074 - Seventy-Four

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

(heavy breathing)

[click, static]

(whispering)

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I…I woke up a few minutes ago, heart pounding. I don’t know why.

[click, static]

There’s nothing…wrong. I looked out the window, there’s no figure in the trees, the door is locked, the entire hotel is empty, I checked. I wanted to be sure that there weren’t any wild animals that had gotten in, or any hazards that could lead to a fire or—

This hotel is somehow even bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside. Or at least, it feels bigger. Its winding and rickety—charming in the daytime and now that it’s dark…

No, it’s still charming. It’s charming. It’s just a historic hotel in a vacation town and the only reason I’m feeling like this is because I spent a whole week sleeping outdoors and now that I’m back in what passes for civilization these days, everything is off.

It did make it easier, coming into the mountains. Getting out of the feeling that the world stretched on, endless and empty—it was the right choice. But now I’m claustrophobic. Nothing fits in my body correctly anymore. Like I’m Alice in Wonderland, and at first I took the potion that made me too small and now I’ve taken the one that makes me too big and nothing fits. My bones hurt, my chest is tight, and my vision is blurry, like I’m looking through a window streaked with oil.

And I woke up, all of a sudden. That doesn’t happen to me. I’m a good sleeper—I wake up to sounds, but even when I do, it happens gradually. I arrive at consciousness by degrees. When enough of my brain is awake, I decide if I need to get up and figure out what the hell the sound was, and if I don’t, I fall back asleep easily.

There was no sound. There is no sound—this whole place is as quiet as a tomb. But I woke all at once; deep in sleep one moment, wide awake and springing out of bed the next. And still, there’s no sign of what jarred me from sleep.

Maybe I had a nightmare. If I did, I don’t remember it.

But I have this lingering sensation that something is wrong. And the feeling itself, it sits wrong in my body.

Does that make sense? The feeling is one of—of dread, I think, but it also—it doesn’t feel like mine.

[click, static]

God, that’s fucking insane. I sound totally cracked. I didn’t used to be like this, I don’t think. But first the tornado, now this…you must think I jump at every mouse and spider that I see. But I don’t. I worry about stuff, yeah, sometimes I feel anxious, but I don’t get scared. The only times I’ve gotten scared are the times that are appropriate—nearly getting caught, running for my life…the tornado, I think that was justified. 
But nothing is happening. I’m sitting in a nice hotel bed, in a nice hotel, in a nice town, and it’s like there are claws hooked into my chest. Pulling. And not like they’re trying to rip out my heart, but like I’m supposed to follow.

I don’t know what I’m saying…

Maybe it’s a panic attack. Maybe it’s fucking heartburn.

But I can’t shake the thought—the one that’s been running through my head since the moment I woke up—I can’t shake the thought that this feeling, whatever it is, is not my own.

[click, static]

I didn’t find a generator or a battery last night. But when I woke up, the CB was already on. It’s…Birdie, it’s not plugged into anything.

But it’s on.

[click, static]