A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares

by Krystal Sutherland

Esther made Jonah go behind her and said, “I expect you to sacrifice yourself for me if the need arises. I am not even kidding about this.” To which Jonah replied, “Nah, I’ll just toss the monsters the kid.” The kid’s parents overheard this, too, and decided to relocate to the back of the group, as far away from them as possible, which was reasonable.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time that Eugene had been sad. Depression was a real sneaky asshole. Like that baby girl doctors thought they’d cured of HIV after aggressive antiretroviral treatment, because her viral load was undetectable, but as soon as they took her off treatment, the disease came back. Like HIV, depression was a king at playing hide-and-seek. It concealed itself in reservoirs deep inside the mind, waiting for the walls you built around it to eventually erode. Depression could be at undetectable levels for months or years. You’d be all happy and stable and think you were cured, you were a survivor, and then BAM, out of nowhere it resurged. Imagine, like, surviving the sinking of the Titanic or something and thinking you did it, you lived, you won the game against death, but then a few years passed and the Titanic started hunting everyone who got away, killing them one by one on the streets of New York. We’re talking an I Know What You Did Last Summer–style revenge horror movie, but with a 46,328-ton passenger liner as the crazed murderer, floating around in a sea of fog. That’s how irrational depression was.

“How can you want to leave me?” “Oh, Esther,” he said as she burrowed her face into his chest. “It isn’t about you. Not at all. It never has been. You can love someone with all your soul and still hate yourself enough to want to die.”