The room was filled with books again, the weight of them on my body made me struggle to catch my breath. Between the cracks of the stacks neatly piled on top of me, I could make out that it was still light out, but I couldn’t budge enough to see anything beyond. Daniel must have been playing a terrible practical joke on me, trying to drive the point home of how bad of a hoarder I really had been, but after a few moments of waiting and struggling to free myself, there was no uproarious laughter or anyone helping me out. Instead of struggling to push the books up and off of myself, I pushed against the books entombing me from the sides and to my surprise, they didn’t budge. If it was just a practical joke, he was really committed and went all out.

I began to panic and threw myself as hard as I could into the side of the books that held me onto the couch and I heard the flutter of papers and thud of a book falling on the other side of the room. The pile entombing me was at least the length of my living room, where it had been before. My stomach went cold with terror as the possibility that I was actually going insane flooded through my mind. I had vivid memories of packing each and every book, looking longingly one last time at the titles, then putting them into the storage unit. I had been so thorough, that I was pretty sure if I wanted to find an exact title or subject, I could have opened the unit and pointed right to the place that it was, but had I hallucinated the whole thing? Was it possible that I had never moved anything and somehow climbed under the books in the living room? I felt nauseas trying to figure out what was going on, my heart pounded in my ears, and my mind became a running dialogue that of course I was mentally ill, you don’t just have obsessions and hoarding without being crazy in some other way.

“No, no, no… not real…” I mumbled, still unable to fully take a breath. “Daniel was there, I was there, we put the books up, they are in the storage unit.” I could feel a tear escaping the corner of my right eye. “I’m not crazy, this isn’t real, they are gone.” The pressure seemed to increase with my pleading, each breath becoming progressively harder to manage. “They’re gone…” I puffed hoarsely, “they’re gone… they’re gone… they’re gone…” Tears freely flowed as I chanted the phrase over and over, willing the terror to leave me and reality to return to what it had be when I first fell asleep.

I woke up with a gasp, shaking and shivering as I weakly rose to a sitting position. My heart was still pounding and my face was wet from tears. My chest felt soar, as if there really had been a mountain of books crushing me, but the couch and the area surrounding me were once again clear from the books. I cursed having fell asleep without the sleeping pills, it was obvious that the nightmares would still continue without their aid.

It was still light out, the sky showing no signs of sunset through the window, so I hadn’t slept very long. A glance at my watch confirmed that I had only been asleep for around a half hour. It was not a good sign that I could fall into such a deep nightmare in that short amount of time, but then I supposed that it had been a stressful couple of weeks. I had never been very good with coping with stress, so it did not seem too far off that something like this could be plaguing my sleep. I was actually kind of glad that it wasn’t like the time I puked every time I got home from middle school, those years were rough.

Wanting to get my mind off of the nightmare, I decided to make a quick afternoon snack of microwave macaroni and cheese. Just thinking of being able to actually remember to eat and that it wasn’t just another packet of ramen noodles made me feel a bit better, even if it was still technically just boiled noodles, the difference in sauce packets made it feel much fancier.

Cold fear gripped my stomach as I stood and spotted a book laying upside down on the floor near the entrance to the kitchen, exactly in the position I heard the book fall in my nightmare. My brain immediately sought logical answers, it probably just fell while I was asleep and I missed it in the packing. The problem was that I knew that I had packed the book, it was on top of the first box put into the truck on the second trip, it was part of the miscellaneous pile since it didn’t have anything specifically related to werewolves, just mythological creatures in general. I knew that I had done it, I remembered the dusty blue cover and the crude drawing of the centaur on the front. There was no logical way for me to parse the memory of me packing it and its presence on the floor.

I had hoped that by the time I got over to the book, it would turn out to somehow be another book that looked similar or be some kind of leftover hallucination from the dream, but a nudge of the foot confirmed that it was indeed real and the same book. I don’t know what possessed me to keep the book open and see where it had fallen open to, but I immediately regretted my decision. It had fallen open to some kind of FAQ section, the left side answered, “Could magic be real?” and the right, “If magic is real, then how do I use it?” I threw the book down as if it burned me. It surely had to be all a coincidence, maybe my memory wasn’t as good as I had thought and I had picked up the book to pack it, but set it aside instead and it just never made it there.

I was drawing a blank on just where it would have been set and fallen from considering that the nearest surface I could have left it was a good five feet from where I found it. Not wanting to pick it up again, I kicked the book out of my way and walked past it into the kitchen. There had to be some kind of logical explanation, I could not accept that my dream had anything to do with reality.

