Chapter 2 - Coping
I do what I always do when I'm sad, keep busy. I spent the first few weeks since my husband left for his deployment moving through the motions of work and home like a zombie. On weekends I would binge watch action movies and romantic comedies, trying not to throw my pillow at love scenes while crying my eyes out. I kept active, going to my Tae Kwon Do and Krav Maga martial arts classes to keep the dopamine moving through my body.
Since my husband left, I stopped having nightmares. I just fell into dreamless sleep every night. The space on the bed where he slept was now occupied by several pillows. It wasn't hard to sleep after a whole afternoon of grueling martial arts drills and sparring since I often came home bruised and sore. I missed him most in the morning, when I would wake up and see the pillows where his body should've been. I missed him again in the afternoons, when I would come home from work to find that he wasn't standing in the kitchen eating some snack. My heart ached for him and the sadness crawled on me like the feeling of having a limb fall asleep.
It wasn't until after I finished watching some romantic comedy about a woman sabotaging a blind date and falling in love that I decided I needed a vacation for myself. I didn't have time to sit around and miss him. He didn't want me to sit around moping. I needed to get out and see the world, take this time for myself. So I called the only person who I knew who would be up to go anywhere in the world with me, my old college roommate Helen.
Helen and I were matched as roommates randomly during our first year of college. Helen is a lot more outdoorsy, rugged, and easy to like. I, on the other hand, am high maintenance, never been camping in my life, and are often told by people that I come off to be intimidating since I carry so much confidence. Needless to say, we became great friends and became close because of our shared love of books.
I texted her.
Yo Helen.
It took a minute or so for a reply.
What's up? How are you?
I'm good, Jon left for deployment and I wanna take a vacation. Wanna go camping or something? I've never been.
Lol. You still haven't been camping?? Alright, let me look at my schedule and get back to you.
After going back and forth several times with dates, we finally settled on going camping at the Yellowstone National park the next month.
Finally, something that I could look forward to. I went to through my normal daily routine with renewed vigor.
Work, martial arts, clean, sleep, repeat. Some days were longer than others but eventually the time came and I was packing my bags and giving instructions to my neighbors to care for my dog. I was on my way to an adventure.
We met at the airport, me coming from Virginia and Helen arriving from California. We rented a car and spent the next few hours driving to the coordinates of a camping ground which Helen entered into the GPS. We decided on going to Walmart which turned out to be two hours out of the way but we needed some supplies which we couldn't check onto a plane. We finally arrived to the camp grounds as the afternoon sun started to make its descent and the real camping began.
I spent what felt to be several hours attempting to put together my tent. There were a few times that I wanted to throw the cursed tent into the trash and just sleep in the car but my pride wouldn't let me give up so I made and unmade the tent until I decided it looked similar to the photo printed on the instruction manual. Inside the tent, I meticulously arranged my sleeping bag, lantern, toilet paper, switch blade and bear mace. By the time I finished, Helen had already started a fire and was putting some water to boil. I grabbed my folding chair from the car that I picked up from Walmart for $10. The sun was setting and the summer air was thick and warm. I helped Helen prepare dinner and we had our first meal under the summer stars.
Sleep did not come easy for me the first night. I had the nightmare with that thing from the woods. It didn't help that when I awoke from my dream, I had the urge to pee but it was still dark outside. I checked my watch, it was 3am. I tried to will myself to go back to sleep but the need to pee was winning the battle over my fear and soon I had my boots on, lantern lit, and toilet paper in hand making my way through the dark for a place to squat and release the load.
It was quiet. Too quiet. I never liked the quiet or the trees since my mother would tell me as a child that trees carried spirits and the woods has creatures out of this world. I had since grown out of believing those things but now, it felt real. I did not feel alone.
There was a thrumming through my veins which felt as if my body was vibrating. I didn't bother to make my way far enough from the camp to appropriately pee, I found the nearest oak and dropped my pants. I pushed the urine at as fast as biologically possible and ran back to my tent, pants barely pulled up as I stumbled in and zipped it closed.
