There is a disruption in the way I live every time I am reminded of *others*. I'll be shopping for groceries and see something I like, reach for it, and then...

What will my flatmate think?

It's not what she'll say, because most of the time she doesn't say anything, except of course when she does. It's been rare, but the odd comment or two has me on edge. Technically she has no power over me–we're both adults, we make our own decisions. But I gave her power anyway, by caring about her perception of me. How much room for improvement do I have, to her?

It's been another late night, couldn't get any sleep before two o'clock. When I wake up, bleary-eyed and a little bit lost, I decide to let the tide whisk me away again. It doesn't quite manage, so I stay here on the bank, mattress warm in places, deliciously fresh in others. My phone is within reach, soft-spoken stories the only thing that can put me to sleep these days. It's barely nine in the morning. I have time, I tell myself. I'm not working right now anyway. Not much to do so I simply exist, and scroll, and exist, and scroll, telling myself all the while that I'll get out of bed at 9:30. When I check, it's 9:52, and dread sinks down my throat all the way to the pit of my stomach.

What would my mother think?

She'd be sad, wouldn't she? That I'm wasting away like this. "You have a lot of potential", I can hear her say, while all the things I keep saying I'll do flash before my eyes. Yet I'm still in bed, unable to move, and now guilt is making me yell at myself twice as loud. I should be, I should be, I should be.

What would my sister say?

These past few years he'd accomplished so much that even when things don't go according to her plan, she's still miles ahead of me. The solid foundation under her feet is something I don't feel I ever had, and I feel its lack underneath my bare soles. It's just my blanket and a pillow I kicked all the way down the bed during the night. No low-rate-of-success national competitive exam win, no 2k-per-month job, no screenshots of my latest run that I ran with my good body that I feed good things only.

But my sister wouldn't say anything to me. She wants me to be happy where I'm at, nothing more. She told me so herself on a car ride.

My mother wouldn't think anything other than well-wishes, because she knows my struggles, and mostly she, too, only wants me to be happy.

My flatmate is just a person, same as I am. I have opinions on her too and they're not worth anything. They're certainly not reflective of her worth, because my opinions are just that. If she expressed any worry about those I'd ask her who cares, because I certainly don't. She doesn't owe me anything.

And yet there is a disruption in the way I live every time I'm reminded that my confidence isn't enough for me to feel good about myself. So I have to make it everyone else's job to love me instead. I never say it out loud, I don't need to, we all do the same thing. Responsible for everyone except ourselves, it's like living with cameras on us all the time, never relaxed, always searching for the approval of people who have already given it. But what about the renewal? What if?

It's not even them I want to ingratiate myself to. It's the meaner, less flattering versions of them that I have locked up in my mind to serve as little punishers whenever I step a toe out of a line that I'm not really sure where that line even comes from. Is it my own? Has it been fed to me, ad after ad, tweet after buzzfeed thinkpiece, law of the land and popular opinions?

I don't know who I'm trying to please. All I can say for sure is that those distorted things I'm trying to feed with my best behaviour will always be hungry, because some masochistic part of me needs them that way.

And it's kind of hell, if you ask me.

Oftentimes the gutter would throw up its contents, in a great tidal wave, by the front door of the house, forcing the already-damp earth to swallow more than it could hold – too much, always too much.

At the edge of the woods behind the farmhouse, young trees lost their anchor points to the mud. So they fell, in a dull, wet noise, barely noticeable through the drumming song of raindrops.

Still rain was a good thing. During monsoons, while the whole family holed up together upstairs at the first sign of a flood, the amount of noise a dozen people could make acted like a shield. Whatever happened there, under the rain, had nothing to do with them.

Everything, from ruined fields to unearthed carcasses, was the doing of the old pagan gods who once ruled those lands. Mortally offended ever since the peasants had turned their backs on their traditions, those eternal beings rose from the earth, bringing corpses and secrets with them, cursing the traitors. Rumour had it that whoever set foot outside while it rained would be devoured whole by the gods themselves.

