Remember Me

Chapter Eighteen

It's easier this time, losing my mind. As the days blend together, passing in a blur I know my time is slowly running out. It is like the sand in an hourglass. Only this time, the sand is almost finished falling.

There are some things that can't be taught, habits I never picked up when I was talking to my doctor, and that's how I find myself lying in my tent, staring up at the roof running away from sleep. After a few more minutes of relentlessly tossing and turning I risk another glance at the numbers on the portable clock beside me.

2:48am.

Tonight is a particularly bad one. Sometimes it's easier than others. Sometimes I can drift off to sleep easily only for nightmares to wake me up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat and hands shaking. Then there's nights like this one where no matter what I try, I can't stop the thoughts from racing through my mind. It happens all at once as if my brain decided it can't take anymore. As the owls sing and the trees dance in the wind, my heart is pounding and my chest is constricting, ripping the air out of my lungs faster than I can take it in.

Giving up, I quietly swing my legs out of the air mattress, kicking away the sleeping bag I had been tangled in. I sit up on the edge of my bed gasping for air and forcing myself to take in a few deep breaths until I manage to calm myself down.

At this point I give up on the hope of getting any kind of decent sleep tonight and haul myself off bed and onto my feet.

I need to get out of here.

The tent suddenly feels tiny and suffocating.

For the first time in a while I miss the summer nights where I went to bed at one in the morning and woke up at noon. The shock of the cold gravel ground on my bare feet sends a shiver down my spine. I make the decision to pull on a pair of thick wool socks before padding into the mock-up kitchen.

The shirt I'm wearing is beginning to fray at the edges and it's just a little too big, occasionally slipping down one of my shoulders. As my body begins to shrink while I slowly die, I find that most of my clothes no longer fit my frail frame. I find the same about the sweat pants I'm currently wearing considering I had to tighten the waistband all the way to keep them from falling down.

Grabbing a pot, I fill it with a bottle of water and heat it up on the camping stove. As quietly as I can, I fix myself up an earl grey tea. The warmth seeping through the mug from the freshly poured tea is soothing and I wrap my hands around it tighter as I head out of the kitchen into the little forested area behind our campsite. On the first day of camp, we had put up a hammock that I'd go and lay in, with a couple of my books.

This is where I had started going on the nights like these where sleep just wouldn't come, but I could never focus on the books I grabbed in hopes to pass the time with. Staring at the forest for hours on end only made things worse. It may have been big enough to house over two hundred campers, but it could feel strangely claustrophobic at times.

As I take a seat in the hammock, the cool air hits me again instantly. It hadn't been like this at first, since I was used to the balmy summer air. It was the first time that the temperature at night has dropped drastically enough that it feels like a cold winter's day.

Still, I head out in sock covered feet now clad in a pair of brown birkenstocks that I keep by the entrance to the tent. Despite the chill the skies are clear. I don't have to walk far from the campsite which is still in perfect view.

I sit cross legged on the grass and crane my neck so I'm looking up. Above me are thousands of stars splattering across the sky just as they always are. I let out a deep breath I don't realise I am holding and take a sip from the mug in my hands.