I was exhausted. Being a sixteen-year-old boy from Massachusetts, I get pretty tired after a long and tedious week of school. Let’s just say I am utterly relieved when Friday rolls around. At around eight o’clock in the evening on an average Friday, I grasped the handle to my front door and opened it quietly, thinking my parents might be watching TV in the living room. I had just come from track practice and was ready to collapse on the floor from exhaustion when I realized I had not finished my homework yet, which I had to get done tonight because of the crazy-busy weekend ahead of me. Better get to it, I thought to myself as I sighed heavily. I trudged up the stairs to my room and dropped my bags on the floor next to my bed.

I suddenly realized that it was extremely dark upstairs, the dark being something I was very afraid of. OK, I know a guy in high school like me shouldn’t really be afraid of the dark, but I was. Deathly afraid. Because of a few terrifying experiences I had had when I was little, me and the dark don’t seem to get along very well. One of these experiences was when I was at the county fair at night with my family and my parents lost me in the corn maze in the DARK, me only being six years old. As the fear rushed through my veins, I panicked and ended up getting lost because, well, I couldn’t see anything. Yeah, you could say I hate the dark more than ever now, and that was only one of the stories that scarred me for life. At the thought of this, I ran back to turn on the light switch. I was partly freaking out about it being dark outside, as well, but mostly mentally and physically exhausted.

Well, I tried to get past the fact that it was still dark and focus on doing my physics homework. But fear does something to me. It consumes my mind and paralyzes me to the point where I can’t focus at all. It’s just the dark, I mentally reminded myself as I fished around under my bed to find my physics book, which had a few pages torn from it and was ripped on the edges. As I laid it down on my desk to begin my assignment and opened the book to a page with an ugly ink splatter on it, I accidentally ripped another page. “Not again! My teacher is going to kill me for sure this time,” I stated disappointedly.

Then I saw it. Something moved under my bed. I saw it from the corner of my eye, a hairy looking object. “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” I tried to convince myself. But then came the fear again. Once I became afraid, that fear sunk deep down to the bottom of my soul and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. There was no getting rid of it.

I saw it again. So, I carefully got up and retrieved a flashlight to find out what it could possibly be. As I turned it on and kneeled to the floor, I rapidly moved the flashlight in the direction of the mysterious object and saw . . . nothing. “How can that be?” I questioned. As I reminded myself that I seem to hallucinate a lot, I walked back to my desk to continue with my homework.

But the fear was still there. And so was the creature. I definitely saw it this time, what seemed to me like an eight-foot tall, hairy tarantula. After I slowly turned around, it was right in front of me. So, I screamed. And yes, I screamed like a little girl. It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen, with two fangs like knives that had venom dripping from the tips. How it even fit under my bed was a mystery, but I didn’t have time for that. And what was really creepy was the fact that it just stood there, staring at me as I would stare at my homework assignment. Fear crept through my body as a tornado would through a city. I was so afraid that all I could think of doing was to, of course, RUN! I ran out the door, down the stairs, and into my parents, who were bolting up the stairs to see what had happened.

“It’s there . . . it’s . . . there . . .” I stuttered, breathing heavily, partly from fear and partly from running down all of those stairs.

“What is it?! What happened?” my mom cried with worry, as a nervous look glanced across her face.

“In my room. It’s there!” I shouted at them, hoping we would all be alive in the next few minutes.

As my parents turned towards my bedroom door and walked hesitantly forward, I followed them, staying back a few feet. My dad went in first, and after he opened the door and saw absolutely nothing, nothing I repeat, he turned around and looked at me with confusion.

“What is it? I don’t see anything,” he said curiously.

“No, it’s definitely in there! A huge, hairy, spider! As tall as the ceiling! Scariest thing I’ve ever seen . . .” I told them with suspense.

They laughed. At me! I can’t believe after how many times I’ve told the truth and knowing how innocent I am that they would laugh. I mean, I guess it did sound a little bit ridiculous when I said it out loud, but it’s true! I know what I saw.

“Fine! Don’t believe me but it’s the truth,” I yelled at them.

“Don’t be ridiculous, honey. That’s not even possible. You’re probably just imagining things. I mean, you’re probably exhausted after a long day at school and track practice!” my mom explained to me as she looked at my dad with a grin and walked away.

I may have sounded a little bit crazy but I knew it was true. And I was terribly afraid of even taking another step into my room. But hey, I had to move on with my life sooner or later. So, I went in. I nervously looked around and couldn’t believe that I didn’t see the creepy monster either. I guess I couldn’t blame my parents for not believing me since I probably sounded like an idiot and the huge monster was gone anyway. Vanished. So I sat down at my desk, once again, to finally continue with my homework. Physics sucks, I thought to myself.