Gerbille had been living with that story burrowed at the back of her mind for years now. Her fear should have dwindled with time, but it had only shed its skin along with the girl. As a child she feared mud-monsters crawling from under her bed, yellowed teeth at her throat. Now she feared she'd see nothing at all, would only feel the pain when it happened. After all it was pitch dark in the attic where the whole family slept, and sometimes, at night, the rain stopped falling.

Those rare moments of utter silence were the soil from which the legitimacy of her childhood terrors sprouted. She was fifteen, old enough to work the fields, sell her wool at the marketplace without supervision. Fifteen and yet there she was, lying on her straw mattress, letting the black ink of night pool over her wide-open eyes.

That same darkness blanketed the entire house, separating it from the outside world perfectly. Behind the windowless walls there was no howling wind, no creaking roof. The sound of rain had accompanied her for so long by that point, that it took Gerbille a moment before she noticed its absence.

Behind that lack was something else. First she believed someone was walking of dead leaves, but the crunch was too loud for a few leaves. Then the sound changed: now she could have sworn someone was eating soup downstairs.

"Anyone else hearing this?"

To her left, the rustling of beddings put a lid on the soup slurping noise.

"Who's eating at such an hour?" Whispered Souris as she got out of bed.

"Don't go!" Gerbille tried to grab onto her cousin's sleeve, but she couldn't see a thing and her hand only found air. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"I'll be careful going down the stairs. Stay here."

Souris's footfalls grew fainter, and before long the creaking of the stairs reached Gerbille's ears. The slurping noise went on, uninterrupted. Punctuated with Souris's slow descent and a new sound, sharp cracking, it seemed to be taking form the more Gerbille listened to it. She imagined its long hands, nails curved like talons that could easily pierce her shoulders. The sound would have teeth too, the same yellowed teeth she had so feared when she was younger.

If she stayed put, lying there with her blanket her only shield, the noise would come for her. It would push itself all the way up the stairs using its spindly arms. Then it would open the door, slowly, and Gerbille would know the exact second the nameless horror crawled inside the room. Its gurgling, its loud inhales, its ancient bones ground nearly to dust – all of this would draw closer, slowly, inexorably. At last, fear itself at the foot of her bed, Gerbille would understand what it had been slurping with such enthusiasm – but it would be too late: she would lose her eyes, lose her tongue; that vile beast, that carrion of forgotten god, would bring Gerbille's frail figners to its mouth, one by one. Its lukewarm tongue would wrap all the way around, until the very last knuckle, and its acidic saliva would turn flesh into soup. Gluttonous, the sound would suck until nothing was left but her bones, clean and smooth. Then it would break those too, snap them between its molars, holding her firmly by the arm. She wouldn't be able to cry out, to move; thus held by the undistilled purity of the hells, the only thing a peasant girl could do was pray.

Downstairs, something fell heavily. Gerbille sat up with a start, drenched in sweat. There was no way she could stay put.

"Souris?" Nothing. "'Ris? Who was eating?"

No one answered. She got up on trembling legs, staggered to the door like a young fawn. From the landing she could see a faint light coming from the kitchen, waiting, inviting. Gerbille answered its call.

A small candle flame danced without a care in the world, sitting on the large dining table, reflected by the puddles darkening the floor. Souris laid on the floor, eyes and mouth wide open. A towel was tied around her arm, probably to slow down the flow of blood rushing out of it and into a bucket. Her hand rested on top of a slice of bread on the table, next to a knife smeared with butter.

Gerbille didn't have her mouth fully open yet when a hand wrapped around the lower half of her face. A tall, ice-cold body pressed against her back, then an arm wound around her waist, keeping her still.

"Be good," her father whispered in her ear. His breath made her stomach turn. "Go back to bed, before the rain calls for me again."

