Lights Go Out/Scopophobia
TW: Paranoia, suicidal thoughts, description of accident, harm
Writer is not a doctor, and this is not medical advice
[Deca and Reader]
Deca belongs to the beautiful @5eptem
3670 words
Summary: You have been plagued with horrible hallucinations and paranoia for months. Is your mind playing tricks on you, or can you believe your eyes?
There was something right on the boundary of your vision.
Everywhere you went, everywhere you looked, there was this odd, pooling darkness in the corner of every room. You felt it drill holes into your skull. As if the weight of a hundred eyes scrutinized your every move. But you chucked it off to your anxiety. After all, it could only be your imagination playing tricks on your tired mind. Your constant sleep deprivation only helped to contribute to this gnawing feeling of being watched. It's nothing that crazy, you reasoned. You were not crazy; you were just tired. It's not as if you've become twitchy, and somewhat paranoid under the pressure of the imaginary audience.
It got worse the night you had to walk home alone. You weren't usually one for night walks, but you didn't really have a choice, unknowingly having stayed past the sunset at your favorite cafe during the winter. It was not like it was particularly late, but with the sun setting around six in the evening, you found yourself in the dark, illuminated only by the searing LED lights of the street lamps. Of course, you were still plagued by the persistent feeling of being watched. It's as if your mind conjured up an invisible stalker to combat your occasional, nagging feeling of loneliness. It got worse at night. Why wouldn't it? It's the prime time for an actual stalker to make themselves known. And you swore, that night they did. You swore you saw eyes—actual eyes—in the alleyway. You swore, you saw a tall, lanky figure within. But as you did a double take, there was no one there. You almost imagined a floating, swaying person-like being asking you for a cigarette. But fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately—you haven't decided yet—the alleyway was empty. Goosebumps painfully coated your skin. Whether it was the cold, or the fear, you weren't sure. Perhaps both. You picked up the pace, of course, not wanting to stay outside longer than you had to. Especially with this rotten feeling in your chest. The flickering lights didn't reassure you, either. You heard the electricity overloading the bulbs, making their light comparable to the midday sun, followed by a quick eclipse, or, well, flicker. You breathed deeply, preparing your lungs for the rush of cold air, if your feeling proved to be real, and you had to make a run for it. You didn't know what took over you, but you stopped under one of the lights to listen in on their hum. For some reason, you felt as if their sound was more than just the regular electrical current. It was as if there was a message, encrypted somewhere among the noise. You swore that you could hear something. No, someone whisper. You earnestly tried to listen in, and as you almost managed to discern that personal message, you heard a loud POP above you as a million shards of glass began raining down on you.
You ran home after this.
You became more vigilant towards odd happenings, or maybe they just became more pronounced? Did it even matter?
The second "strike" happened when you were at home. You were staying up late, as one does, reading one of the million books you've bought, and promised yourself to read, but never got to. That was the day, you decided to pick one up. Not because you wanted to justify your spending habits, but because you were, once more, plagued with insomnia, and needed something to distract yourself with. And definitely not because the clawing feeling of being watched started to make your skin crawl. You were never afraid of the darkness—well, maybe not since you were a child—but you began fearing turning the lights off. You wanted to believe that reading the book would tire you out, truly. But the more you stared at the words on the page, the more upset you became as none of the words registered. You had to reread the passages over and over again, the words becoming a jumbled mess as soon as your eyes passed over them. You groaned in upset, slamming the book shut. There was something in the room with you. There was something in the room with you. There was someone in the room with you. There was— It felt like your brain was screaming at you. There was no pain, no actual visible danger, no one in your place, besides you. Yet, you felt like you weren't alone. You haven't felt alone in a couple of months now, if you were to be completely honest with yourself, but that night the feeling started becoming unbearable. You walked around your place twice over, checked all the locks thrice. You closed all the windows, all the doors, even every cupboard, and closet. You turned all the lights on, and paced around, checking every corner for a presence that wasn't there. Or so you hoped. Or so you prayed. Exhausted, you let yourself fall on the couch. You were tired of this whole song and dance of paranoic reconnaissance of your own home. But you weren't tired enough to ignore the sinking feeling of being watched to finally get some well-deserved rest. You were tired, but the fear-induced heart palpitations hammered at your temples. You've decided that, the moment the doctors' offices open, you'd give a call to a psychiatrist to deal with your neverending anxiety. There had to be some pill, right?
