Fear of Nothing - Excerpt

The noises and the voices were so overbearing that it practically burst decibel levels. The forest was talking, so rapidly and so softly that the words flowed into Persephone’s head. Most of it was gibberish, but she made three words.

Party. Fiends. Time.

Persephone shuddered at the last drawled out word. She clasped her hands over her ears as it was the best way she knew to block these repetitive words. In the dark of her room, it was her only comfort.

Happiness is fiction. Fiction is imaginary. Imagination is life. Life is terrifying. Party to death. Party to death!

The phrases were strange to Persephone's ears. ”How strange those words are.” She sat up from her bed, feeling her body flinch as her eyes searched around the darkness. “But it is stranger to fear the dark.”

The eight year old was no stranger to fear. She found Fear itself as a dumb imaginary force inflicted on children for its own sick fun. She refused to be seen as a child with fears, but here she was being influenced by them.

Party to Death! Death is Partying! Party! Party! Party!

Shut up. She thought bitterly. Persephone was already tired of these voices that echoed into her head. She knew the new house was strange, but she hadn’t expected harsh voices that cheered every night. They cheered every night until the sun rose, as if they were preparing something.

The girl lifted her feet to the edge of the bed. She had to go to one of her sisters’ rooms to ease her worries. She stood straight as her feet touched the floor.

The wooden floor was chilly, but Persephone’s bare feet could handle gliding over them. She walked along the floorboards, each of her steps patting along to the wood. With a quiet breath, she twisted the doorknob and opened the door. Outside was even darker, the walls and floors illuminated with a blue glow.

Persephone shivered when a gust of wind blew under her nightgown. The temperature between the hallway and her room were vastly different. Persephone continued on, searching around the halls.

It always had been a habit of hers, wandering around the house during nighttime. Her phobia of the dark, nyctophobia, was strange. If she focused on something else, she could ignore her constricting stomach, the spread of Fear.

With quiet noise that came from the collision between flesh and waxed wood, Persephone put one foot after the other in silence. The young girl had to walk further before she could get to one of her sisters, but nothing could get stop Fear from following right behind her.

She flinched. “Why do you run?” The shadows crept and crawled on her feet. “What use is it to try and ignore? Face me.” Its voice rose. “Face me!” It screeched. She was scared, she was really scared.
She had hoped it would stop crawling her feet as she fasten her pace.

Then Persephone heard a slam and she ran. Her eyes filled with water and her stomach boiled. She made a sharp turn at the first corner before turning around.

There behind her, the shadows had become something else. Before she could make out what the shadows were turning into, Persephone’s fear had spiked and she made way to go up some stairs. Before she knew it, she closed the door connecting the hallway to the attic.