Are You Afraid of the Dark?

One thing that has always irked me about myself is my irrational fear of the dark. I've had this fear as long as I could remember, but don't know why. At the time I was a college student, living alone, and stuck in a dead-end job at a local fast food joint. I had some serious problems, so one day I decided to visit a therapist.

At the time, I also had a long list of fears, so we tackled those until only my deepest phobias were left. The first thing the therapist tried doing was discovering the basis of the fear, but I didn't know why. This didn't faze him in the slightest, he brushed that aside and moved on. He started off with a lesson that I thought of all week. One time when I was playing some video games in my basement, I decided to test out if his advice worked.

I shut the games off, then prepared myself for what was coming. I had two floors to go before I reached my bed, and plenty of places for my mind to worry about on the way.

“Phobias are but a trick of the mind; they aren't permanent.”

I slowly walked up the stairs to the first floor, my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I didn't dare open them, what if I saw a beast in the dark? What if my greatest fear manifested itself in my house? My own place of safety?

“They have haunted us for ages, but people don't believe how easy it is to get rid of these irrational things.”

I finally opened my eyes when I reached the hallway upstairs, and it was completely dark. I felt like the walls were pushing in on me, and trying to suffocate me.

“You have to look your phobia in the eye, and voice your resistance. The phobia won't go away instantly, but you're on the right path.”

As I reached the top of the stairs, I turned left, to the bathroom, and a face flashed out at me. A second later I turned away, it was a trick of the light. Besides, I didn't need the bathroom anymore anyways.

“Sometime a phobia is strong enough for your mind to seem to manifest your phobia in front of your eyes. For example, a person with severe Arachnophobia might see spiders from time to time, when there never were any.”

I walked shakily into my room, turned on my nightlight, turned off my main light, and climbed into bed. About two minutes into attempted sleep, I heard a crashing noise downstairs, sounds like a bunch of silverware and plates had been dropped to the floor. I sat up and sprinted out of my room, what could have made that noise?

“The important thing to remember is, as I think this might be a problem with you, is to remember one thing...”

I rushed down the stairs, and ran to the kitchen, expecting to find a giant mess. I reached around slowly, not wanting to scrape my hand on any broken glass, of course I was to lazy to replace the light, that would make things a lot easier... I found some liquids spilled around, and a squishy round object. Had my cat knocked over a vase?

“None of these images you will undoubtedly see...”

I walked up to my room, and my free hand reached for the light, I flicked it on.. “are at all...”

There, in my hand, was a single human eyeball.

“Real”