The tent was illuminated by the lamp that I had not yet turned off fearing the shadows of the night would consume me. The thrumming in the skin grew stronger and my heartbeat slowed, my vision going sharper and the light going brighter. The feeling of not being alone was thick in the air and I knew deep in my bones that something was outside my tent.
Then I saw it, the silhouette of that thing of my dreams. This has to be a dream, I kept trying to convince the rational part of my mind. The thing moved to the entrance of my tent and the zipper was moving. I grabbed my switch blade and bent down into a crouch.
This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream. Wake up damn it, wake up! As if chanting it to myself would make me wake up. But this was not a dream and that thing had the opening three-quarters undone. If I had not already peed, I'm pretty sure I would've wet my pants.
The door was open now and all I saw was darkness. Where the stars and the moon should've greeted my with a faint light, I only saw black.
I couldn't move. my feet felt cemented to the floor. Then tendrils of darkness entered the tent, growing like vines from the darkness, reaching for me. I couldn't move, I had no wear to run, my only entrance blocked by the demon that stood at the doorway. My weapon pathetic and useless in my hand as I tried and failed to cut into the shadows. The thrumming in my skin grew so strong that I thought my skin would run away from me and leave me alone to fight this creature naked, in just flesh and bone.
And then my heart slowed and I heard voice deep like the rumbling of an earthquake in my head, louder than the voice of my inner conscious.
The gate is open. Beware. Beware. They are coming. It repeated over and over again like a gregorian chant.
"What the fuck are you?" I said aloud to whatever was speaking to my mind, my voice growing angry as the fear subsided and my fighting instincts kicked in.I was willing my body to fight and deciding whether my legs would obey me enough to allow my body to reach over to the other side of the tent to cut another exit out with the knife in my hands. I was trying to process possible escape routes while trying to convince my legs to move.
Then suddenly without warning like a blanket thrown over my shoulders, a calmness swept over me and I was unafraid. I took a breath and my heart rate evened out. I looked at my hands, one still holding the knife and to the shadows on the floor. The knife felt useless and unnecessary, I couldn't remember why I needed it. The shadows didn't scare me anymore, they comforted me. As if somewhere deep down like a forgotten memory, I was realizing that the shadows have never done anything to harm me.
A memory replayed in my mind, of playing with my toys in the dark. I would imagine images of shadows within the darkness that would help my little toy cars maneuver around the bathroom obstacles. I never felt afraid or alone when I would lock myself in the dark bathroom. My mind came out of that memory and I saw the shadows moving closer.
It felt as if touching the shadows would make all things right in the world, like they were old friends who have come to be reacquainted with me. The shadows danced and beckoned for me like fire dancing in the wind. I dropped my knife, the instinct to fight forgotten and dropped my hands the the floor.
Instantly, the shadows crawled into my skin as if they were metal and I was the magnet and began forming swirling patterns into my hands and rising up into my arms. They kept crawling until they reached the part where my forearm met my elbow and they circled into solid black bands, shadow bracelets that lived underneath my skin.
Since my husband left, I stopped having nightmares. I just fell into dreamless sleep every night. The space on the bed where he slept was now occupied by several pillows. It wasn't hard to sleep after a whole afternoon of grueling martial arts drills and sparring since I often came home bruised and sore. I missed him most in the morning, when I would wake up and see the pillows where his body should've been. I missed him again in the afternoons, when I would come home from work to find that he wasn't standing in the kitchen eating some snack. My heart ached for him and the sadness crawled on me like the feeling of having a limb fall asleep.
It wasn't until after I finished watching some romantic comedy about a woman sabotaging a blind date and falling in love that I decided I needed a vacation for myself. I didn't have time to sit around and miss him. He didn't want me to sit around moping. I needed to get out and see the world, take this time for myself. So I called the only person who I knew who would be up to go anywhere in the world with me, my old college roommate Helen.
Helen and I were matched as roommates randomly during our first year of college. Helen is a lot more outdoorsy, rugged, and easy to like. I, on the other hand, am high maintenance, never been camping in my life, and are often told by people that I come off to be intimidating since I carry so much confidence. Needless to say, we became great friends and became close because of our shared love of books.
I texted her.
Yo Helen.
It took a minute or so for a reply.