And so did the next part of my night. As I picked up my pencil to answer a question about Newton’s Laws, I spotted something moving from the corner of my eye AGAIN. I turned around once more and . . . it was back. This time I didn’t scream. I just stared at the horrifying spider with a look of terror in my eyes and became paralyzed. My mind was spinning a million miles an hour with thoughts of what to do next but I just sat there. Like I was dead or something. And the evil creature didn’t move either. Then I saw something else. From my closet, two guys and a girl walked out from it like it was no big deal. Was I dreaming? I don’t know but what I did know was that it was becoming more and more creepy as the minutes passed. And I recognized the people. They were the kids from my school who I was always afraid of talking to because I was afraid of being rejected. Every time I wanted to say something to them, I became speechless and casually walked away, praying not to look like an idiot. They always seemed so kind and they were also very popular, which I was not, and I never thought I could ever be part of that crowd. I had always dreamed of fitting in with those types of people but I knew it would never happen.
And they just stood there, whispering to each other like I wasn’t even there.

“Hello?” I said in a quiet voice.

They didn’t respond. See? This is why I don’t talk to people. Did I not speak loud enough or did they just hate me already? I had no idea, but I needed to figure out what was going on. Where did they come from? They just appeared from my closet like ghosts or something. I was really getting scared now and I was shaking like I was having a seizure.

It seemed to be getting darker by the minute. I started to get claustrophobic, too. It was getting as hot as Venus in here and I couldn’t seem to breathe. It was like the walls were closing in and I couldn’t move. What was going on?

I realized it at that moment, when I saw the next thing. I saw my parents. They appeared out of nowhere and were standing in front of me with faces of disappointment. They looked sad as if something had gone wrong. I stared at them for a moment and they stared back, their eyes grey and dull and dreary. I suddenly felt a shot of pain in my chest and my body became numb. I was afraid of failure. That was it. I felt as though I had disappointed my parents and they would never accept me, which was my biggest fear of all. I realized that every single thing I was being presented with was one of my fears. Spiders. The fear of rejection. The dark. Being claustrophobic. The fear of failure. Pain. Even the fear of what my teacher would do if he found out I had ripped my stupid physics book. Yikes. I had never gotten over these things and never thought I ever would. Until tonight.

At first, I sort of panicked because there was an eight-foot tall spider and a few kids from my school in my room and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Wait. My parents. They were supposed to be downstairs. And I remembered that only I could see the spider when it appeared to me. These things weren’t real.

“It’s only my imagination . . .” I whispered to myself.

Ever since I realized it was dark outside and I was afraid of it that night, all of these others fears were being presented to me. My mind had created them on its own. They were hallucinations. So there wasn’t actually an enormous spider, there weren’t any kids from my school, my parents weren’t standing right in front of me, and the walls weren’t closing in. Once I realized that these were just pigments of my imagination, I was relieved. And the pain in my chest had ceased. The shaking went away, and I felt a sense of peace rush through my body.

But everything stayed the same. The spider was still there and everyone stayed in their places. I guess just realizing that it was all in my head wasn’t good enough. I was still afraid. Spiders still scared me to death and I hadn’t gotten over the fact that I would never be good enough for anyone, not my parents or the popular kids at school. Even if I was on the track team and brushed my teeth every morning and was nice to people and did my homework. I would never be enough. I wanted to be good enough. But that tormenting fear still lived within me.

“How do I get rid of these things?” I asked myself.

Then I realized something. If I woke up every morning and was still scared of the same thing I was scared of yesterday but did nothing about it, nothing would ever change. I would wake up every morning and still be afraid of going to school and being rejected when I tried to talk to people. I would still freak out when I saw a spider, even one the size of a grain of sand. I would always be afraid of disappointing my parents if I never talked to them about it. And I would always be afraid of pain, being in closed spaces, and being in the dark. I had to face my fears. It was the only way to get rid of them and not continue to let fear control my thoughts and actions. Because let me tell you, being paralyzed and in a state of panic if the worst feeling. EVER. I hated it and wanted out.

The next thing I knew, that huge, awful spider was moving towards me. Slowly, but still moving. I cringed at the thought of my horrible death to come but then realized, once again, that this wasn’t real. OK, I needed to do something quick before my fear took over completely. I didn’t want anything else to happen or for my life to continue the way it was.

So I thought about it hard. I gently closed my eyes and thought about what I was actually afraid of. These things weren’t life-threatening and I could survive without being afraid of them. “I’m not afraid anymore . . .” I said out-loud. I thought about myself actually killing a spider by myself, talking to the kids at school, being in a dark room without freaking out, feeling pain and knowing it won’t last, being in a closed space and knowing I’ll get out of there sometime, and feeling good enough for my parents, even if I make mistakes. Although my teacher might be a bit angry about my trashed physics book, I would get over it and had nothing to worry about. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen? OK, so I might have to pay for a new book but I would survive! So, I opened my eyes and my fears were gone. Everything was gone and my life was back to the way it was.

Except it wasn’t. I was fearless now. I didn’t have to go to school walking around like a loner anymore or live my sad, little life being afraid of the dark. I felt like a new person, and for the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself. So I sat down to finish my sucky physics homework at my desk with a radiant smile on my face and couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring . . .