This is an essay I turned in a few weeks ago for my writing class. It definitely needs work, but I don't feel like revising it yet, so here is what I've got.
***
I expected the worst. My discomfort and fear was not a secret, but my options were limited; I could spend the night in the hostel or on a park bench in downtown Prague. I opted for the hostel since I at least would not be alone. We arrived at the hostel in the evening. The sky was already inky, and the bustling nightlife of Prague had begun. I walked quickly in the door after the other girls so I could stop looking over my shoulder every ten seconds to make sure no one was following me. The lobby was dimly lit and casting black shadows onto the crimson walls. Framed pictures of naked Anime women decorated the walls, and young people walked in and out through the room. As my blood pressure rose, I noticed with horror that some of them carried opened bottles of beer.
The unintelligent-sounding man behind the desk handed over our room key, and we climbed the stairs, higher and higher into the rumbling belly of the old mansion apartment and looked for our room number with the light from our cell phones. My knees trembled as I imagined a hulking man in every dark corner, waiting with an ax that would come down the second I turned my back.
Our room was badly decorated from an IKEA catalogue in murky shades of yellow, orange, and red. I wanted to run to the long curtains and shut out the unfamiliar nightlife of Prague, only separated from my by a sheet of glass. Someone put a stack of sheets into my arms and told me to choose a bed; I set my things on the top bunk of the middle bed and figured I would be safest off the floor and sandwiched between everybody. I knew they would understand my need for security, as my terror had been obvious since we walked into the door of the hostel. I tucked the sheets in and wondered with a shudder whether they were clean.
The girls began getting their things together to go out and see the city at night, exactly what I had been trying to shut out. For a few minutes, I was weighing my horrifying options: go out looking like a tourist amidst gangs and the prostitutes on the corner, or stay alone in this murder mansion pulled right from a horror movie. A couple of the girls volunteered to stay when they saw the terror in my face and said they were tired anyway.
At least now I was not alone, but now I had another difficult decision to make: continue enjoying the rush of adrenaline every time the floor creaked or someone screamed in the next room, or attempt to sleep in this state of terror and leave myself unprotected as I slept. I was able to calm down long enough to tell myself it was fairly unlikely a masked man would sneak into our room and murder me in my sleep, so I rushed around to get ready for bed before I changed my mind. I brushed my teeth in the sink outside our room and skipped my routine face wash to avoid the bathroom which contained more dark corners.
I climbed quickly into bed, trying to ignore the voices in my head shrieking with disgust at the fact that hundreds of sweaty, drunk bodies had probably occupied this same foam pad in the past. I fastened my uncomfortable money pouch around my waist and sunk down between the pad and the cotton ball-filled duvet and squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to block out the city noise, as well as the horror-film narrator in my mind describing my gruesome death.
It wasn’t the usual sunlight that woke me, but cramps from holding my bladder for so long. I remembered the terror of the previous night, including my fear of the bathroom, but I forgot to care and jumped off the bunk and rushed out of the room. For a few almost happy moments, I was free of fear, other than that of the germs on the bathroom floor now contaminating my cute flip flops.
I realized after a few moments that I was still alive and had survived my very first night in a hostel. I would love to say my face lit up with a smile that spread from ear to ear, but that would not be truthful. Instead, a spark of pride ignited in my soul, I gave myself a mental hug for attempting heroic bravery, and then my hands went cold when I realized I had to do it all over again in 15 hours.
***
My teacher says I have major anxiety problems. You agree?
