It starts as a tingling sensation in the back of my mind. The feeling isn't prevalent or memorable. It creeps up, humming low like a bird. It's quiet, and never clear. Sometimes it is disguised as a headache, and others it lays low over the walls of my skull. The first appearances are never recognizable, they always find a way to mask themselves. They are so good at hiding that it almost mirrors what happens when you stare at your reflection for a long period of time; your natural expression fades away, and the familiarity is whisked away by the sudden epiphany that the person in the mirror is alien.

I can never plan for their arrival. It happens when I am alone sometimes in a closed area. I feel it radiate through my veins, swimming in my blood, and fishing for my nerves. They are too good at the old game, and know all the knacks of my body. They never miss their target. In other moments, it will be in a crowd of people, and suddenly I am on my knees as they raise their gun.

Sometimes at their arrival, I will feel ransacked with strange and unnatural feelings. They will scourge my mind and body until I am nothing but a corpse for the flies to feed on. In other moments, I am not frozen but am controlled by an unknown force. I am an ape in the jungle, and if you touch me I am forced to protect my being. The thought that you might be trying to help never crosses my mind. You are the predator, and I am trying to escape. At least, you may think I think you're the predator. I know who the real predator is; my anxiety is the predator. It feeds, ransacks, and infiltrates my body until I am nothing more than another victim to its horrible symptoms. What is worse is that others stand around me, some with curious eyes, and others are the ones with the eyes of judgement, and they just watch me. "The critic," gaze is always the most horrifying. They egg on the anxiety, as if saying that it can do better, that it can force me to curl up just a little bit tighter.

My anxiety knows the game, and can put on a show within a second. It can pose for hours, while people watch as if I am on display at a museum. It is belittling, the way I am made to be a child.

At the end of an episode, the curtain falls. I am left, feeling empty as the flies drift along my body. For just a moment, I can recognize my anxiety's face, and it whispers, "See you again soon."