Panic

I’m walking alone in the dark. The road is abandoned except for my light, quiet footsteps and the soft moonlight. Ahead of me is the E6 highway. I make a few clumsy moves in response to the music in my ears, confident that no one will see me in the dim light beyond the highway. The road less travelled by descends and crawls out of view under the highway, set in its track of submission, of lesser importance. I follow it out of the moonlight and into the blackness. As I do, and old friend makes a reappearance as I start to feel a bit panicky. I want to run, but I cannot have this, it’s been too long. So I stop dead. I look into the ceiling. It’s black, like a pitfall into nothingness, or an elevator into the underworld. I generally hate elevators for the fear of where they might go. Maybe this is the underworld, it sure looks like somewhere dark things might like. I walk to the other side and stop again, looking back to find a home for all the images that play vividly in my mind, toying with me. But there is no such place I tell myself, as I have done so many times before. I just wish I could see it so I could calm down. Suddenly, a most disturbing view fills my mind and leaves no room for anything else. My brain attacks my system violently, prescribing a massive dose of adrenalin, because this is real! A light starts at the far end of the tunnel. It illuminates the entire width of the ceiling and progress towards me quickly, efficiently, without a sound. I stagger backwards helplessly, not sure how to respond. Eventually, my brain has caught up with the events and the spell of panic is broken with the revelation as to what this is. As the source of the phenomenon, a car, appear on the hilltop on the other side of the tunnel, I turn around and walk quickly away, giggling like a little kid, body still trembling uncontrollably from the adrenalin my brain has carelessly neglected to withdraw. Panic used to be a regular occurrence, but now days I’ve become so calm that the adrenalin seems to come in uncomfortable abundance whenever my brain has the faintest excuse to throw it at me.

I look back once the car has passed. Something had been following me trough that tunnel. It was so faint that I could barely make it out in the darkness and always straight across from me. Surely, I must have been my own shadow I tell myself as I walk away. Surely. Though the image continue to twist in my head, not quite dead yet. I know deep inside that such a shadow would make no sense at all, and they always do, don’t they? Being purely logical creatures, they never appear out of place.

Back in the tunnel, there is a most unreasonable shadow indeed. Still in the shape of the girl who just passed it by, it lingers by the opening. “Another time” it tells itself. She’ll be back for sure.