After preparing my cup of macaroni and cheese, I sat to eat back on the couch, staring at the book as I racked my brain for any realistic explanation. I calculated through shoddy mental math that if it were to have fallen, that it would have had to have been fairly violently pushed from the table. I guessed that maybe my nightmare had felt so real and my body soar because I had actually been thrashing around while sleepwalking, knocked the book off the table, then laid back down before waking up. It was a stretch, but it made a hell of a lot more sense than part of a dream came true and actually happened. I could also reasonably assume that after packing hundreds of books that I would mix up a few and leave at least one behind, plus it falling open to that section was likely to happen when you take into account the kinds of books I owned. By the time I had finished my snack, I felt a bit better about my prospects of convincing myself that nothing strange was going on.

That night I made sure to take a dose of sleeping medication somewhere between not enough and waking up several days from now. I set several alarms to make sure I got up in time to be presentable when my parents arrived and locked away the offending book in my desk, just in case. Also, thinking ahead, I took a picture of the book in the desk drawer with my phone so that I would have proof that I was either insane or really just dreaming if something similar were to happen again.

The dose must have been strong enough as no nightmares plagued me that night, though I did feel barely human even after a few cups of coffee. My parents seemed to be none-the-wiser to the hoarding problem that had been my apartment, other than the lingering old, musky book smell. My dad kept hounding me to get after the landlord to check my walls for mold and warning me about the bad physical and psychological effects living around mold could cause. In all fairness, after the amount of books and book mold that was around, it probably wasn’t the worst idea to have it checked out.

After two days of skillful dodging on questions about my love life, college courses, and general mental health, they left seeming content with how my life was going. I had probably gained a few pounds on the restaurant meals they insisted on treating me too and even the foggy, disjointed nightmare feelings felt lessened. I was beginning to believe that maybe it had all just been a weird expression of stress, malnourishment, and lack of a good emotional support system. It wasn’t like I could trust Daniel to really provide solid advice on anything except how to avoid a hangover.

Perhaps most importantly to my mental wellbeing, the book had stayed locked in its drawer with no signs of moving. I must have just never moved it, forgotten about it, then sleepwalked during a nightmare. As time went on, the more that explanation felt like the only way it could have happened and the nightmares about the elevator and fire seemed like a distant, over exaggerated memory. Alan hadn’t tried texting or calling either, maybe he figured I had caught on to him as some kind of con artist or kook by this point. I had a little hope for the first time that maybe if I found a way to control the nightmares, I might have a chance to be a normal person again.

Much to my surprise, after checking my online records for the college, I was still technically enrolled, though I had never actually signed up for semester classes. Some very kind advisor had set my status to “temporary hiatus” and I had the option to get it lifted by making an appointment and coming in to explain myself. I was only a couple semesters away from getting my history degree if I decided to put the effort into getting it, though the idea put a twinge of anxiety into my head since it was a history class that had started the whole werewolf mess.

After staring at my transcripts and the course options for over an hour, I decided that I might as well try again since I didn’t think I’d find too much to get obsessed over in the classes I still needed, there was no history of occult arts or anything similar to suck me back in. Plus, I didn’t think it was possible to play off needing another two years’ worth of help from my parents to pay starting another degree. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with a history degree once I finished it, but I guessed that I would figure something out.

The appointment with my advisor went better than I thought it would, though he had no idea who I was and I barely remembered him from freshman orientation years ago. He was a short, balding man with a voice just a touch higher than what you would assume would come out of his mouth. He took several minutes looking over my file on his screen, his face falling ever so slightly as he scrolled to the end of my file.

“So you just stopped attending?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, I just kind of did. Stuff happened.”

“Stuff?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to need to give a pretty good reason to write down for why I’m deciding to let you enroll in classes again. You are only about a week from being dropped entirely for inactivity. The university typically does not have much wiggle room for students who seem, on paper, to have stopped caring about grades or attending, I’ve seen students with less of a period of inactivity be denied access to enrollment.”

I nodded and looked uncomfortable around his office, trying to put into less pathetic words that I had become obsessed with the idea of werewolves and the paranormal and spent time I should have bettering my life instead of being a hermit who hoarded books. It was difficult to think of what to say other than the truth.

“I had some… mental health issues,” I said with a long sigh, “I just couldn’t make myself go to class or care about it because of them.”

His face seemed to soften and his mannerisms became less stern. “I see, well that is certainly something we consider seriously. It would look much better for your enrollment request if we could show in the system that you’re attending some kind of counseling. Your file shows that you haven’t taken advantage of the on-campus services, have you been in any type of private practice counseling?” I shook my head. “Well, I highly suggest you give the campus service a call and make an appointment as soon as you can, the first few sessions are even free. I’ll make a note that I made that suggestion to you on this request, which means they’ll probably check to see if you went through with it. It not only will look good for you in this case, but if things have been that bad for you, maybe talking to someone qualified for it will be beneficial.”

