Unsanitarium (18+)

[F] Your sleep paralysis demon likes your feet

You were reading a book with your feet dangling off the edge of your bed when something shuffled out from beneath the frame and started to lick your toes. You assumed it was your slobbering, droopy-faced bear of a dog, but even they knew when to stop when you ushered them to. You pulled your foot away and leaned over to scold them, seeing nothing there, until they came running into the room to see about their favorite owner. Deja vu or glitch in the matrix? Unless they could play coy and move that fast, which they couldn't, there was no way your dog could be in two places at once. While you were busy compartmentalizing, they growled at an unknown force under the bed. It was dark, middle of the night, and the only thing illuminating the room was your pitiful desk lamp with half a bulb's worth of energy to suppress a small explosion. Its eerie buzzing didn't help the situation, and you weren't about to make the mistake of having your face snatched by an evident monster, so between your sudden anxiety that there was more than just you and your dog in the room, you thought that maybe.. it would go away if you ignored it.

Suddenly, your dog, a formidable wall but unfortunate coward, yelped and dashed into the hall. Your lamp flickered and popped, leaving you in complete darkness, and you quickly drew the covers over your head. You watched a dark, featureless figure attach itself to your bed frame with dozens of goopy, spidery hands, as if some kind of giant uncanny spider. Its hefty number of eyes couldn't convince you otherwise, beady and red and blinking. You wondered if it could see you through the fabric, though hoped it'd think you were a lifeless sack in the middle of the mattress. You hoped it wouldn't bother you, but then your blanket was fumbled with and pulled over your feet. You kept stock still best you could as the entity fondled your toes, almost playfully, its claws running across your soles. You couldn't help but wince, trying to hold in the need to laugh, and curled your toes in response. Alas, they kept going. What you hoped, or not, was a tongue, flicked against your feet, and the gentle poke of teeth in your skin as it was partly consumed. You made a sound of abrupt distaste and it figured that was all it could get away with for the night, not wanting to wake you as it was actually convinced you were asleep.

The next morning, you consulted with your roommate about what happened. They believed you immediately, saying that they experienced the same exact thing a few nights ago. You asked if they thought the house was haunted, and they replied..

"Not haunted, we just have a really weird paralysis demon".

But neither of you were ever paralyzed, except with fear regarding the first encounter, but maybe that was the whole point. Surely they never got used to having some demon sushi wrap their feet with its tongue, right? You didn't ask, but as far as the paralysis went, they shrugged and assumed that maybe it was the spit. You decided to experiment, foolish as that probably was like you originally thought, and went to bed the next night with socks on. You never wore socks because they made your feet sweat, but you wanted to see how the demon would react to being otherwise cockblocked.

Pretending to sleep, you stuck your feet out of the covers and waited. Your bed frame creaked a few times and the demon emerged. It was 2AM, same as last night when it showed, and you'd been waiting for it since midnight. It picked at your socks, confused but not discouraged. If it couldn't play with them bare, it would just have to deal with the textile keeping it away, and to your surprise chose to fondle you through it. It couldn't make out your toes very well, wondering how they became fuzzy and stuck together, so it compensated by poking and tracing questionable symbols on your soles. Your laughter being a little louder than before, it stopped, you stopped, and you sat up to a demon in your face. It didn't hit you fast enough that that might've been a death sentence, or reasonable cause for this thing to take your soul. But it quickly retracted out of sight as you forced your lamp back on, leading you to presume it was either afraid of confrontation or afraid of light. You didn't think about it too much and ran to your mate's room to sleep for the rest of the night.

That morning you expressed more of your concerns over breakfast, even asking them if they've ever seen its face. They took a contemplative bite of their wheaties and said..

"It had a lot of eyes. Wide mouth too. Though I guess it'd be needing that." with a joking laugh.

They proceeded to tell you you had nothing to worry about.

"I've started leaving snacks out for it. Candy, chips.. Like a peace offering. At least to keep it from eating me. It's always gone the next day, so it must be working." gesturing to the party-sized bags on the counter. "I've noticed it really likes fruity stuff. My skittles disappear all the time, same with my fruit snacks. Worse part, I never get any!"

You kept this in mind and continued with your attempts to coexist with the demon, having taken a shower in some very fruity-smelling body wash, and gone to bed with no socks. Knowing what smelled good didn't reciprocate the same flavor, it could be a strong deterrent, but you didn't stay awake long enough to find out. You fell asleep, too tired to keep your eyes open, and erupted from your good dreams into a burst of short, giddy laughter as your feet were feverishly tickled. It seemed to last forever and soon your cheeks burned from how good a jolt it was giving you. Suppose the demon was looking for approval the whole time, it would explain why it kept going after your previous reaction, and now it was trying to hold your feet down to further playfully massacre them. You weren't, however, a fan of the drool falling between your toes, nor the gross tongue that reminded you of your dog's incessant need to cover you with their own, and through your fit you begged them to stop until you pushed yourself up to catch the demon in the act.

Not that you could detect the innocence from its dozens of red eyes, it stared at you before cowering down watching your expression become sternly annoyed.

"If you like feet, fine. But keep mine out of your mouth."

It sucked in its long, pointed tongue and slid back under the bed, emitting a cryptic, garbled..

"Sorry."

You woke up to your roommate running the vacuum at 9AM into your room. Trace crumbs from theirs to yours, plus that that was in the hall were all over the floor.

"You know, I've been thinking." they suddenly said. "Maybe the reason it never paralyzes you is because it likes you."

"That's fine. Long as I'm not its lollipop.."

The end.