The creature in my sleep
by David Guirao, 4th ESO
I have a fear of sleeping. Everytime I try, I get sleep paralysis, and everytime I do it, I see horrible things.
One night however, once I drifted to sleep, late at night… It had happened again.
I opened my eyes, and looked around the room in a panic while trying to move my body to wake up.
There’s a number of different creatures that visit me in this state, each one more horrifying than the last one.
Looking at the corner I saw it, and a terrible feeling of dread overtook me as it started to move closer… The tall, slim, dark figure, with so big eyes that they felt like they were going to pop out of its sockets at any second, was staring back with its small pitch black pupils alongside a grin that showed off a million yellowish teeth.
One step at a time, wobbling like it was going to fall over at any second, but never doing so, the creature dragged itself closer to me.
Something about the way it was moving made it look like it was already dead, and yet, it appeared to force itself to stay alive just to meet me.
I closed my eyes, praying that I would wake up soon, repeating in my head that it wasn’t real, that it was no more dangerous than a dream.
But I felt its cold, long, thin fingers wrap around my arm a few times. Then I felt weight on my chest. And then a breath as cold as death on my face.
I instinctively open my eyes and see it inches away from my face, still grinning… Its hands move to my neck and I struggle to breathe as I try to scream but nothing will come out. I close my eyes and attempt to move my toes, tongue, fingers… anything that might move and wake me up. And surprisingly, it worked. I panted as I touched my neck and looked around the room.
A wave of relief comes upon me as there’s no horrible being to be seen… But it isn’t for long as my blood runs cold again. The door to my room is open, despite me closing it before going to sleep…