I mumbled a thank you to him, took the number for the counseling center, and left as quickly as I could; letting someone know even just a tiny portion of the issues I’d been having for the past two years was incredibly awkward and embarrassing. Counseling probably wasn’t the worst idea though, if I had some kind of emotional support early on enough in this whole mess, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up quite as bad off. I felt weird with the idea though, it wasn’t like I was suicidal or desperately depressed, and it felt like I might end up taking necessary time away from someone struggling more than me.

On the walk back home to my apartment, the suggestion to call kept nagging at my mind. No matter what else I tried to think about, my mind came back around to trying counseling. While I still felt a small amount of guilt about perhaps not really needing the service that badly, when I made it to the building, I had decided that I would try it out for at least one session and the worst that could come of that would be the counselor telling me not to waste their time. I definitely decided that I couldn’t tell Daniel, even though I really didn’t think he was that much of a dick to use it as ammunition, I didn’t feel like running the risk of cementing my need for some kind of therapy.

I was able to call and get an appointment for the next morning, it probably helped that I mentioned that I needed to be seen for an on-going problem over the past couple of years. The more I talked about things out loud, the more it seemed more real to me that getting help would be good for me. It couldn’t be healthy that the only person I regularly talked to anymore seemed to take pleasure in making my issues into jokes. I thought it best not to tell anyone, not even my parents, until I at least had my first appointment and had an idea of how it was going to go, I didn’t want to lose my nerve so that I never went.

That night I decided to risk not taking my sleeping pill so I didn't oversleep my 9am appointment. Other than feeling that the talking might help, I couldn’t afford to have my record show that I not only fail to show up for classes, but also the service meant to help me work through the reason behind it. I felt anxious to fall asleep without it, so I spent an embarrassing amount of time unlocking and relocking the drawer of my desk to keep checking that the book was indeed there and had not moved. Even though my brain knew that there was no way that I hadn’t just seen the book in the drawer, I felt compelled to check again. Eventually, I took a picture of the book in the drawer, locked it, then threw the key across the room into a pile of dirty clothes. The anxiety was getting ridiculous and I needed to break the cycle, so despite the whines of protest in my mind, I left the key where it landed, turned off the light, and forced myself into bed.

I laid awake, trying to silence the worries in my mind, until I eventually drifted off to sleep. I found myself sitting upright in bed, unnatural light poured through my window, the light glittering and swirling as if a lighter than air fluid. My room seemed normal other than the swirling light, everything was as I had left it, I was even in the same pajamas with the same mountain of dirty clothes in the corner. My limbs felt super heavy and it was a struggle to keep my eyes open, though my body seemed to be cemented firmly in the sitting position.

Outside of my bedroom door I could hear a strange sniffling sound, followed by a loud sneeze and a rumbling fart. The doorknob awkwardly struggled to turn before the door swung open to reveal a very happy Bubbles. He ran around my room, nose to the ground, taking in all of the interesting smells that had accumulated in my bedroom, who knows when the carpet had last been vacuumed. After making several passes around my room, he rushed straight for the pile of clothes and started snuffling through them. A few moments of rummaging later, he turned around with the end of the desk key sticking out of his mouth.

My heart began to pound in my ears and my vision began to swim with the pattern of the strange light as he turned to trot towards the desk. I struggled to open my mouth to scream for him not to do it, not to open the drawer, but my mouth felt completely numb and no sound escaped beyond a pathetic hiss of air. My eyes became heavier as my rising fear seemed to weigh them down, no amount of fevered thrashing seemed to make any progress toward stopping him from reaching the drawer, and I remained firmly planted on the bed as cold sweat soaked my pajamas and the sheets around me. The swirling intensified and my mind went hazy, the air felt uncomfortably thick and warm as my eyes involuntarily fluttered shut. I slowly sunk back into the bed and I heard the click of Bubble’s claws on the wooden desk, followed by the sound of the lock releasing and the drawer sliding open.

The blare of the alarm clock woke me with a small cry. My hair and sheets were matted to me by my own sweat. In a flurry of action, I threw myself out of bed and to my desk. I yanked on the drawer and almost cried in relief that it was still locked. I sat on the floor, my back against the desk, panting in exhaustion and relief. I certainly didn’t feel like I had slept and would be more than glad to continue taking sleeping pills from then on. The pile of clothes also seemed to be undisturbed, so I crawled over to verify that the key still lay somewhere in its depths. After clawing through some very questionable boxers, I found it nestled into the fold of a shirt I had all but forgotten about owning. All that was left to do was to verify that the book lay undisturbed and I could finally prove to myself that my nightmares were not real. The locked clicked open and I nearly vomited in a wash of anxiety as the drawer opened, empty.