Close Your Eyes, The Light Watches

You have worn the mask all morning, smiling at the right moments, nodding when spoken to, while the memory waits just behind your eyes. You know the bargain: as long as you keep them open, the past cannot touch you.

But the eyelids grow heavy, and the terror rises—not of the dark, but of what lives there. Thomas says what you fear most has already arrived, sitting quietly inside you, waiting for you to recognize it not as a monster, but as a moment that has already passed.

The light does not need you to stay awake to guard against it. It was there before the memory formed, and it is there now, holding the very thing you are trying to outrun.

You do not have to fight the dark to prove you are safe. Close your eyes.

The light is already keeping watch.