I was lucky, My scream triggered me to regain consciousness, and in a flash, I was pulled back to my bed, and I fought hard to open my real eyes as I knew I was sleeping.
They did, slowly but surely.
"Ssstupid c candle," I was mumbling as I had seen the candle was indeed off, and this was my real room.
I turned and froze, I didn't know who or what it was, but there was a person staring at me no it was a shadow, but it was moving closer and closer until it was above me.
I couldn't move, and it was difficult to speak. I was awake, but my body wasn't, I wanted to use spacial magic to disintegrate its body, but I could not move nor do anything. I could feel my physical strength leaving my body as it hovered over me.
I would have to wake up my body. I quickly realized that I had to wake myself up as this feeling of impending doom attempted to swallow me. I used My thumbnail to scratch the rest of my hand, and then, when I was able to, I clenched it.
When I could, I violently exerted as much force as I could to lift up my arm and to fight the shadow. The arm lifted about two inches above the bed before it fell back down.
I had failed, but I was not done here; this had happened many times before. Each time I spend who knows how long trying to end it, only to wake up later. I was tired of this. My own mind was weak, and perhaps it was trying to tell me something, but through these methods? Here is where I changed it, and molded it into something that would help me and not harm me anymore. Night terrors, fears, everything would lose its hold over me.
Almost everything.
I tried to use my fist to wail on the shadow multiple times. It took a while, but right when I had got the hang of it, my body became weak again, and it felt like all my strength was being siphoned, and I passed out, but I woke up again in the same situation.
I grunted as I let out several volleys of limp arm attacks that did absolutely nothing to the shadow but managed to wake me up enough to roll over and switch on the lamp next to my bed.
Then I stood up and made myself wake up fully; now, my brain was fully working, and I could process what had happened.
"I'm just so lucky, nightmares and sleep paralysis in one night." I said in a coarse voice that was dripping with exaggeration.
It was unfortunate for me as I was used as a means to release anger whenever my mother was in a foul mood.
I ended up being one of the many kids who went to school while hiding bruises.
'I'm a useless idiot, everyone around me is happy without a care in the world, and here I am just holding onto a single strand of hope. A hope that one day, one day I'll, I will have a happy life with Tori.'
I sighed.
I knew the only reason I had for hope and how fragile I was without it.
'Yeah right, she would probably tell me stories of her past, expecting a reply. What would I tell her oh yeah I was beaten mercilessly when I put the groceries away in the wrong order, or that I was mocked by my teachers every day when I went to school.'
Her stories were fiction, not like any of my memories which caused my voice to shake or my lips to quiver as tried to tell them.
'Dad left us. mom doesn't care for us either, she makes me and my older brother take care of all of us so she can go out.'
'Everything feels so dark and empty, it's to the point that I'm in my head lashing out at myself.'
'My siblings and I should have some sort of connection, however, my sister would tell our father lies and get us beaten regularly when she didn't get her way.'
'It stopped ever since he caught her lying though.' I smiled, lightly reminiscing at the small moment of justice we received.
'My brother used to be good, but his temper is real short and he likes to fight. They all act on impulse rather than reason, and then here I am thinking things through and rationalizing everything.'
'Always getting the shortest possible end of the stick. All because of one reason. I refuse, I refuse to give in. It's easy to lie and get someone else hurt, it's easy to release all your anger, but why, why is it so difficult for me to just live? It is so difficult that I have to hold on to each one with all my might.'
'Me and my fragile mind, built from drywall.' I chuckled 'but even still I hope, I hope that one day it will be a reality.'
'Sometimes I think it would've been easier, if she, if she had just said that she hated me.'
——————
Sometime later.
'If I'm gonna be a wind mage I have to learn how to imitate it.'
'If I can make a propeller then technically I could move as fast as my mind would allow.'
'That's an entirely new level of control.'
In front of me, my magic slowly took the shape of propellers that spun as quickly as I could control them.
I had been experimenting with this spacial magic for a while and was going through the motions.
I tried making the blades bigger and spun them, but I quickly learned that they would smash what got in their way, as a handful of candles got knocked off the table.
I then tried again, but this time I made them incorporeal when they came into contact with anything solid.
It was a success. The candles that hadn't been knocked off were instead blown off due to the increased thrust.
I excitedly left the house, telling my brother that I was going to get more wick materials.
My family lived at the edge of the woods, while the richer were closer to the middle of the small town. This made getting out of town easy.
I would come out here often, against the better judgment of others who had caught me returning from out here.
But out here, there are no loud noises, screaming, yelling, no curses being shouted out. Here it's as if I'm in bed asleep but don't have to get shouted at and dragged back into reality after a few short moments. I would often find myself not wanting to leave as the quiet would allow me to unwind mentally.
I walked around looking for one of the many Omnular trees I had mapped out. Their wood burned cleaner and was commonly used for wooden wicks by older women who liked to burn candles constantly.
I would use this as an excuse if anyone ever saw me out in the woods.
I picked up a few of the fallen branches next to the tree and made a pile before getting to what I came here to do.
'Ok time to test the limits.' I thought as I began summoning the energy.
I shaped out a set of propellers as large as I could.
They were three feet long when I had finished. Any larger, and they could exit my range of control if I were careless.
'Time to move them.' They started moving, but out of excitement, I had began at full speed.
I was thrown backward due to the speed of the propellers and hit a large bush. Luckily, I only came out with a few scratches and a moment of lost wind.
"I forgot they are directional, but at least I know I can kind of control which direction I want to go in."
'That gives me an idea.' I thought as I cleared the bush away.