Veiled

Chapter One

"If life is but a dream, wake me up." – Keep Your Eyes Peeled

Queens of the Stone Age

"What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself afraid to see?"– Right Where it Belongs

Nine Inch Nails

Chapter One

I wake up with a gasp that freezes in my lungs.

My body is strained, nearly paralyzed, a start contrast to my heart that races erratically inside my chest, as if looking for a way out.

It was the noise that woke me.

That same noise, night after night.

One knock.

Two knock.

Three knocks.

Like someone's at my door, even though they never are.

I wait, trying to suck the air deep into my lungs, realizing I couldn't move even if I tried. There's nothing else to do but wait and hope my heart calms down and I don't die from a fucking heart attack.

It's in your head, I tell myself. You know this. You looked it up.

But after growing up with a sister like Perry Palomino, it's hard to know what's in your head and what's real. I much prefer it when my mind plays tricks on me.

But even so, I lie there in the dark, listening to every sound in my dark room. Outside a cricket chirps, once, twice. A light breeze rustles the tree by the window and I feel it comes through the open window and wash over my body, my limbs that outside the sheets. It's been stinking hot in Portland this summer and this breeze is nearly cold. It would be refreshing if I wasn't so rattled.

Strength slowly returns to my body. I'm able to suck in a breath and let it out carefully, even though it's far too loud for my liking. I'm still trying to listen, still trying to figure out if the knocks are part of my dream or part of something real.

I've had this condition for about as long as I can remember, though it was only recently that I looked it up and discovered it was quite common. It also has a disturbing as hell name: Exploding Head Syndrome. Yup. Ada Palomino's head might explode on occasion. Hope you're wearing a poncho.

Apparently though, it's not that big of a deal and it doesn't mean your head is just going to spontaneously combust, like that dude in Scanners. Now, I've never seen Scanners because it looks like a terrible 80's movie, but anytime someone's head explodes, that's the movie they refer to.

Instead it just means it's an auditory hallucination and one powerful enough to wake you up. Some people hear cymbals crashing, others hear a bang or gunshot. I hear three loud knocks. I used to think it was someone at my door, so I would get up an answer it, thinking it was Perry. No one was ever there. Sometimes I'd have to go downstairs and check the front door, usually with a steak knife or blunt object in hand, but it was always the same deal.

No one there.

Then this spring, when I slept over at my ex-boyfriend's cabin in Astoria, I woke up so convinced someone was trying to get in the place. My ex, Dillon, was already awake, having gone to the washroom and told me he hadn't heard a thing.

Finally, I had to look up on the internet what the hell was going on. I discovered it had a name (albeit a pretty shitty one) and that many people suffered from it, usually women and usually when they were overly tired.