What's up? How are you?
I'm good, Jon left for deployment and I wanna take a vacation. Wanna go camping or something? I've never been.
Lol. You still haven't been camping?? Alright, let me look at my schedule and get back to you.
After going back and forth several times with dates, we finally settled on going camping at the Yellowstone National park the next month.
Finally, something that I could look forward to. I went to through my normal daily routine with renewed vigor.
Work, martial arts, clean, sleep, repeat. Some days were longer than others but eventually the time came and I was packing my bags and giving instructions to my neighbors to care for my dog. I was on my way to an adventure.
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A lot of emotions were running through my mind. I had never been camping and so I spent the days leading up to our trip googling things I needed to know about camping, the dangers of camping, and equipment I needed for camping. I now had a healthy fear of bears, snakes, insects, mountain lions, drinking water from a stream, sleeping on the ground, wet socks and gangrene. Because of all the things I read online, I packed more weapons than was probably needed: two switch blades, one machete, a pocket knife, a Swiss army knife, bear deterrent spray, and a taser I once carried around during college when I would walk home late from the library. I would've brought a gun but crossing state lines with a weapon was messy so I decided to leave that at home.We met at the airport, me coming from Virginia and Helen arriving from California. We rented a car and spent the next few hours driving to the coordinates of a camping ground which Helen entered into the GPS. We decided on going to Walmart which turned out to be two hours out of the way but we needed some supplies which we couldn't check onto a plane. We finally arrived to the camp grounds as the afternoon sun started to make its descent and the real camping began.
I spent what felt to be several hours attempting to put together my tent. There were a few times that I wanted to throw the cursed tent into the trash and just sleep in the car but my pride wouldn't let me give up so I made and unmade the tent until I decided it looked similar to the photo printed on the instruction manual. Inside the tent, I meticulously arranged my sleeping bag, lantern, toilet paper, switch blade and bear mace. By the time I finished, Helen had already started a fire and was putting some water to boil. I grabbed my folding chair from the car that I picked up from Walmart for $10. The sun was setting and the summer air was thick and warm. I helped Helen prepare dinner and we had our first meal under the summer stars.
Sleep did not come easy for me the first night. I had the nightmare with that thing from the woods. It didn't help that when I awoke from my dream, I had the urge to pee but it was still dark outside. I checked my watch, it was 3am. I tried to will myself to go back to sleep but the need to pee was winning the battle over my fear and soon I had my boots on, lantern lit, and toilet paper in hand making my way through the dark for a place to squat and release the load.
It was quiet. Too quiet. I never liked the quiet or the trees since my mother would tell me as a child that trees carried spirits and the woods has creatures out of this world. I had since grown out of believing those things but now, it felt real. I did not feel alone.
There was a thrumming through my veins which felt as if my body was vibrating. I didn't bother to make my way far enough from the camp to appropriately pee, I found the nearest oak and dropped my pants. I pushed the urine at as fast as biologically possible and ran back to my tent, pants barely pulled up as I stumbled in and zipped it closed.
The tent was illuminated by the lamp that I had not yet turned off fearing the shadows of the night would consume me. The thrumming in the skin grew stronger and my heartbeat slowed, my vision going sharper and the light going brighter. The feeling of not being alone was thick in the air and I knew deep in my bones that something was outside my tent.
Then I saw it, the silhouette of that thing of my dreams. This has to be a dream, I kept trying to convince the rational part of my mind. The thing moved to the entrance of my tent and the zipper was moving. I grabbed my switch blade and bent down into a crouch.
This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream. Wake up damn it, wake up! As if chanting it to myself would make me wake up. But this was not a dream and that thing had the opening three-quarters undone. If I had not already peed, I'm pretty sure I would've wet my pants.
The door was open now and all I saw was darkness. Where the stars and the moon should've greeted my with a faint light, I only saw black.
I couldn't move. my feet felt cemented to the floor. Then tendrils of darkness entered the tent, growing like vines from the darkness, reaching for me. I couldn't move, I had no wear to run, my only entrance blocked by the demon that stood at the doorway. My weapon pathetic and useless in my hand as I tried and failed to cut into the shadows. The thrumming in my skin grew so strong that I thought my skin would run away from me and leave me alone to fight this creature naked, in just flesh and bone.
