Foolish. It had been a foolish idea to have gone out so late, and in such humid conditions, too. The next evening, I woke up with a puffy nose, and a horribly swollen throat. I could scarcely speak. Splendid. I was now being stalked by a figment of my imagination— a lunatic who claimed to be a vampire— I’d been lacking an awful lot of sleep thanks to his frequent, yet sporadic visits, and I had now lost track of how many times I’d missed class ever since I met him. Need I add the fact that I had just caught a cold, and was suffering from it? Never mind the fact that I could lose my life at any second at the hands of said lunatic, simply for living an ordinarily dull mortal life, were he actually a real person. I would be very surprised, if I made it through the semester without a mental breakdown.

I had just gotten out of bed, and grabbed my glasses from the nightstand, when I realized that the bed I laid in, was not my own. I was dreaming. The sheets felt, and looked expensive. All around me, everywhere I looked— sheer luxury. I felt as though I’d spent the night in one of those extremely overpriced suites. Looking back on it, I feel somewhat silly; having taken such meticulous notice of all those pointless details. Then again, isn’t that second nature to all writers?

The room— the house itself was a character all on its own; a living, breathing, entity. The heavily decorated moldings at the foot of the walls, the beautiful realist paintings framed in elaborate golden margins. Allusions to Greek mythology, most of them— scenes of ill-fated lovers hinting Cupid and Psyche, as well as Orpheus and Eurydice; all painted in a style strikingly similar to William Bouguereau’s. It was all so beautiful, so… intoxicating. All my life I’d dreamed of owning a house like that. This was by far the grandest hallucination my mind’s eye had ever created. Aside from Cassian, of course. Now he had been one hell of a delusion, and he would surely be the death of me— both literally, and figuratively speaking. I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if by the end of the semester I ended up locked up in a padded room in an insane asylum with a name like ‘Serendipity’, or going though electric shock therapy.

Why did logic and reason have to ruin everything? No. Why did I have to make sense of everything; keep my feet on the ground? Why couldn’t I simply give in to my insanity? Yes, I’ve lost it. Yes, I talk to people who don’t exist— to people only I can see. Did I mention they’re the most beautiful monsters I’ve ever seen? I’m suffering from both visual, and auditive hallucinations, and I’m having the time of my life. This is what literature does to you. Art, writing, and literature combined will heighten your imagination, and creativity, to the point where it takes completely over your senses, and you can’t control it anymore.