Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)

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Content warning: violence, implied death, mentions of blood

I've created a playlist for Delirium! It's something for me to listen to when writing to get into the mood of horror. If you want to have a soundtrack to listen to while reading, or want a little hint as to what will come up in the story, follow this link:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5JDyBrc6POUldkMZ4wKYY7?si=0eKEzdiBQNO4ZO_lOWc_tQ

Enjoy!

—

It had been quite a while since you remembered having a dream. Or even a nightmare, for that matter.

Most nights were restless and full of wakings; of tired eyes staring at the ceiling, listless tossing and turning. Sheets either sticky with sweat or freezing your limbs. Each time you went under it was for only a scant hour or so before you were awake again. Other nights were complete blackouts after your head hit the pillow. These were the scary ones, the ones you didn't like to think about; where dirt appeared on your clothes, pine needles in your hair. Where new injuries layered over old ones, flowering bruises of yellow and purple mixed with cuts and scrapes. You dealt with it as you could, tending to your wounds with materials bought from the pharmacy, kept secret in your room so your parents wouldn't notice the surplus of and subsequent depletion of first aid supplies.

Frustrating, tiring. The bags under your eyes were going to turn blue at this rate.

One could say, 'at least you were no longer having nightmares about being chased or killing people' - but was this preferable? To be trapped in limbo every night, never able to truly rest? A hollow feeling filled your chest each morning you saw the sunlight filter through your window.

You missed dreaming. Even the bad ones, the nightmares. Something, anything would be a reprieve from the near torture you experienced every night. At least a nightmare would let you know that you hit a deep sleep.

A short, pleasant dream - thats all you wanted. Something to distract you from the current event in your life, an escape from reality. Escape from awkward holiday planning with your parents; escape from the growing guilt of quitting your job; escape from the crushing burden of the next semester creeping ever closer, the quiet creeping horror of the things being done to you as you slept-

It must have been your active manifesting that allowed you to dream once more, to remember filamentous, insubstantial snatches of another world. For those moments you were in another place, another time.

It made you feel better.

-

You were in the body of a crow. No - you were a crow. Born in a cozy nest, covered in fluffy down and watched over by your parents. Fed and kept warm within woven sticks and foundational mud, fingers of branched moss.

As the pitch dark of the night began covering your body, you learned to fly after tumbling down your home tree in an ungraceful manner. But you managed to catch the air with widespread arms, wind whispering through fibrous feathers.

It was a short time later when you felt a call to leave, an innate pressure to take flight and forge your own way. You left, then, whisked away on a warm updraft into the open sky. You skimmed the treetops and dove between branches, flew against a river flow and brushed the ground below with your claws.