A Sleep Paralysis Story

Part 1: Beginning of a nightmare

The sounds of typing and flipping pages in a textbook were all that could be heard as Greg was preparing for his final exams in his room. This had been his routine for the past week, and his parents had warned him not to overwork himself at late hours of the night, but he never listened. He thought his routine of sacrificing sleep for study time was worth it and that soon he would forget about the horrible event that had taken place 5 days ago. One of his classmates, Donald had died in a head-on car accident. He and Donald were not particularly good friends, but something inside him stopped ever since that fateful collision. He and his friends had never felt so helpless as they watched Donald die in slow, excruciating agony. Even now, the images of the events from that night were flashing in his mind. Soon, he finished his revision and got up to go use the bathroom, but before he could even step forward, he stopped dead in his tracks. There, standing in front of, was a tall, black figure. It let out an animalistic hiss as it loomed over him. Then, it disappeared into thin air as quickly as it had appeared to Greg. "Must have been seeing things", Greg muttered to himself and got up to go to the bathroom. Little did he know that sacrificing so much sleep would have consequences that he would never have imagined...

When he finally climbed into bed at nearly 12:00 AM, he fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the cool, fluffy pillow. But that night, he had a horrible nightmare where he was forced to face his worst fear; being trapped in a dark room whilst a dark, demonic presence was pounding on the door trying to get in. Greg had no way out, all he could do was wait for his chaser to come for him whilst he hid in the corner sobbing like a baby. The last thing that Greg saw as the door was broken was the rugged, burning, skeletal face of his chaser as the entity rushed him at a speed Greg couldn't even begin to comprehend. Suddenly, Greg found himself awake again, lying in his bed as if nothing happened. He began to relax as he thought he could go back to sleep peacefully.

However, that hope quickly began to fade, as Greg realized that he couldn't move. He was glued to the bed and he could hardly breathe because his chest felt as tight as a knot. Then, there was the strangely familiar sound of someone or something pounding on his bedroom door. In the span of no more than 10 seconds, it seemed as if his nightmare had translated to reality, as the skeleton entity charged him once more. Just as it was about to grab hold of him, everything stopped. Suddenly Greg felt normal, and realizing that it was all over, he sat up in a daze, struggling to process what he had experienced. "Was that a dream? It ought to have been a dream. But you don't have the same dream twice, do you?", Greg muttered to himself. "I must have been seeing things. It was a long while before Greg fell asleep again. He awoke later that morning feeling exhausted, and whilst his father looked at him with concern, his mother was angry with him. "I tried to warn you not to sleep so late, but you never listened!", his mother scolded as Greg ate his breakfast. Greg didn't answer, he just finished his breakfast and lazily dragged himself outside to the car where his father was waiting to take him to school. He tried his best to concentrate on his classes in school without thinking about that horrible experience, but he couldn't.

Image credits: Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash