly Dad, Crystal is in me.” My mind started going faster and faster. What the hell was going on, this wasn’t the freaking exorcist, I wasn’t going to lose my son to the only thing strong enough to control him. This was not the son his mother and I raised, and although his mother had become a different person, I was not. I was the shield that was to protect my family, from everything. Including their own destructive minds. “Who is CRYSTAL?” I asked repeating my thoughts again. This was all a dream, my son was really sleeping in his bed, and in two minutes, I was going to wake up from work. I couldn’t get up, my mind was spinning faster than a pinwheel in the wind, and it felt as if I was glued to the end of the bed. “You don’t know Crystal. She was there for mom when you weren’t. Don’t you remember Mom’s best friend? Or do you not remember mom at all?” I looked at him, speechless. “You are not my son anymore.” I said, ripping my hands off his bony arms. He looked at me and crackled again, louder than the first. The laugh echoed around the room. “Crystal didn’t mean to kill mom. It was a mistake. You would understand if you knew her. She is so addicting.” he said. “And than I killed her. I had too much of her, loved too much of her...” I was furious. This was not going to happen. Not again. “CRYSTAL DOES NOT EXIST!” I shouted, trying to get it in his mind. “THERE IS NO SUCH THING!” “Oh dad, you never really met her. Let me introduce you.” Shay said, giddy with excitement. He reached over to his desk drawer and pulled out a broken needle. “Dad, this was Crystal. Wasn’t she beautiful?”

Your best bet

Lonely is your best bet, I've learned that the hard way, My story is one for the record books, How lucky you are to hear it.

Trying to kill is harder than it looks, More that once, You have brutally tried. And whenever I look back, A knife is sitting there.

I've had my chance, To get you back, But I was too mature for that, Still you taunted me.

When you tried the first time, I just pulled the knife, From where you left it, And bandaged the wound.

The second time, You tried to kill me, I just laughed and walked away, After all, I was your only real friend anyway.

After the second time, We were forced to become friends, So when trouble knocked on the door, I knew you would open it up.

Trouble came so fast, And tore us so far apart, That what had started it, Convinced us we didn't have hearts.

So now I sit here lonely, Dying on my hospital bed, Because the third time you tried to kill me, You practically did.

So let's pretend best friends last forever, And a promise has lasted a lifetime, As I look around, I see the knife covered in blood.

Soon, I'll hold it in my hands, The handle molded to yours, So come here my best friend, It is finally my turn.

Catch

Pride and Glory, The reason people go fishing. The feeling they get, Reeling in the fish.

You must be, A fisherman, Because you, Put out the bait, And waited patiently, Until finally, I bit the trap.

You reeled me in, Examined. Then, You realized what you caught.

Fisherman, Naturally competitive, Want the best, So you threw me back Out to sea.

But for some reason, When I should have swam away, I couldn't.

Look back at the boat. Wish you had just killed me. Instead of knowing, I wasn't good enough.

I was the catch. Not smart enough, Not strong enough, Not quick enough, To escape that feeling, The true meaning, True feeling, of Death.