Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)

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Things were... Frigid in the house for a few days.

Neither you nor your mother brought up the argument again - and you made sure of this by avoiding being in the same room as her for any amount of time. You made food in the kitchen and ate it in your room, passing time in the house by prepping for uni. Mom, of course, went about her days as usual. Whenever you left your room you could see her, sitting at the couch with the TV on and laptop open, a cup of tea or tupperware sitting on the coffee table.

Circumventing another screaming match was stressful. Walking on eggshells was stressful. There was only so much organizing of school supplies and apartment hunting you could do before you felt cooped up. Especially since you had to do a lot of research to understand some of the things that the apartment ads were saying. What did you need to avoid? What did you need to look out for?

The new semester all but snuck up on you

All of a sudden your days were packed with classes. You were leaving the house in a rush, papers almost literally trailing behind you while you frantically tried to catch the bus. Nodding off in the middle of a lecture and yawning so often your eyes were watery all day. It was so hard to sit in a chair for hours and take notes; somehow it was both boring and stressful, switching between cradling your head with your arms or tapping out an erratic rhythm with your pencil.

You didn't have a class with Jenny this semester. She was just as busy as you, classes stacked against each other in such a way that the two of you could only give passing greetings or snatch a minute of conversation on the way.

No classes with Cathy, either, though that had been established well before the Fall semester. You were happy to write her off and focus on other things, like your coursework.

Speaking of coursework... the places you could study comfortably in were dwindling. Home was immediately out of the question, because after spending weeks in there you realized that cabin fever was real and working its horrible magic on you. Plus the miasma that had settled in due to your mother was not conducive to efficient studying.

Somewhere in the city was your second choice, but a snag in that idea was quickly made apparent re: money. Any place you could set your books down in required a purchase at minimum, and since you were currently both jobless and looking for a place, you needed every single cent in your savings. You couldn't afford to whittle it away on hot drinks and pastries. Cutting out unnecessary spending crossed off pretty much every one of your regular locations save for two: your university or the public library.

Both of these places posed the same specific challenges.

You had tried to study in these places once the reality of your situation dawned upon you, of course. If they worked, they worked, and solved the problem of avoiding home.

The locations were busy, always busy. The library reminded you of your old job, with its high bookshelves clustered in tight rows and the close-shaved carpet that muffled all footsteps, the distant murmur of quiet words and the shuffling of coats. Your university had places to sit most anywhere, but they were so open. And again, it was busy. Lots of people passed through the halls, their boots squeaking on the tiled flooring and their voices echoing on the walls as they chatted with one another. People were everywhere, and the uncomfortable feeling of being openly watched, judged, followed you to both places. You couldn't work under those conditions.

After several unsuccessful attempts at participating in the bustle of the city, you turned to the forest once more.

It was immediately better. Even despite your prior problems regarding any sort of adventuring through the woodland, it soothed your frayed nerves. You didn't even need to climb a tree to feel safe after the first few visits. You became attuned to the calming silence of the forest in winter, to the rustle of silent wings and the scurrying of small rodents within their snowy tunnels. Pattern recognition let your shoulders drop, your breathing slow. You could sit against a tree trunk or on a cold rock, let yourself simply exist.