Don't Close Your Eyes; and other short horror stories

Sleep

You lay there.

Your eyes are heavy.

Though as a click rings through your room, you second guess your wish to fall asleep. You can hear your closet door click open.

Nightmares, legends and dreams fill your senses.

The monster in your closet.

The boogeyman.

Legends of horrors that still confine you to your bed.

You're too afraid to fall asleep.

You can hear a dainty footstep press into your carpet floor.

Every image floods your head.

Ghosts. Demons, monsters alike.

Those pictures keep you trapped beneath the covers.

You're too afraid to let your eyelids fall.

If you close your eyes you close your senses.

Pushing yourself from reality.

You lose the ability to fight and scream.

Dreams are not reality.

If you are to fall asleep, you are left vulnerable.

From knives and guns and monsters and madness.

Everything that could hurt you.

You lose the urge to fight for your life. To save yourself from danger.

And so you lay.

Waiting as time ticks past.

Your eyelids growing heavier.

Until finally.

They fall.

You are too afraid to fall asleep.

But you're eyes shut anyways.