It's dark, cramped, yet spacious. You feel alone, isolated, but surrounded. Stumbling for what seems forever but has actually only been a day. Slowly but surely your terror sinks in. You realize, in less than a second, that you can't fight it off. You are determined. You try and try, only to stumble and trip.

The darkness begins to choke you, makes you feel claustrophobic. You try to push the darkness away but your hands feel nothing solid. They just move through the thick, grimy, heavy air. Of being alone, the thought can be a bit scary. Yet after a while, you find comfort in this. No one is there that you're aware; however, you still feel a presence. You aren't sure who it is. You aren't sure where it came from.

But you know it's there and it knows you where you are. The feelings of being terrified and isolated slowly sink back into you flesh, through your muscles and into the pit of your bones. The deep darkness begins to close at a faster than a slower pace, yet slower than a fast pace. For some people it’s a steady rate and some fight it off; although it's still there. It begins to press itself against you. You attempt to fight it off but it becomes apparent to you that the more you try to resist, the more it presses, and tighter. You eventually fall exhausted tired of the continuous battling against the entity. Lying there, you rest. In the end, you feel a bit better for fighting. It calms down for a bit but then right back to how it was before. This struggle goes on for so long, you can't even guess how long it’s been. So much fighting. You know if you stop you'll be devoured piece by piece, then spit out and stomped on. You can't fight it, it’s been around forever. No one can see it, but everyone can feel it. Soon you're just there- a walking corpse, a corpse that still looks alive. You're more than that, but you feel like less. You're body is still moving, but your will to live is gone, vanished ultimately. It diminished long ago.

You wish you could continue, but no. No energy longer exists in your flesh and mind. You go through the same motions like when you were alive. But now you're controlled by it; It owns You. You finally accepted it. It took the space in you that held the emotions and will, grounded itself, it's poisoned-covered thorns on its roots eases its way there.

No longer did you fight, no longer did you try. No longer were you alive. You're wounded by it, and maybe, just maybe it would most go away, but never fully. You are fully aware of the consequences of not trying, to just give in, but what else are you supposed to do when every waking moment it constantly calls to you and tries to lure you in with promises of a rest. With an urge so undeniably strong, what is a person supposed to do when it’s the only thing circling your mind. When loneliness becomes the new normal, imagine how alien it must feel when someone comes up and tries to be there for you, to try to be a friend. I can’t imagine the struggle of your friend, to keep being there for you, or to let you fight on your own. The one question through my mind is always: how can a friend abandon someone who is drowning- failing their arms around for help to keep their head above the water- to hold on to something to help against the struggle of the quicksand beneath? How? The only answer that my mind has ever been able to get a hold of is they simply are afraid. They don’t want to get their hands messy on someone who may not even make it. Selfish, but it is survival at a bare minimum. Just like when a mother kangaroo kicks a joey out of her pouch when being chased so she may live, people have parallels to this. None want to admit it, but at some level, we all begin to look out for ourselves. It happens at anytime and when we begin to watch out for ourselves, we dismiss promises of never abandoning your friends, we allow it to be morally acceptable and continue on. Some of us return to looking out for others while some won’t change.

Now you just lie there, wanting to fight for the chance of another happy day, but you know you have no more energy. It has worn you down to a nub and there is no way to sharpen yourself back into a point to continue. Somewhere deep down, your mind accepts it and finally you fully become slave, carrying the shame of not trying harder for your friends, for not trying harder for those who tried to keep you above the crashing waves. When you have come to your final decision, the last thing you would ever think you would do, yet it’s the only thing you feel you can do. But in the end, nothing changes. It’s still the same for you except now your senses are gone. However, at least you put up a good fight, and at least it’s over and no longer must you deal with the pain of life.