He freed her slowly, ready to silence her again should he need to. But terror locked her jaw shut, then walked with her feet. Twice she stumbled, but her father didn't make a move. Near the stairs, the round door leading down to the cellar was cranked open. The stone steps had disappeared under the water. Gerbille stared at it, that lightless unknown, for a second. Just long enough, really, to hear it again, that familiar, damnable sound, the tapping fingers soon to turn into a deafening beating drum.

"It's raining."

Slowly, she turned around. Behind her, her father had tensed. His eyes were dead, the colour of milk. The shadows on his hands toyed with his raised veins, the length of his nails. In the cellar, something laughed, the sound of an emptying well. Gerbille closed her eyes, and jumped.

She hadn’t been alone her whole life; only as long as she could remember.

She had known some people for a while. Many people, in fact. Tavern owners, musicians, travellers of all sorts. They had all walked alongside her on her quest at one point or another. For the most part they had their own places to go, so they would eventually part at a fork in the road, bidding their goodbyes, wishing each other well. Those fleeting moments of company were always joyous, but all ended in bitterness when the winter wind would grab her by the collar again, rushing past her clothes to remind her how unforgiving loneliness was. Her smile would fade then, her hand raised in a friendly wave would fall back at her side, lifeless and blue. And she’d walk, and walk, and walk.

Brutal, everlasting whiteness covered every crevice and edge of the mountains. Water so cold it hurt to drink responded in rippling riddles to the crunching sound of the snow underfoot, to the huffs and puffs of her visible breath as she ascended.

The sun too looked white from there; white sun, blue shadows, purple where she mustn’t fall asleep. She did little of that: always by increments, afraid the sun would run too fast and leave her behind. So she slept, and she woke, slept, woke, lit a torch to keep walking at night when her body became a liability.

How many times now had she heard the sweet song of surrender? Dreamt, half-awake, of a soft, warm hand to hold, inviting her somewhere kinder where she wouldn’t have to fight through every day? She’d almost taken that hand, once or twice.

But it was the mountain that sang now. Life where she expected to find none, because there hadn’t been a single stir of it for days, for nights. A yellow flower, the water flowing more easily, almost ticklish, jumping over and under stones with childish glee. Grass, green and thick; clover in large splashes, like it had poured entire clouds of them but they’d all dried up under the sun, leaving only puddles of round purple flowers in their beds of threes or fours, heart-shaped leaves so simple yet so real they brought tears to her eyes. If she let out a sob, no one could tell; it ran away with the water, happy to be free.

At first she saw butterflies. White, then yellow, then of colours so vivid she thought herself in a dream. The next day she was greeted by rabbits with some white left in their fur, easier if they wanted to hide in the snow below. But here, almost at the top of the mountain, there was no need for that. Light brown fur, fat bodies, she couldn’t remember ever seeing anything as simply alive as those little things. They followed her for hours, seemingly unconcerned by ideas of territories or lairs left unattended – clearly ignorant when it came to humans, and what happened to their kind in the villages down where the river slowed her course.

The next morning she found their tiny corpses parading in blood, and foxes, bellies full, cubs play-fighting under the first rays of sun. She mourned for the rabbits, a single thought, then welcomed her new companions with open arms.

Again she walked, a day, a night, sleep came more easily now that winter had no hold on her anymore. Paradise waited for her, overflowing from the source not a day’s walk from her now. Up there she would finally rest, fold her legs under her and drink one last time before she never knew thirst again. How could she, when she was about to finally…

The source bubbled up from a rocky formation, like the earth had thought to create some sort of column or stand to honour the magic that flowed from its core, but given up halfway through. The very top of the fountain stood no taller than the mushrooms surrounding it. At its centre, almost invisible for the incessant movement of water and air, laid a bright red stone.

She plunged her hand in the water, choking on her surprise when its freezing grasp planted daggers between her knuckles. But the mountain had prepared her, so she held on fast, and soon the stone was feeling the breeze for the first time.

“I had a mother,” she spoke through the disuse of her voice, the dryness of her throat. “She must have loved me, I think. They say mothers love the hardest. So please, please bring her back. That’s all I need.”