Although it went deeper than just anxiety, didn't it?
As you finally started drifting off to sleep, the screeching TV static startled you awake. You didn't turn it on. You weren't anywhere near the remote, either. You yelped out in surprise, the pressure headache as acute as it ever was. You grasped onto the couch's pillow in search of anything that could double as a weapon. Surely, someone turned on the TV. You frantically looked around, searching for a sign of an intruder. Anything at all. But you were only met with the cacophony of the static, and the sound of your heartbeat. Hugging the pillow tightly, you slowly overcame the fear boiling in the depth of your chest, and got up from your spot. You had to check all around your home again. But that had to come after you turn off the, apparently, self-turning-on-TV. Perhaps, your neighbor's remote connected to it? That would be a rational explanation. As you began to approach it, you could've sworn up and down that some image began to appear within the static. Perhaps it was one of those channels that your TV antenna could just barely pick up. And so, you were getting some frames from an odd show you've never seen before. That is what you thought until you finally reached the screen when the image became clear, and you could make out a dozen of eyes, all focused on you. It's as if they were alive. They followed you as you stumbled back in fear, tripping over your feet, you fell down backwards. You crawled away from the TV, laser focused on the eyes, just as they were on you.
It ended as abruptly as it started, leaving you trembling in the darkness on the floor. You didn't remember turning the lights off.
You didn't sleep that night.
Since then, your electronics started malfunctioning at odd times. Sometimes it would be your TV, or your landline. Sometimes your Nokia decided that the 6 key should give out, right as you wanted to exchange phone numbers with a new person, making you write them down instead. Sometimes you'd get calls from your friends' numbers with complete silence on the other end; once you called back, your friends claimed that they had never dialed you. Sometimes your MP3 player started playing electronic music. Not that you were particularly opposed to the genre, but you never downloaded any of the tracks it played. You swore you were going insane.
After the fourth call, you went to a psychiatrist.
Clonazepam and aripiprazole. Low doses first. With no history of psychosis, your doctor decided to focus more on your anxiety.
It didn't take long for the doses to increase with your symptoms worsening, as the occurrences started piling up.
The eyes in your screen started to appear more. The lights in your apartment started flickering often. Your phone malfunctioned frequently. And you couldn't escape it. There was no escape, no release from the soul crushing feeling of being watched. It felt worse being outside than it was trapped at home with whatever felt the need to torment you. You stopped being able to go out with friends—everything around you constantly short circuiting: light bulbs popping, screens turning static, automatic cars refusing to drive when you sat inside. It felt like you were in a perpetual nightmare, unable to wake up. It's as if your life stopped the moment you decided to listen in to the sound of that street light. Maybe that lamp fell on you, and landed you in a miserable coma? At least, if that was the case, you would have a way out. Either you'd wake up with everything behind you, or you'd finally be taken off life support. It'd be a win-win either way, regardless of how dark this line of thinking is. But before that, you had to try to cope with your predicament.
Your doctor recommended you take pictures of your "visions" to have solid proof that they weren't real. So, you bought the cheapest camera you could find. Surely, you'd be able to look back on the images and see that it was nothing more than a figment of your imagination.
No matter how many photos you took, they all ended up becoming corrupted before you could have a chance to look at them. All of them. So, you brought the images to your psychiatrist.
That day you got prescribed clozapine.
You hung Christmas lights up in the middle of June. You came up with an idea that maybe, just maybe, whatever was haunting you was simply trying to communicate. Because, of course, if none of the medicine was helping, you were experiencing a real haunting. And if you proved that you were not crazy, you'd be able to get off these pills that made your stomach hurl with side effects. Surely, if this thing was capable of exploding light bulbs, turning on your TV, and messing with your music, it would be able to turn on some lights. Surely.
If you are here, turn the lights on. You would often ask the moment you walked into the room.
Sometimes it did.
Every time it freaked you out. You hated being proven right time and time again. Why couldn't it leave you alone? Why was it haunting you to begin with? What did it want? Did it want you scared? Paranoid? Well, it had achieved its goal, then. How long was it planning on haunting you?
