Safiyah's nights were her undoing. Darkness didn't just surround her; it became a living thing, breathing down her neck, whispering cruel reminders of the past. Every shadow in her room seemed alive, every creak of the house amplified in the suffocating silence. The ghosts of her past were relentless, their voices cruel, taunting her where she lay. That night, her uncle returned to her in dreams. His voice, smooth and deceptively kind, echoed in her mind like a toxin spreading through her veins. She saw his smile - warm and familiar, the smile of someone she had once trusted. But in her dream, it twisted into something grotesque, a mask of his true nature. The comforting light of the room dimmed, consumed by a darkness that seemed to reach for her. She tried to scream, but her voice was trapped, strangled by fear. Safiyah jolted awake, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Her chest heaved, as if she had just surfaced from deep water. The familiar comfort of her room felt alien in that moment, as though the nightmare had seeped into reality. Sweat clung to her skin, her hair plastered to her forehead. Her hand instinctively reached for her diary, her trembling fingers fumbling with the pen. She hesitated before pressing the tip to the page. At first, the words wouldn't come, but then they poured out, jagged and raw: "He's everywhere. Even when he's not here, he's still here. I can't breathe. I can't escape. How do you run from something that lives inside you?"
She stared at the words, her vision blurring as tears welled up in her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek, then another, until she was sobbing silently, her shoulders shaking with the force of it. The diary couldn't contain the weight of her pain, but it was all she had. It was the only place she could scream without being heard, cry without being judged. As the first light of dawn crept into her room, Samiya felt hollow, as though the nightmare had hollowed out a piece of her she couldn't get back. She closed the diary, her fingers lingering on its worn cover, and placed it back on her bedside table like a fragile secret. The next morning, the remnants of her nightmare clung to her like smoke, invisible but suffocating. At the breakfast table, she stared at her untouched plate of toast, the sight of food churning her stomach. Her parents sat across from her, engrossed in their own world. Her father scrolled through his tablet, mumbling about the latest news, while her mother spoke animatedly about an upcoming event at work. Their voices blurred into a low hum, meaningless against the roar of her internal storm. "Are you okay, Safiyah?" her mother asked suddenly, her tone casual, almost obligatory. For a fleeting moment, Safiyah considered telling her. The words hovered on the edge of her tongue, so close she could taste them. Her throat tightened, and she felt the sting of tears threatening to spill. But then her mother reached for her phone, her attention already slipping away, her question an afterthought. "I'm fine," Safiyah murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her mother nodded absentmindedly. "Good," she said, not looking up. Safiyah's hands curled into fists beneath the table, her nails digging into her palms. She wanted to scream, to demand that they see her, truly see her. But the words dissolved in her throat, swallowed by the familiar silence. She sat there, invisible in her own home, the weight of her unspoken truths pressing down on her like an anchor.