SUN OF THE NIGHT

Chapter One

Her class has always been like this; Boring, uninteresting, noisy, and uncoordinated. Nevertheless, she still goes about her casual business of holding the public address system (PAS) close to her mouth with her left hand while she uses her right hand to gesticulate whatever she is saying of which no one can make much out of. Unlike the previous classes, I am unable to fight the perpetual drowsiness in her class, I give in to the temptation of sleep... After all, it doesn't hurt to sleep where there is hardly anything to gain.
"This Demon of mine will not allow me to do anything in peace, even sleep."I am about to say when I realize that I have actually been sleeping for the past twenty minutes without any interruption, not even the after class student's applause is enough to rouse me from sleep, I won't blame the applause though... It is usually according to the class, the class was dull as usual and the applause was definitely feeble as usual.
I think it is the Ajal that shakes me awake, but, it isn't the Demon. It is Nina.

When I was little, around five or so I think. I used to dream a lot, dreams I later learned to be nightmares as I grow. Whenever I had the dreams, I used to run to my parent's room in fright; for comfort, assurance, or probably a lullaby to lure me to sleep again. But their room was always locked, firmly locked. On those nights, I banged my little fingers against the door and produce feeble knocks.
Maybe they would've heard if not for the voices and noises that always vibrated through the walls and the firmly locked door. Sometimes, the noise was physical, moving from one part of the room to the other, turning tables over. And shouts, mostly feminine, crying and fighting. And I would leave their door for my room. Maybe if I had known, I would have stayed and said some 'stop' and 'sorry'; but then, my presence was never noticed even if I waited till morning.
And then on one of such nights, after the nightmare and the usual charade of the moving noise in their room, I felt cold and started shivering. I banged my whole body on their door, again, and again, but as usual, they didn't notice my presence. I ran to my brother's room, it was bigger and empty just like my sister's—they were away in the dormitory of a boarding school.

And I went to my room to hide under the blanket, but the shivering only got worse and then I closed my eyes and saw a moving body. I opened my eyes wide in a flip and the body had grown hands and legs. I screamed and ran around the room. But the creature did not disappear, instead, it grew a head with horn and long black fingernails and toes and followed me around the room, when I screamed, it screamed back at me - it was so loud, vibrating and reiterating, it's roar swallowed my tiny voice and its face hunted my sight. Each step he took shook my room and my hand left my ears to hold on to the wall in order to save my pitiful self from falling.

I woke up the following morning on a strange bed in a strange room with a piercing pain in my forehead which I soon knew to be a headache. Mom was beside me and Dad stood at the door briefly after which he disappeared. They told me I passed out during the night, I wanted to tell them about the creature but it appeared again and I shut my mouth and eyes. I shut my eyes and opened my mouth to tell them but I saw him clearly in my head; this time, laughing and reverberating. So I decided to keep mute again.

I stayed home that day and did not go to school, Mom stayed with me without going to work, but yet, I couldn't tell her that it had a nose too and on his head was a pack of clumsy yellow hair with black above the yellow and grey above the black, like a burning fire and its flames.
Just as Mom had stayed with me, he too had stayed with me. And whenever Mom stepped out or retired to her room, it spoke to me and I scream; Mom would return and it would also return. When I wouldn't stop screaming and couldn't tell what was making me tear my throat, Mom returned me to the hospital - but that time, it was a clinical psychologist that attended to me, they said I was hallucinating. They gave me an injection and some drugs and I stopped seeing it, instead, I was seeing dark stars in a huge white cloud. By the time I left the hospital the second time, my hands were shaking for the things left unsaid and my throat was sore and burning for the screams I muffled.