You were scared to drive. You became scared of getting into cars altogether. None of them malfunctioned yet. But with this entity that seemed to have a presumed distaste—or maybe taste—for electronics, you kept imagining it frying the car's automatic transmission in the middle of an intersection, or such. But you didn't have a choice, but to get into the car. And on one of those inevitable days, it happened. You white knuckled the steering wheel, as usual. You never played music. No, proper intonation would be: YOU never played music. Your entity always had something to play for you. Your entity? Oh, your screws were so lose they might as well had been chewed up gum, holding your mind together. Regardless. The point is that your car spun out of control after its transmission switched to 'park' whilst you were driving fifty kilometers per hour on the freeway. Or that was what you assumed, hanging upside down by your seatbelt in a ditch. The belt rubbed painfully against your ripped skin mixed with tiny shards of glass. Your dislocated and/or broken shoulder felt like the least of your worries as you faded in and out of consciousness. Maybe this was the release you were asking for. You didn't expect it to be accompanied by Club Bizarre, but there you were.
The song kept playing as you lost consciousness.
************************************************************************
You woke up. Whether it was fortunate, or not, you weren't sure. The reason why you weren't sure was because you had no way to immediately test your theory that the past half a year was just a coma-induced fever dream. You remained hopeful it was the case.
Despite the pain, you tried to sit up. Key word 'tried.' Instead, you groaned in pain. It would've been wiser to assess the situation before attempting locomotion, but you needed confirmation that you were finally free from that supernatural stalker of yours. You prayed it was good news.
Your vitals skyrocketed as soon as you managed to turn your head at the heart monitor. Eyes. You saw eyes. Of course, you saw eyes. Of course, it was too good to be true. Of course, you didn't escape. Of course, there was no release. You didn't know if you should cry, scream, or rip the IV out of your vein, and strangle yourself with it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! What the hell was its problem?! Why was it still there? Did it come to gloat? To laugh at you for almost killing you? Or did it come here to finish the job? God, you hoped it came here to finish the job. You went through a range of emotions in an attempt to cope with the fact that the first person(?) that greeted you post-accident was the very thing that caused it. Well, you had no way of knowing for sure if it was what caused your car to spin out of control, but it was most definitely the safest guess.
"What the hell is your problem?" You managed to cough up an accusation. You might as well knock the interrogation out before the nurses come to check on you.
Your ECG reading formed into a sad face.
It made you angry. Eye-twitching, knuckles white, blood boiling angry. You seethed, but ultimately, kept your mouth shut. Not that you wanted to humor the entity's faux emotions, but its messing with your heart rate monitor caused a nurse to run into your room, expecting to see you coding. And while you were relieved that the care team took your health seriously, you didn't feel like spending your hospital 'vacation' at a psych ward.
Later that day you learned that, had you not found yourself in a ditch, you would have had to be scraped off the asphalt like a fried egg off an old skillet. There was an accident at the same intersection immediately following yours, involving a semi with faulty breaks, and two sedans. Only one survivor. You were in an hour-long stupor, following that revelation. Was that entity actually helping you? Maybe? Hopefully? Did you need to apologize to it now? Maybe it should've warned you that it was there to help you. Half a year ago. Instead of tormenting you…
When you were let out of the hospital, you were determined to figure out what was this entity's purpose. For your own non-existent sanity. The accident made you quit your medication altogether. It convinced you, with about eighty-five percent certainty that it was real. That your supernatural… Acquaintance..? Well, you didn't know anything about it, except for its proclivity to electronic music, and technology.
Oh, and the freaky eye thing. You hated the freaky eye thing it did. You hoped the entity would be receptive to constructive criticism: the many eyes had to go. You wouldn't be too mad if it didn't stop the eye thing—you kind of grew accustomed to it. It would just be nice not to jump every time it decided to stare at you from across the room. It got weird every time because, seemingly, you were the only one who could see them. So, you gained the reputation for being crazy, and skittish.
