Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/10

 sleep. Not if she lets me go into the darkness, where I can be alone.

I'm alone now. I don't even have to think about the necessity of sleep any more. I'm safe. No one can get to me, not even myself. Not even myself. That's very important, somehow. I'm really alone, the way I want to be.

Better than that, I can burrow so deeply down into the darkness that I lose myself completely. There is no me, there's nothing but night.

Night—and the Voice.

I have to call it that, although it really isn’t a Voice—I don't hear it, merely sense its presence. It exists, suddenly, somewhere in the darkness around me.

It emerges as a buzzing which I cannot locate in time or space. Does it impinge upon me from far away or is it whispering beside my ear?

"It doesn't matter."

The Voice tells me that. And I realize this is true. It doesn't matter where the Voice comes from. It's a part of the darkness. I need the darkness around me, so I must accept the Voice.

Then it grows.

Maybe the Voice feeds on darkness too, because it expands immediately until everything else is blotted out.

Even the darkness is engulfed by the Voice. The Voice, speaking to me, telling me what I must do if I want to go back into the dark.

"Get up. Get dressed. Go to Hexler's."

I'm asleep. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to go anywhere. And I've never heard of Hexler's.

But the Voice realizes all that. It understands. And it tells me I have to go.

"Get up. Get dressed. Go to Hexler's." Over and over again. I try to escape from it, into the darkness, but the darkness is gone now. There's only the Voice, telling me what I must do. In order to retreat into the safety of the dark again, I have to obey. There's no question of refusal. If I refuse, I'll stay here forever, listening to the Voice and I don’t want to do that.

So it's easier to do as I’m told. The Voice will direct me. All I need do is listen and accept, and the Voice will lead me back into the darkness. The Voice knows the way.

Everything is so simple. I'm not conscious of awakening but I know—a part of me knows—that I've left the bed. No need for lights; I can find my clothing in the dark, without even opening my eyes. I 10