A Sound in the Dark

Although my eyes are still closed and it's total darkness beyond my eyelids, I can feel myself awake, I know I'm awake. I reluctantly turn myself over to turn on the light on my bed-side table and check my watch.

1:30 am

It reads. I let out an angry grunt. I have my 10th Grade end-of-year exams tomorrow, or today, rather, and I don't want all the studying to be for nothing.

I roll over onto my back again, turn off the light and close my eyes, waiting for sleep to come, listening to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof.

But no matter how long I lay there for, sleep wouldn't present itself.

I sigh in frustration, turn on the light and check my watch again.

1:58 am

It reads. I become more infuriated at the fact that one of the only times I need to sleep as much as I can, I can't. Well, what else would I expect? That's how it normally goes for me anyway.

I think that maybe emptying my bladder or getting a drink of water might help, so I throw off the bed-sheets, creep past my parents' room, as not to wake them, and go to the toilet, then grab a glass of water. As I'm gulping down the cool liquid, I could have sworn I could hear a very light, very quick creak of one of the stairs to my right. I freeze with half of the glass still full pressed up to my mouth and listen as intently as I can in the deafening silence, hoping that closing my eyes would help.

After a minute or so, I still can't hear anything, so I finish the glass of water, but check from the top of the stairs just in case. Squinting my eyes, I can't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Must have been the storm or something." I mutter to myself

Although it wasn't really a storm, It was pretty windy and rainy outside, no lightning or thunder. Maybe the house just adjusting itself or moving in the wind. Geez, doesn't that sound cliche, 'Weird noise? Yeah, it was just the wind'.

I turn and walk back to my bedroom after putting the glass in the dishwasher and jump into bed again. Just as I pulled up the sheets to my chin, a thought enters my head.

"What woke me?"

I know I needed to go to the toilet and get a drink, but that was after nearly half an hour of lying there.

"What actually woke me?" I say quietly, but aloud

It might have been the wind and the rain, but, that was too quiet, too soft, too soothing to wake me from the deep sleep I was in. Maybe it was something like Inside Out, where they had to wake me with a bad dream to get back to HQ on the Train of Thought (which would be going over-time at the moment), but I didn't jolt awake, nor do I remember having any kind of dream before I regained consciousness, I didn't even feel scared in any kind of way until I heard a creak from the stairs, which turned out to be nothing. I hope.

At that thought, a deep, deep sense of dread flooded my entire being.

Could there have been something downstairs? No, it couldn't have been, it sounded like it was on the stairs and I checked that. My mind continued to conflict itself for the next couple of minutes, until it became too maddening to bear. I had to check.

Once more, I slide out of bed, creep past my parents' room, slink toward the top of the stairs and silently make my way down each step, that same sense of dread intensifying every muscle movement. I can feel my heart in my throat and my stomach churning by the time I reach the bottom. I curse myself for feeling this way for absolutely no reason.

I crane my head around the corner of the wall to try to see anything.

Nothing.

I curse myself again at the stupidity of the situation, wasting precious sleep time the night (or day) before the most important exams so far in my schooling career. I breathe a sigh of relief and frustration as I creep up the stairs and make my way back to my bedroom.