Need Nothing

He was trying to get to bed early tonight. He'd felt off all week, and knew that it usually meant he hadn't been getting enough sleep. He wasn't tired yet, so he put on some instrumental music and stared at the wall. Off-white, knockdown-textured drywall. He would imagine shapes in the ridges and plateaus of the paint. A skyscraper. The head of a horse. A clawed hand reaching down. 

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Except... He could still see the wall. He opened and closed his eyes again. Still, the wall was there. He pressed his fingertips against his closed eyelids. 

He was wondering if he was dreaming when the clawed hand he has seen in the texture of the paint began peeling itself away from the wall towards him. 

Towards his face. Towards his eyes. 

He froze in terror. 

A searing pain, and then he saw nothing. 

The End

Author's Note: This was going to be about the mental strain of not being able to close your eyes and enjoy peaceful darkness once in a while but I quickly realized that being able to see clearly at all times is kind of a superpower and would become a whole thing and I didn't want to deal with the logistics of that right now. Goodnight!

*Note to self: it's twenty minutes later but why you don't you have him only see the image of the last thing he saw clearly? That could work.