It happened at night—maybe yesterday, maybe this morning; I don't know the exact time, but it happened for real.
After my second dream, I tossed over and faced the window, drifting back toward sleep. Strangely, though, there was no dream. My eyes were shut solid, yet it felt as if a light was on; a bright glare was disturbing me. This was weird because I knew the room light was off. As usual, I ignored it.
Minutes later, I heard it: keys. They jungled and jangled as though someone was trying to open the door. I assumed it was my mom and ignored it, heavy with sleep. But the sound didn't go away. The keys continued to jangle, and I began to feel genuinely uneasy.
What if someone was trying to break in?
The thought terrified me. I tried to shout out, "Who's there?" but nothing came out. I struggled to move, but my body was unresponsive.
I was frozen with fear, paralyzed. I panicked, trying to convince myself it was just fear, a state of denial.
After a few minutes, the creepy jingles and jangles suddenly stopped. That creeped me out even more, because I thought maybe whoever was out there had gotten what they wanted. I was seriously scared at this point and didn't know what to do.
The light still shone brightly against my closed eyelids, and at this point, I was beyond annoyed. I finally snapped my eyes open and flipped myself over with a brutal burst of force so I could get up and switch off the light.
What happened next was the worst part: The room was pitch black.
And I saw it. It was dark, but I saw it. It was long and had messy hair and pale skin—at least, that's what I could make out in the gloom. Its gaze was haunting, its height intimidating. It wasn't truly tall, but it was tall enough to an unsettling degree. I met its gaze, and it met mine. It felt like hours before it raised its long arm and placed its disgustingly twisted nails on me.
And then, silence. I must have passed out from the shock, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up with its arms tangled around me. I couldn't breathe. This creature was releasing a smell worse than raw sewage—it was so bad I could have puked on the spot.
Slowly, the strange creature opened its mouth to speak.
It rasped one word: "M-m-m-mine."
The only sane thing left to do was scream. And at that exact moment, when I tried to draw breath for that scream, it placed a long, sticky tongue into my mouth. All of a sudden, we were French kissing.
"Help!"
I was in absolute agony, tears streaming down my face. Yet it seemed that the more I cried, the deeper and more intense the one-sided kiss became.
What did I do to deserve such pain?
Normally, at times like this, people give up on life. But for some reason, I did the opposite. I kissed it back!
I don't know why I did it; something deep down felt as if I had to. It truly doesn't make sense. But as soon as the kiss intensified, the creature's face suddenly changed. It was a grotesque transformation—imagine a clown's face run over fifty times by a truck, its features morphing like clay hitting pavement.
The repulsive kiss finally broke, and I yelled at the top of my lungs. The monster let out a sharp, shrill shriek in return.
It mumbled again, the voice a broken static: "I'll be back."
With that final promise, it lunged toward me, and everything went pitch black again.
This time, however, the darkness was different. It was a void, and memories flickered like distant film reels. At a distance, I saw a guy. He looked almost familiar, but I wasn't sure. I thought of moving forward to see who the hell that was, but I wasn't that stupid. I stayed put, but a cold shiver ran down my spine, and an icy fear crawled slowly into my chest. The human figure disappeared, and I stood alone in the empty void.
"Hopeless romantic."
Those words echoed around the void, mocking me.
Why him? Why was Martin here in this internal hellscape, causing me stress? He was just a normal crush, nothing special about it. It made no sense.
"You are mine."
Ahhhhh!!
The figure appeared right behind me. It was him! Martin! I squeezed my eyes shut, ranting like a maniac. "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
I jolted awake, my lungs burning, sucking in air as if I'd been drowned. I scrambled off the bed, a single thought hammering in my skull: light. I had to have light. I fumbled for the switch, my hand shaking so violently I missed it twice before the familiar click flooded the room with harsh, yellow clarity.
Drenched in a cold sweat, my body screamed with exhaustion, but the pain was a comfort—proof I was real. The night was dead still, the silence a deafening relief after the void's echo. My room, with its posters and books, was completely unchanged. Nothing was there. There were no claws, no stench of sewage, no mangled clown face.
Driven by a desperate need for solid ground, I crept down the corridor. My parents' door was ajar. I peeked in and saw them, sleeping soundly in their bed, perfectly safe, perfectly normal.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a chaotic drumbeat of relief and utter terror. Was it all just a dream? Had my mind simply manufactured the most terrifying, disgusting metaphor for my own romantic anxieties? But if it was, why did I still feel the phantom ache of twisted nails on my arm, and a nauseating taste lingering on my tongue? The answers were a far more terrifying darkness than the one I had just woken from.
