Short Story Saturday: Sleep

SLEEP

My eyes fluttered open. Vision still blurry from the deep sleep that had consumed me. Was it the door closing that woke me?

The strange sensation that someone's eyes watched me filled my body, and the hairs on my arms began to raise. A shadow came into my view, and my body stiffened. As I focused my eyes, the shadow became familiar.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be out of town until next Wednesday?" I asked, my voice still rough with sleep.

"We got back early," he said.

"Oh," was all I managed as I rolled to my side to let sleep reclaim me, content with his answer.

The bed gave under his weight as he crawled onto it. I felt him hovering over me. His warm lips brushed my neck. I'd not been sleeping well that week, so the fact that I had actually been in a deep sleep, for once, before his coming in had wakened me, made me groan in protest. His advances furthered, flicking his tongue back and forth over my earlobe. It felt so right, but something about it was wrong. I rolled to lie on my back, giving into him. His tongue continued to flicker in and out of his mouth, sliding over my skin, and running across my cheek before stopping on the bridge of my nose. As it had glided across my cheek, I felt how narrow and long it was, but it was only when his tongue hit my nose did I notice it ended with two points.

My eyes went wide. Adjusting quicker to the dark than normal, I saw that this thing was not the person I thought it was. Its flesh was alabaster. The irises of its eyes were a milky maroon.

The breath caught in my throat, no matter how much I wanted to scream. I froze as he—no, it—straddled me, pinning me to the bed.

"You look surprised," it hissed. "I guess, I'm not who you were expecting. This will only take a minute, and then it will all be over."

Its hands went to my neck; thumbs resting on either side of my throat, and its fingers wrapped around to the back, resting under my hair. The nails from its fingers grew and began to bury themselves just below the base of my skull.

Pain shot through my body, and the scream that was trapped in my throat finally erupted from my mouth.

I sat straight up in bed, gasping and fighting for air. A faint whisper filled my ears as my eyes opened for what seemed to be the second time from a deep sleep.

"You have to sleep, sometime, and you will. When you least expect it, I'll be back to take what I came for."



*This story is included in my Flash-Fiction collection 'Images From a Wandering Mind', and it's also in the WPaD's horror anthology 'Creepies 3: Nightmares on Deviant Street', which partial proceeds go toward MS research.