Violet

Chapter 29: Sleep Paralysis

The night never seemed so dark. All the lights in the house were off, engulfing me in the darkness. My mother slept in the living room, leaving the big room all to myself.

As I lay down facing the darkness, I began to feel uneasy. You ever lay down in the dark and wonder what's around you? All the shadows that move around and what they are? Those objects in your room that make noise when you least expect it.

I pulled my blanket up to my chin. I couldn't help but feel like something was standing over me. That was what sucked about darkness: anything could be hiding in it. Anything could happen in the dark. I closed my eyes, but each time I closed them, I felt like something would grab me, or touch me, or hover over my face. I was so paranoid.

After twenty minutes of scaring myself, I finally began to drift off to sleep. I dreamed about soccer at first, but that dream quickly turned dark. I was going to open my eyes and sit up, but I was too late. My body slipped into paralyzation. I always knew of sleep paralysis because I had it before, but this one felt intense. My breathing slowed down, my body tightened, and I couldn't move. I could see, but I couldn't talk. Sleep paralysis goes away the less you struggle, so I stayed calm. However, I couldn't stay calm when I saw the light come on from behind me. I heard a crackling sound, kind of like when you squeeze cereal in your palm. Something long and black stretched out before my eyes.

A silent scream fell from my lips. I saw a hand with two sharp claws directly in front of me. It looked like it had been burnt. Dare I turn around so I could give myself a heart attack. You know what sucks about sleep paralysis? Whenever you see part of the figure in the room, you always want to see more of it, but you don't look. People who are brave enough to look...never sleep again.

The clawed hand began petting my stomach, teasing me, wanting to taunt and frightened me. I could even hear it laughing.

Sleep paralysis wasn't supposed to last as long as it was this time. The arm moved out of sight, then something disturbing happened. A figure lying on its stomach crawled on the wall as if it was a spider. I didn't see any head, just a pitch black body. The crackling noise increased as the body moved ever so slowly and gracefully across the wall.

Suddenly, the body stopped and the stem of a neck faced me. From the way its body turned from the wall in my direction, I knew it could see me. I wanted to get out of this so badly. I screamed over and over but the more I did, the more breath I lost. Praying wasn't getting me anywhere, either. To make matters worse, the figure fell flat onto the ground, making a loud thud sound as it hit the floor. And if things couldn't get any more disturbing, its body started rolling toward my bed like a big cluttered pile of dark body pieces. I saw its arm roll over its leg then fall off and reattach.

The thing thudded against my bed and I expected for it to just pop out at any moment. Then... the fear that every child thinks about had happened. An arm slowly reached from under the bed and toward my face.

"Violet?" this high-pitched little girl's voice had said. "Violet?" it said again, but this time the voice was grim, raspy, and didn't sound like a woman or man. It sounded like something that never should have entered the Earth.

My body began to loosen and I expected everything to disappear, but the hand stayed in the same place. I was engulfed in darkness once more and I knew there was something in the room. My body was free and I wanted to reach for the light behind me. What's worse? Turning on a light knowing something is waiting for you, or leaving it off?

I reached for the light, and as soon as I turned it on, someone whispered in my ear, close enough that I felt their hot breath. "You think you're alone, but we're here too," the voice said. I could not distinguish whether or not it was male or female. I screamed for my mother and she came running inside. I told her what happened and everyone checked the house. Of course, they found nothing. Of course, it was gone. Things always come and go when it comes to me. My mom couldn't help me with what had happened, but I made her promise to sleep in the same room with me from now on. That she could manage.