And then my heart slowed and I heard voice deep like the rumbling of an earthquake in my head, louder than the voice of my inner conscious.
The gate is open. Beware. Beware. They are coming. It repeated over and over again like a gregorian chant.
"What the fuck are you?" I said aloud to whatever was speaking to my mind, my voice growing angry as the fear subsided and my fighting instincts kicked in.I was willing my body to fight and deciding whether my legs would obey me enough to allow my body to reach over to the other side of the tent to cut another exit out with the knife in my hands. I was trying to process possible escape routes while trying to convince my legs to move.
Then suddenly without warning like a blanket thrown over my shoulders, a calmness swept over me and I was unafraid. I took a breath and my heart rate evened out. I looked at my hands, one still holding the knife and to the shadows on the floor. The knife felt useless and unnecessary, I couldn't remember why I needed it. The shadows didn't scare me anymore, they comforted me. As if somewhere deep down like a forgotten memory, I was realizing that the shadows have never done anything to harm me.
A memory replayed in my mind, of playing with my toys in the dark. I would imagine images of shadows within the darkness that would help my little toy cars maneuver around the bathroom obstacles. I never felt afraid or alone when I would lock myself in the dark bathroom. My mind came out of that memory and I saw the shadows moving closer.
It felt as if touching the shadows would make all things right in the world, like they were old friends who have come to be reacquainted with me. The shadows danced and beckoned for me like fire dancing in the wind. I dropped my knife, the instinct to fight forgotten and dropped my hands the the floor.
Instantly, the shadows crawled into my skin as if they were metal and I was the magnet and began forming swirling patterns into my hands and rising up into my arms. They kept crawling until they reached the part where my forearm met my elbow and they circled into solid black bands, shadow bracelets that lived underneath my skin.
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I woke up the next morning out of my sleeping bag, my neck stiff from sleeping face down ass up on the floor. The switch blade on was open in front of me.
Was it just a dream?
I looked at my arms to find that there were no shadows wrapped around them. Irritated at having another nightmare and exhausted from the lack of decent sleep, I got up and got ready for the day. Helen and I had a hike planned today and I could already tell that it was going to feel miserable.
Shortly after breakfast and packing our bags for the day long hike, we made our way along the trail. I was surprised that despite waking up exhausted from my nightmare, the hike was pleasantly refreshing and thankfully easy. I walked through the trail staring up at the trees and admiring the peace and tranquility that only nature can sing.
We had been hiking for what felt to be like three or four hours and my stomach was grumbling.
"Helen, we should stop and have a snack before we continue through the trail."
"Sure. I see a clearing just ahead that we could have lunch in."
I tore my eyes away from the top of trees too look in the direction of the clearing that Helen was leading us too and I realized the path that we were on was exactly as it were in my nightmare. It was unmistakable, the dream having come so often and the image having been burned into my brain over the course of several nights.
But before I could speak, we were at the clearing. As if time moved too quickly and my mind too slowly.
"Dude this is beautiful," Helen was so full of awe as she dropped her pack and stepped into the clearing. I almost wanted to smack her but felt that it was probably irrational to hit your friend for admiring the image of your nightmare because the way the sun kissed the grass made for a scene that you would only think would happen in movies.
Unable to speak, I followed her knowing that I could not leave her alone and fearing that if I were alone that creature would appear. I followed her into the middle of the clearing. I palmed the switch blade taking comfort in the weight of the metal.
The wind picked up and the breeze was a comforting kiss on our sweat damped skin. Suddenly and without preamble, the wind churned, dancing in circles around us. My ears popped as if the pressure increased my head felt light. My vision began to blur as the wind grew louder and more fierce, trapping us like a circle of dancers with their hands tightly clasped and there was no where for us to run. It was happening unnaturally fast and my mind couldn't calculate what was happening.
Panic rose into my veins as I realized my vision was tunneling. I was going to faint and I had no control. I tasted iron in the back of my throat and then a tickle above my lip. Then the darkness became complete and I was falling.
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