Page 86 of The Fallen
My eyes flew open.
He was where he had been, but his arm was out. His hand placed over mine. A mostly human hand with knuckles and skin and--what the hell was happening?!
For some reason, this scared me more than anything else. I didn't understand and I wanted to shout.
What the hell do you want with me?!fought to come through my lungs but a guttural, scratchy groan broke free instead.
And then, with a startled blink. It was all gone.
I still couldn't move, but the demon, or whatever, he was gone...
"And you thinkyou couldfeelyour sleep paralysis demon touching you?"
I grimaced at my therapist's voice coming through the line. She'd called me five minutes after I'd sent her that panicked message first thing in the morning. Of course, that had given me five minutes to wash my face and have a sip of coffee and now I was strongly regretting my dramatic cry for help.
"I don't know," I groaned. "Maybe it was just something else."
"It could have been your blanket, Jay," she suggested. "There are a lot of ways your mind plays tricks on you when you're having these issues."
"Do you think sleeping pills would help?" I asked. "I feel like I haven't slept in a year."
"You know they usually make it worse," she reminded me. "Listen, I'm going to book you in for Friday. You can do your lunch break again, right?"
I nodded and then remembered that I was on the phone.
"Yes. That works."
"In the meantime, get out of the house, okay? Don't obsess over it. Go to bed early. Don't spend too much time on your phone. No drinking or medication."
"Got it," I said, too tired to tell her that I had been religiously doing all of that already.
We said our goodbyes and I sat at the breakfast table feeling completely drained.
This had to end somehow. I couldn't take losing much more sleep. I was exhausted and work was suffering for it.
Still, I managed to clock in on time and go through the morning meetings. Marketing from home was fine and all, but it was hard to get motivation as it was. Then when my boss wanted a private meeting to discuss my productivity, I couldn't even muster an excuse, only apologizing and promising to do better.
Which I did. Motivated to, you know, not lose my job on top of all of this, I managed to focus on work, not even giving myself the time to obsess over it. And after work, I took a walk down to the library and managed to lose myself browsing the sci-fi section until I ended up at my favorite café with a new book to read.
All in all, it was an okay day, but it felt like there was a shadow over it and I could only admit it when I ended up stepping into my bedroom to go to bed.
I paused in the open doorway, looking at my bed, then at the window he often appeared in front of.
"Why the hell did you want to hold my hand?" I asked aloud.
Then, laughing as I climbed into bed, I couldn't help but add, "You lonely?"
It felt so ridiculous suddenly.
As I pulled the covers around myself, I shook my head. I was being fully stalked by a figment of my imagination at this point. Mistaking blankets for someone's skin, and tricks of the light for a person watching me.
A chill suddenly shot down my spine and for a moment I couldn't breathe.
How the hell would I mistake a blanketfor someone's skin?How when I had felt the heat of his palm?
Now that I was laying here, the rational of the daytime seemed even more preposterous than the mystery of what had happened last night. Of what might happen again once I drifted to sleep.
Swallowing, I tried to force myself to relax.