You felt an odd sense of comfort when the Christmas lights lit up as soon as you stepped foot in your place. It's as if you had someone to welcome you home after being away. Your arm was in a cast, your face bruised, and you had stitches in places you didn't know could tear. But you were alive. And you supposed, it was all thanks to this many-eyed fellow of yours. Should you thank it? Maybe you should hold your horses. You were getting too friendly with this thing that had been terrorizing you all these months. It did one good thing for you, and suddenly you were all mushy-gushy, ready to throw away the simmering frustration over the wringer it put you through. But was it even worth it to hold a grudge against it?
Yes, it was.
But it wasn't the time for you to muse over how you should feel towards this entity. You were determined to establish an actual communication link with this stalker of yours, or you'd be damned. It had to have something to say, surely. It had the audacity to give you a sad face after sending you to the hospital. Well, it was to avoid your death, but your point still stood. So, after doing some research, you laid out a plan which you spoke aloud in hopes of the entity following along. You would use the lights to relay a cipher. It was foolproof. Or, well, foolproof to your wild mind. Which is to say, only on paper. But you had to try.
"Okay, listen up, you!" You spoke with determination into the silence of your apartment. "Lights on, if you're here!"
The lights switched on briefly in response. For the first time ever, you were truly glad to see a response.
"I want to talk to you!"
The lights blink quickly in what you assumed to be enthusiasm. Well, you hoped it was enthusiasm.
"Okay, um… Can you light up individual lights? Light them up differently if yes, and light the whole thing if no."
It lit up every other light. Your smile reached your molars, your heart raced. You were ecstatic. This was progress.
"Um, I went to the library, and printed this out," you pulled out a sheet with a table. It was a table with a series of numbers with a bunch of pluses, and dashes next to them. "I spent some time researching this. I'm sure, you know that already, since you seem to be following me around…"
"But I'll still explain!"
The lights, once again, lit up brightly with fervor. Was it happy? Hard to say.
"Okay, so, this is a decabit cipher. It uses a series of electrical pulses to relay information. Each command consists of ten selections: five pulses, and five pauses. It always begins with a pulse, and ends with a pause. Those don't count towards the total pulse count. They only signify the beginning and the end. The pulses and pauses between them are what determines the information," you speak slowly. You wanted to make it as clear as possible to your 'companion'. And to repeat it for yourself, just in case. You didn't want anything to be lost in translation. "Light up once if you understand, and twice if you don't."
The lights shone brightly, then quickly faded. It understood. You were trembling with anticipation. Excitement overtook your fear of the unknown. You could be spelling out your doom, but you didn't care. Your months old guessing game was about to be over, even if you were flying too close to the sun. You walked up to the lights, and pointed out a section of ten.
"Can you light up only these lights?"
Positive.
"Okay. Okay. Cool, cool, cool," you let out something between a nervous giggle, and a psychotic laugh. "For the purposes of our dialogue, we can forgo indicating start and finish."
"Do you see this table?" You pointed at the printout.
Yes.
"I want you to show pluses as lit up bulbs, and keep the bulbs off for dashes," you pull out another sheet of paper. This time it was the alphabet with numbers each corresponding to the letters. All handwritten by you. There definitely was an easier way to do this, but you were racking your brain for so long that you didn't care. "I want you to use one through twenty-six for each letter to answer my questions, okay?"
The lights got as bright as they could without popping. You felt the electricity of your companion's excitement which matched your own.
"Okay, let's start!" You clap elatedly. "What is your name?"
"- - - - + + + - + + / + + - - + + + - - - / + - - + - + + - + - / + - - + + + - - +"
"Four… Five… Three… One…" You transcribe the symbols first, then numbers. "D, E, C, A."
"Deca! Is that your name?"
Bright yes! Joy washed over you. Something you haven't felt since before you became haunted.
It took a while. Transcribing, decrypting, and asking was a long, and taxing task. But you didn't care. Fueled by your manic enthusiasm to finally get answers, you would spend as long as this 'Deca' would humor you. And they seemed to have matched your mirth over finally being able to communicate. Never in a million years would you have guessed that you'd be happy to chat with the being that tormented you for so long. But here you were, at the depth of your insanity. They claimed to be your guardian angel, they told you to be careful, you had them apologize for causing you so much distress—they made a sad face in the lights. You spent all night chatting. You used up an entire notebook of just handwritten code. Your last question was posed at dawn.
"Can I see you?"
"2 5 8 9 14 4 / 25 15 21"