Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)

•21•

As you buckled down and focused on university, the days and nights began to blur together. There was a lot of homework you had to catch up on with not a lot of time to do so. A week of videos, notes, and essays needed to be watched and written, alongside those assigned the week you went back. The effort you needed to put in far exceeded your expectations and began to leave you quite frazzled. All that on top of being in remission for a nasty illness was a hefty load on your shoulders. You felt like Atlas holding the sky.

Truthfully, you felt like you had been dropped in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight, frantically treading water. Your textbooks felt heavier, their overly professional jargon crowding up your mind without making much sense. Notes were becoming jumbled, and you knew the essays you were submitting were subpar compared to early in the semester. You needed to stop, to take a moment and breath – but you couldn't. The deadlines were nipping at your heels, and you slogged through the mud trying desperately to catch up to where you were only a scarce few weeks before.

Truth be told, the whole month before you had been lagging behind on work, what with the emotional turmoil you had been experiencing. Now the other shoe was beginning to drop, and you were woefully unprepared for its fall.

And yet, despite this, you went into work.

Walking through the front doors to the bookstore just felt... off. It didn't help that you had only a meager few hours of sleep the night previous, kept up from the stress of your burdens, leaving your brain feeling more like applesauce than the jello it emulated.

Putting your uniform on in the restroom slowly (but conscious of time) led you to feel the most indescribable Bad sensations – your apron rubbed against your work shirt and felt uncomfortable even after retying it three times. The neckline of your shirt itched, the waistband of your pants squeezing just a bit too tightly – you genuinely considered ripping it all to shreds, then decided against it. You paid good money for the uniform.

Swallowing your discomfort, you began your shift.

It was your turn to use the book tram again, shelving returned and misplaced books to where they belonged. Your shoes squeaked against the tiled floor, and the wheels of the tram squeaked constantly, even in the carpeted areas. The uneven rhythms quickly morphed into a headache that squeezed your temples and optical ridges in an iron fist.

You couldn't take it for long. Parking the tram to one side of an aisle, you leaned your elbows on the rail and pressed the pads of your thumbs into the spot where the ridge of your eyebrows and the bridge of your nose met, leaning into the feeling.

"Excuse me?" someone said behind you. You jumped slightly and turned around.

"Oh sorry, I have a bit of a headache. How can I help you?" you asked, placing a customer service smile on your face.

They wanted to know where the cookbook section was. Of course. You led them to the aisle and waved away their thanks. Your smile dropped as soon as they were engrossed in the section. You returned to the book tram groaning and rubbing your eyes.

Walking up and down the bookshelves felt like a death march. Each step was like lead, and working didn't help to distract you from your stress like you hoped it would. Re-shelving was making you feel unsettled, actually.

Okay, I'm done.

With the tram only half empty you towed it back to storage, tugging at the sleeves of your shirt and the cuffs of your jeans. Gods above, you felt so uncomfortable! Not to mention tired.

I need a nap.

Yawning from the thought, you glanced at the clock while the storage doors swung shut behind you. It had only been an hour so far.