When the fan skips above my head and the posters and papers tacked to the wall rattle, I start to hear drumming in the pipes and people walking outside, and within thirty or forty seconds, I'm close to losing my mind. These kind of panic attacks have been happening since I was five, since I can remember sleeping with my eyes open, watching and listening for the monsters. Even when I pull up the covers to my chin, I hear every sound within range. I have a recurring dream where I'm on a platform above an indoor pool, maybe forty feet above the water, and there's a high wire above the pool and people sitting on it like crows on an electric wire, and inside the water, swimming and snapping are Great White sharks. Four or five, as many as can fit in that small cramped pool. The chlorinated water is red red red from blood, the blood of other people on other platforms just like mine who tried to jump and make it to the other side before the sharks got to them in time. Nobody had made it yet and I was one of three left. I didn't want to jump and nobody else did either. Sometimes I look down and see fins and other times I see nothing and then sometimes I see black shadows. All it means is that I'm trapped and I always wake up before I have to make a decision to jump. This is a night time ritual for me. To be afraid. Not of the dark or darkness but of the quiet. Night symbolizes everything I fear. It's when the baddies come out to play. It's when the only light is a moon and some streetlamps. Nobody sees nothing at night. But I hear everything. I hear my roommate quietly clinking dishes in the kitchen. I hear his cell phone ring. I hear my dog moving in his bed. I hear the paranoia running in my own head. I hear the soft glow of my laptop. I hear the fan churning above me and the cool air moving. The only thing I don't hear is security. Safety. I just want to feel safe.