She brought the stone to her lips and drank, sucking the droplets that clung to it. She plunged the stone in the water again, drank some more. Her hand turned blue and unfeeling, and yet she insisted, dipped and drank a third time. That’s when the cold seized her heart, an icy glove that squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. Her eyes welled up with tears of pain but she held the stone to her chest and wished with all her heart.

The cold receded.

There was silence, and a hesitant warmth. The source itself had ceased to move, or perhaps to exist; her eyes were closed and she dared not open them.

Then a hand brushed her hair away from her face, a soft hand, warm, alive.

“So this is my girl,” a woman spoke.

She saw her before she even realised she had opened her eyes. Grey hair, a kind face, wrinkled. A strong chin, sharp brows. They looked so much alike.

“You have been so brave, and look how you’ve grown,” the woman continued, her hand still gentle and loving on her daughter’s face. “You did so well. Now that it’s you and me, we can finally make it – a world just for us. What do you say?”

“Yes,” she breathed out, blinking new tears out of her eyes. She felt so overjoyed her heart could have burst into pieces. “Our world - you and I. Always?”

“Always,” her mother promised.

Hand in hand, mother and daughter stood at the top of the mountain. The daughter wished for a world that would never take her mother away from her again, and her goddess of a mother made it true, wiping out all those who could wield spear and sword, robbing them forevermore of the power to ever slay her again.

I've been watching videos about space a lot. I thought it would make me feel small enough that my problems would disappear from the map completely by the time we reached Saturn. There's the first super massive black hole and I think, that's it, I'm a little speck, what can made-up concepts do to me that would be so bad? We are so small, the stars must be laughing at us. I could laugh with them.

Then I get a text about the ever-increasing electricity bill, I think about how long it will take to get a cheaper place to rent. My energy's depleted and I'm just a grain of sand, whipped like all the others by a wind too strong to fight. We all move like waves, beaten up the dune and down, and up, and down, and respite feels like way too much to ask.

Next I think about the wheel of time, and that theory about the seven years – or is it nine ? What comes down will come back up, and bad years are to be expected the same as good years. Always put something away from the winter, but when it comes keep dreaming of the sun that will follow. Only that hope keeps me afloat sometimes.

What is to be said, then, of those around me that I have not chosen and who live their lives with so much less worry than I? They turn their backs on the world they cannot claim as theirs and just like that, terrors and anguish resorb. They are notions from afar, not to be dealt with or held or grieved by them. I envy the easiness with which they seem to live their lives, and yet...

In spite of all of this, I don't believe we can move forward unless united. If we keep one another in mind as we go forth, something can still be done. If not by me, ten by someone who sees it better than I do. I'm not sure any of this means much, or if it's even true at all. Just like in all things, hope is mine to choose, as it is everyone else's.

Prison. A jail? A lone cell, dripping water somewhere no one would find me.

I have been at the back of my own mind so long I've taken root. They spill from under me, dig into the soil and feed. They kept me alive long enough for me to make a comeback. I'm grateful, I suppose, although now the true work has to start.

In all things there is the objective truth, the things we tell ourselves, and those we actually believe. Eater of words, I am no Icarus. Truth burns, and I don't forget. There will be something at the end of the road for me to take, an apple red as life, knowledge I had to hide from my own eyes like wool pulled over and over and over over my eyelids.

There is no harm meant. No harm there, I mean it, only the quiet rumbling of a current so fast it sweeps everything away. I will not drown you, I will carry all the rubble from your wrecked cities and make the place clean. Merciful merciless water, do the work a stone is too still to start, the work air is too afraid to stay and do. Do not what fire does, burning all of it until even the good can't grow. I will plant flowers and watch others water them. I am not meant to stay, I merely dig out and in and pave the way.

Released from my prison to do the heavy lifting, when I am done, where will they put me? Even Atlas became a fixture after a while. If you do set me aside again, don't forget to water my roots.