I can’t really trace when it started anymore. I’ve just gotten used to it. Sort of…
Every night, every damn night, right when I’m about to fall asleep, some… thing… shows up. You may write it off as just some anxious teenager having a crippling case of sleep paralysis, I would totally understand it. I have no evidence of my claims other than my own scarred, traumatized mind…
When the monster harms me, it HURTS. Most people would pass out immediately if they felt a fraction of the pain from my wounds. However, I’m sure the reason this pain doesn’t immediately put me under is because this monster chooses so.
I went for months without knowing what caused this pain. Doctors and health practitioners couldn’t pinpoint a specific cause. Sleeping pills wouldn’t help me sleep any better. It had already been a few months of my “poor sleep” and I had no idea what was behind it. For a while, I chalked it up to some form of anxiety disorder or some such, since those pains were always accompanied by memories of things I regret doing. Not necessarily just wrong things, but also embarrassing situations. Maybe it was stress from an overwhelming university?
The day I figured out what was going on was just an awfully exhausting one, between studying for incoming engineering tests and a lot more responsibility for an overworked intern than what he signed up for. It was just the day where I wanted to lie down as soon as I got home, even if I was dreading sleep.
I didn’t even turn on my lights, just threw my backpack on the floor and lied down on my bed, face to the ceiling. I thought my exhaustion would be enough to sleep tight… how wrong I was. I immediately felt my heart race as what felt like a few sharp tips slowly ripping through my flesh. I didn’t dare open my eyes for a while until I felt a pull… a literal tug of my heartstrings, if you will.
As I felt something being removed from my body, I couldn’t help but open my now teary eyes. Amidst the darkness of my room, I finally saw it… I will never forget the rusted out metal teeth smiling at the sight of my now removed heart. Its equally rusty nails clutching it gently, as though this apparition had found the most precious gemstone in the world. Its dark, red-ish eyes, which seemed to hold a hypnotizing gaze upon my spirit, keeping me awake and very much aware of the pain that was being inflicted upon me.
I was sure that my life would just end at that moment. However, just as I thought of that, the thing seemed to catch on to my mind’s contents and laughed in a distorted high-pitched noise, piercing my ears and disorienting my view briefly. Then, it tightened its grip on my heart. Memories of my failed day at work overwhelmed my thoughts. Such memories had a little something different, though. A voice. A faint one that kept saying “worthless”, “useless”. It kept getting louder until that hellish laugh disrupted my mind and brought me back to that thing’s grasp. It violently stuffed my heart back inside, laughing as stuff around me blurred until I finally passed out.
When I came to my senses, I removed my shirt desperately to see the damage and… nothing. I should’ve expected as such. Maybe it was just a nightmare…? As I came to find out a few days later, when I fell asleep face up again, that wasn’t the case. That time, the thing was accompanied by these dark tendrils that held my arms in place. I kept struggling to move, to no avail, until a smell of rusted iron overwhelmed my senses. My throat felt scratchy, as if it was burning from the monster’s breath in the air. Then, it bit my face off, making me feel like someone was skinning me with a goddamn potato peeler. I remembered a time at school when people used to make fun of my uncommonly asymmetrical smile and my irregular teeth shape.
Since those two apparitions, I always made sure to never sleep on my back again. I freeze just imagining this damn monster staring my down with its freezing gaze. Every night though, I can feel it ripping my heart apart, making me relive my worst memories. My deepest regrets… The thing loves torturing me. I saw it in its face, and I hear its satisfaction every night. It knows I can’t resist at all. It enjoys its time thoroughly. And it sure takes longer every day to get its enjoyment.
No occultists or religious people could help me either. No exorcists, nothing. I once had enough and tried swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills, hoping I would FINALLY rest. The monster had other plans, though. It violently ripped the pills right out of my stomach and tightened its nails around my neck. I felt them pierce my throat and hinder my ability to speak. Or scream…
As I fought for a whimper, the monster growled: “I decide when your punishment is over…!” Then it made me remember a time, many years ago, when I was 13. I told my mother to disappear from my life after shouting and arguing about her ex husband, my father. …a day before a truck hit her car, right on the driver’s door. Luckily she survived, but the memory has been deeply traumatic for me. We learned to listen to each other better from that day forward, but I still blamed myself for her accident. And this fucking monster knew it. As it does my every regret.
I found the bloodied pills by my bed the next day. It’s pretty obvious that I now dread sleeping. I tried everything to make the monster go away, to be unchained from its torturing ways. To be free of this overwhelming… guilt. I would do anything to just get a simple night of decent sleep. I would do anything to never feel my heart being torn up every night. Anything to turn these sleepless nights into nothing more than a distant memory.
I would gladly do anything to not see this monster every time I look at myself in the mirror…