I don’t think I was ever afraid of the dark, but, still, every night I would leave a light on before falling asleep. I couldn’t tell you why. I would stare into the dim light as I slowly drifted to unconsciousness, letting the glow lull my thoughts into peace. I had told myself that the light protected me from bad dreams and nightmares. Now though, with how horrible everything is, I wished it could protect me during the day too.

My family had kicked me out six months ago, and it was all I could do to rent the closet that I slept in. The room wasn’t that bad, really. I didn’t have to pay for electricity because the dance club that owned the building took care of that. There weren’t any leaks or mold, at least that I could find. And it was within walking distance of three of my jobs, which was convenient. But it did have its downsides. There was barely enough room for any furniture. All I could fit was my mattress and the folding table I used as a writing desk. The other downside was that the dance club below me rarely allowed me any sleep on the weekends. 

And then the quarantine happened. Everything ground to a raging halt, and four of my jobs had to let me go. The only one I had left was at the McDonald’s. And the managers had been prioritizing shifts to the more senior workers. My three-month employment meant I barely worked ten hours in a week. 

I almost missed the rave music, in this new silence. The entire world had hushed as it began its death throes. I silently hoped my landlord would forget I was renting this room and not ask for next month's due. With all this time to myself isolated in a room that felt like a cage, I wrote. I wrote about everything. I wrote about being alone and falling in love. I wrote about my dreams and my nightmares. Both featured people telling me that they loved me. Both made me cry. I wrote about the moon, which always rose perfectly above a distant treeline and shone directly into my one window. I wondered briefly whether there really were rabbits on that yellow body in the sky. I wrote about fantasy worlds that treated everyone better than reality. But I never wrote about myself. 

I was my own biggest enemy. I was why my parents had kicked me out, and even now, in the depths of a pandemic they hadn’t offered me a modicum of aid or even a kind word. I had begun convincing myself that it was all my fault and that I was wrong for failing their expectations, for not being who they wanted. But I couldn’t be. The boy they saw was an empty vessel. A dull, dark homunculus waiting for the minutes keeping it alive to disappear. 

As the plague continued to rage, time lost meaning to me. Night was day was night. Weeks or months, none of it mattered. I drifted from waking dreams to crawling nightmares. The shadows became my enemy. Every dark corner of my room contained the horrors that plagued me. That one was the virus. That one was the landlord asking for money. That one was my parents enticing me with honeyed words. Even the meager light of my desk lamp couldn’t ward off these terrible thoughts. I would wake, staring at its comforting yellow light, and fall asleep in the same way. But the protection charm it used to cast over me seemed broken now. 

As the quarantine dragged on, the summer sun once again shed its soft heat over the world. My small apartment became stifling and uncomfortable, even at night. I found that leaving my window cracked offered a brief respite from the warmth by allowing cool winds to filter through. And that is where my story truly began. 

Mayday

This story consists of a prologue, two main parts, and an epilogue. I'll be publishing a new part once every other day.