I’ve been debating back and forth with myself whether to tell anyone about this. On one hand, I may sound like an absolute lunatic and be ridiculed by my friends and family for years to come. On the other hand, if I happen to die a terrible death within the next few days at least someone will know why. So, my compromise with my indecisive brain is to write about it on Reddit for anonymous strangers to read. At least that way I know someone out there is listening.
I guess I’ll get right to it. Last night, my husband scared the shit out of me. Jason and I have been married for two years now and I know that sounds like nothing, but I think him and I really got this whole spending our life together thing down. We tell each other everything, we’ve never had an issue with communication and we genuinely want the other person around all the time. The thing about Jason is that he’s always talked in his sleep. Sometimes he’ll sleepwalk while he’s talking, but he never goes too far. Mostly he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and think he needs to put his shoes on for work. He’ll start rummaging around the closest in his underwear before I lead him back to bed and remind him that it’s 3 AM on a Saturday. It’s always been kind of a morning routine for me to describe his antics over breakfast in the morning, but this time…it was different. We both went to bed pretty early, neither of us are morning people so we try to get as much sleep as possible before hearing the shrill tone of his alarm. I remember being half asleep and hearing Jason mumbling to himself as usual. I perked up and zoned in on what he was saying so that I could have a funny story to make our morning that much more bearable. That’s when I realized it sounded like he was talking to someone.
Jason: “I can’t do that, you know that I can’t”
Then he paused, like he was listening to a response.
Jason: “I can’t…”
He paused again here, but only for about two seconds.
Jason: “because she’s awake and she’s listening”
When I heard this my blood turned ice cold. I hadn’t even moved an inch when I woke up, so how could he possibly have known I was awake? Besides, he could have meant anyone, he was dreaming after all. But it was the way he said it that got to me. I have never heard that much contempt in my husband’s voice before. He practically spit out the words like he could taste them and they disgusted him. While I was internally freaking out and trying to control my breathing, I felt something strange. I swear, it felt like the entire atmosphere in the bedroom had changed. The temperature dropped about ten degrees and I felt the air shift like something was moving from my husband’s side of the bed. There wasn’t any sound, but I’ve never been so sure that there was something else in the room. Suddenly, my husband shifted next to me and turned his body towards me. At this point my entire body had gone completely stiff and I begged my pulse to slow down just a little bit. The pounding of my own blood in my ears was so loud I was sure my husband could hear it. I felt the air shift right next to my back, which was facing the wall. The air around me felt almost frigid and through sheer will I was able to control my bodies’ instinctive urge to shiver. My brain couldn’t help but conjure up images of someone or something standing over me. That’s when I noticed how quiet the room had become. We live off a busy street in a highly populated city, so no matter what time it is there’s always some sort of traffic noise or people walking by the park across the street.
I decided the only thing I could do was peek at my husband. If his eyes were closed and he was peacefully sleeping, then I’d probably just overreacted and was being a completely paranoid dingus (one of my husband’s favorite pet names for me, we weren’t the cutesy name type). I focused all my attention on opening my eyelids the tiniest bit, just enough to have a silver of a view, but not enough for anyone to know that I was even seeing anything at all. As my vision adjusted to the darkness I saw that my husband’s eyes were closed and I almost let out a long winded sigh of relief before my vision drifted down to his mouth. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was spread in the most horrible grin I’d ever seen. He was smiling so big that the skin around his mouth looked taut and strained. I quickly shut my eyes and prepared myself to run full-speed towards the bedroom door that lay an insurmountable four feet from the bed.
Then all of a sudden, it was like the sounds and comforts of my bedroom snapped back into place. I heard the wind rustling through the trees outside, a garbage truck sounded like it was finishing tossing my neighbor’s trash into the back and the temperature returned to the cozy 65 that I always set the thermostat at before bed. I no longer felt the undeniable presence of something standing over me. I peaked at my husband again and his face was as serene as always, with the characteristic small puddle of drool on the sheets below his mouth. I willed my body to roll over and look at the other side of the room where my back had been facing, but there was nothing but the hamper filled with laundry I kept promising myself I would do.
It’s safe to say that I had trouble getting back to sleep that night and by the time my husband’s alarm finally went off I was so exhausted that I couldn’t be sure that I didn’t just have a psychotic episode or dreamt the whole thing. I waited for my husband to finish his shower before getting up and following him to the kitchen. I couldn’t stop myself from spilling every word before he had even sat down with his coffee. He cut my off before I’d even finished and walked over to stroke my hair and press my face into his freshly washed stomach. “Honey, you remember those sleeping pills that doctor prescribed last week listed “Lucid dreams” as one of the side effects. It was just a dream, my sweetheart” he cooed as he patted my head. In that moment I knew that I couldn’t pursue this any further. I gulped down my coffee and busied myself in living room until he left for work.
I went upstairs to get started on that laundry and was in the process of taking off the bed sheets when I noticed something next to my husband’s side of the bed. It was a blackish green substance and it smelled disgusting, but had a sickly saccharine undertone to it. It was an odor that I couldn’t stop smelling, but it made me cringe every time it hit my nostrils. I ran down to get my phone to take a picture, but when I got back it wasn’t there anymore. All I know is that the substance’s form reminded me of the long claw marks my mother’s cat used to leave on the side of the couch when she’d get angry at my mother for not feeding her.
I’ve been sitting in my living room with the television on full volume and absorbing nothing. Jason will be home from work in the next three hours and I have no idea what I’m going to do, or if it’s worth it to even bring it up to him. Something about the way he dismissed my concerns this morning so easily…and the fact that Jason has never called me “sweetheart” in the entire eight years I’ve known him.