I am a vulnerable prisoner to the darkness. My body remains paralyzed in a deep state of relaxation, as my mind floats in and out of consciousness. The room is silent and still, devoid of all energy besides the small bits coming from my body. In the darkness, I feel alone, secluded, restrained, due to the eeriness that fills my seventeen by ten foot bedroom. Outside of my window, the faint chirps of an insect are being picked up by the wind, and the rhythmic pattern of “cricket…cricket” puts me in even more of a trance. Even the faintest of footsteps could not be heard due to the creams of nature that swallow all other nature. I am sentenced to a night in complete chaos, allowing my mind to drift off into affinity.
This all suddenly comes to a halt as harsh sounds echo off the walls and attack me in my sleep. The demanding resonance imbues the air, and I am called to attention. As I am a prisoner to the night, my senses become discombobulated and shaken by the events. With my body stationed motionless on the surface of sheets, my mind pounds on the walls of my skull in a desperate attempt to notify my body. An intruder? A ghost? A dream? The questions only worry me to an extensive amount. Without any warning, the moving energy creeps closer and closer, forcing me to make a hasty decision. The sounds of my heart beat vibrate my body, causing my fingers to shake and tremble, soaked with sweat. My nerves are shot, my body is hopeless. The darkness takes its long, endless fingers and slithers on top of my frame, hovering over me like a raincloud on an abandoned city. Within moments I am engulfed by the predatory sounds, leaving me hopeless, shaken, and most importantly wide awake. I am called to attention by a loud noise, one that drags me into a specific boundary.
I find myself at this boundary once a day, maybe twice depending on my strength and energy. I am so familiar with it, coming in contact with the other side quite often. I am so unsure of it, due to the mist of skepticism that imbues the air of this mysterious surrounding. If I will make it to the other side, sometimes I am not so sure. Certainty is never certain past this boundary. It is the ultimate paradox, being so real yet so imaginative as the events that occur are not pseudo, but merely memories, aspirations, sanguineness. This boundary is unmarked, unattained, free to all as no explorer or conquistador has gathered enough ruthlessness to stain it with a bold, red “X”. It is as much mine as it is yours, as our underlying desires and fulfillments may be very similar. Reaching the unknown domain is not the difficult gesture; coming back seems to yield more complications. Passing this boundary has a distinct way of distorting reality and the truth, granting verisimilitude and authenticity to actions that are deemed impossible by reality. It is a world in its own; holding possibilities, failure, sin, hope, life and death. What intrigues me the most about passing this boundary is the vastness of creativity available on this exclusive turf. I foster my own fate, accepting challenges that make me stronger, accomplishing desires that I strive to complete, while reliving events that I can only do here.

Filled with bewilderment as well as awe, I come back from this boundary, shaken by the loud noises once again. When I arrive to reality, I constantly find myself puzzled by the events that have just occurred. The boundary seems to disappear until it is utilized once again another time in the near future. I step out of bed and turn off the alarm clock, preparing myself for the day’s upcoming events. The boundary is my pillow, and I tuck it away until I can escape to dreamland once again. I know it will be right where I left it, waiting to capture my mind. I live a double life, a paradoxical dream or should I say reality, one that I know will always have an open gate right from the comfort of my own bed.


In my passage, I decided to use more of a romantic style of writing, as the details appealed to all senses of awe and supernatural elements, rather than basic sentences with obvious statements and details. That is obvious throughout the entire piece until the end because the end displays that the entire time it was just a person waking up to the sound of an alarm and finding out that the boundary was the line between awake and dreaming. The Gothicism comes in through sentences such as “As I am a prisoner to the night, my senses become discombobulated and shaken by the events. With my body stationed motionless on the surface of sheets, my mind pounds on the walls of my skull in a desperate attempt to notify my body. An intruder? A ghost? A dream?” and many other examples that include concepts of hidden meanings, magic, screams and supernatural entities. The romantic gothic is expressed through the word choice such as “bewilderment, disappear, reality, fantasy” and other words that appeal to the mind in a fantasy manner.