There are a lot of things people are afraid of. Many people are often afraid of death and for good reason; the finality of death, how quickly and easily it could come… it’s a terrifying thought. There are also far more unique fears in our world. I personally know someone who’s not just afraid of fruits, but is afraid of even touching them. I thought it was quite bizarre, but also something very intriguing.
As for me, I’m afraid of a lot of things, many of which I’m sure I have in common with a lot of people. For example, I’m deathly afraid of bugs, especially those of the multi-legged variety. ESPECIALLY house centipedes. They just give me the creeps with how many legs they have and, in most cases, how long those legs are. Like seriously, why did evolution think it was a good idea to give them that many legs?
I could go on and on about how almost every type of bug is creepy, with some exceptions, of course, but that wouldn’t be for a very interesting article. Instead, I think it’d be nice to talk about the longest lasting fear I’ve had, which is the fear of my own imagination. More specifically, I’m quite terrified of the constructs that my mind makes up at midnight. I should know they don’t exist, but I somehow get coerced into believing they exist anyway.
Any sort of horror media exacerbates this fear because those constructs usually take the shape of whatever monster I most recently watched. A few weeks ago, some family friends and I watched my cousin play through a bit of Resident Evil 7, and while it wasn’t as scary because I was with such a large group, it did leave lasting influences on my imagination. Insidious also had a large influence on the past; I couldn’t even sleep for a couple of nights after watching the first movie!
One more fear that I’d like to mention: Bad progression to stories with a great beginning. As I read more and more, I often found great stories that started out with a very interesting premise or had extremely great worldbuilding. Later down the line, I would see the plot disassemble like LEGOs. The main protagonist’s motives suddenly shift to something completely out of character, a character dies for absolutely no reason besides shock value, the MC gets way too overpowered and trivializes everything, and so on.
I’m always afraid any unique story I read will devolve similarly because I’ve had too many bad experiences in the past. However, I still keep finding more stories and reading them; at least that’s better than having to deal with the imaginary figure in the corner of my eye on a sleepless night.
