untitled.

The first assignment for 351. one of the first times I've written (obviously a very short piece) a main female character. on the whole, it's pretty cliche.

She hadn’t been afraid her whole life, but at the same time, her fear had no distinguishable point of origin. In a sense, she had been afraid for as long as she could remember. This fear was certainly intangible; although even to call it irrational would seem to be an overstatement. There was no reason for her fear to exist, so in way, there was no reason for it to cease to exist either. Whenever she was alone in the house at night she found herself routinely opening every door, turning on every light, and then methodically locking down the whole house room by room to be sure it was empty. She never really knew what she was looking for, but looking for it was the only thing that could even partially quell the entirety of the fear, that of it finding her first. What made it infinitely worse was that she could never ask anyone for help. The great wisdom of human logic: “it isn’t real” was of no use to her. It was incredibly real in the way only fear can become real; completely confined to the limits of an individual. For hours at a time it would consume her waking mind; fighting herself, fighting it, and never being able to tell the difference. In the end, her war died with a breeze through her window in the middle of the night. She woke up and knew that it was as close as it had ever been, but she also knew that it was as close as it could get. She hadn’t defeated or destroyed her fear but had instead harnessed it. A strange energy to be put to whatever use she saw fit.