Clara

     Deep breaths, pulse decreasing-- Clara crouched behind a bush, it's leaves camouflaging her in the black night. She peeks through the cracks of leaf and branch, squinting so as to make her vision somewhat more clear in the dankness of the forest. Crack. She quickly turns around and searches for the source of the subtle
sound. Crack! She begins to hear more clearly, and discovers the source from which the sound is emanating-- from behind a tree. Pulse quickening, short breaths-- she crouches further behind her bush in a fetal position. Awaiting the owner of the sound, she notices the dark figure appearing from behind the tree. At that moment, she felt as though her next plan of action was void, for she became unable to move from her position. She stared as the tall, cloaked figure approached her with one spidery finger pointing at her. Nearly a yard away from her, the figure outstretched it's hand as to take hold of her. In that moment she found clarity. Clara let out a cry so devastatingly shrill as the cloak creature exposed it's face. The grotesque thing cackled just as it--
     "Beep! Beep! Beep!" the alarm sounded continuously.
     Clara jumps up quickly and silences the alarm. Hyperventilating, she grabs her inhaler off the nightstand next to her bed. Within two deep spritz she regains her breath. She glances at the clock. 6:00 in the morning. The dawn is slowly leaving as the seconds pass by. Her room silent. The only clear sound is the sound of her heart, slowing its fast pace. Her blank expression matches her walls, and the pastel colors of her bed sheets faded to a light gray. Still groggy, she walks around the miscellaneous contents on her floor, nearly tripping on a pair of chucks. Walking to her bathroom she evaluates her features in the mirror; fair brown skin, matted mid-length, dark curly hair and, what was that?! A zit, smack dab on her chin. She shook her head at the blemish reflected in the glass canvas. Sometimes she wished that a painter would take that canvas and create a masterpiece. She hoped that the painter would take one look and notice her pimple and erase it forever, because a masterpiece should be blemish free. She moved on from her imperfection and focused on her eyes. Bags underneath, sleep inhabited, black eyes. She longed for the painter at this point, to erase every impurity in her life, to paint over the features that make her, as she saw, unattractive. The dark hair, dark eyes, and loaf of a being she made herself to be. She takes another long discerning look in the mirror and in place of her real self is the cackling creature. Her hair is black as night, her dark eyes black and frightening, the one zit multiplied into seemingly a thousand more, and her baggy eyes intensified so she looks as though she's lived 10 lifetimes. She moves her hand to her face only to see the spidery fingers feeling her grotesqueness. Oh how she prayed for that painter to come! She blinked once to find that the canvas returned to her once again. As much as she hoped and hungered for, the painter wouldn't come. Clara survives in consciousness, but is plagued in subconsciousness. A balance of the two could not be a reality, for her reality is both the day mares and the nightmares.