Hello, this may sound insane at first but please hear me out. I have type 2 narcolepsy and every time I fall asleep I deal with sleep paralysis. That’s not the bad part and to be honest it’s something you kind of get used to you know? Anyways, my dreams have shifted from sleep paralysis to painful nightmares. The only strange thing about this is when I wake up I have some sort of strange injury. Albeit a cut, scratch, bruise, etc.
For the past few nights, I have been forced to keep myself awake since the last time I slept I … almost died. Let me take this back to the begging of the month when this first started happening and maybe one of you knows something I can do…
On the 3rd of July, I was at a friend’s house who needed to move. His name was Wesley and he needed help to move furniture. Well, we worked at it all day and I just decided to stay the night there so we can get up and continue in the morning. I grabbed my pillow and blanket out of the trunk of my car and crashed on the couch for the night. It’s always strange to me when I sleep at someone’s home because everything is … different. The smells, lighting, and even color just leave an unfamiliar tune in my head.
As I was drifting off to sleep I was expecting my sleep paralysis demon to come and mess with me as it does every night. But that night I had an actual dream with nothing to fear… well so I thought at the moment. In my dream, I was in n empty white void floating around and seeing words come and go out of existence. Things I recognize were places I’ve been to and the food I’ve eaten. Some of these seemingly random words were unrecognizable and in a different language. Not sure how I was thinking of these things but it still happened. I kept floating in the endless blank space until I saw it.
A small classroom with other people sitting in chairs. At the end of the classroom and sitting at the desk was a tall man. He had no color as his whole body was black and white kind of like an old tv set. His face was blurred out with the color bars from a tv… you know the ones that are for calibrating tv sets. Anyways, I slowly drifted to the classroom but not by choice. I landed on a chair and the tall figure stood up and spoke. It sounded like tv static and mixed with the old radio voices from the 40s.
“Good morning class! Today we have a new arrival! Stand up and introduce yourself Tyler.” The radio man spoke in a loud and painful tone. Without thinking my body forced me to stand up and I started to speak. It was as if the words were… more or less being pulled out of me against my will. “Hello, My name is Tyler and I am new to this place. I can’t wait to learn.” I was then forced to sit back down as the tall man spoke again.
“We’re all glad you decided to finally show up Tyler. You see we have been waiting for you for years! Welcome to the Bleeding Edge. An empty void of nothing but words and this one classroom in which I teach people. I am simply known as The Tutor.” His words shook my soul although I felt no animosity from him. Each word he spoke got louder and louder until my ears started to ring and bleed. The pain was insane and it felt so real… like If I were to stay any longer I would just pop like a hot balloon. I covered my ears in a feeble attempt to silence the tutor.
I kept looking around in a panic to see if I can get out… the only thing I saw was the other people who were there were also bleeding from their ears. However, they were all staring at me and smiling so much that the flesh at the corner of their mouths was tearing and their eyes were not white or colored but were just tv static. Out of nowhere, I was able to stand up and I started to run out of the room. With each step I took another meter was added to the length of the classroom. It just kept getting longer and longer. After running for what felt like a year in my mind I was able to jump off the edge of the room and back into the blank page that was the “Bleeding Edge”. I lay in the vast emptiness of this space floating downward. At this point, my ears stopped ringing and I was finally able to think.
It wasn’t long until I looked down and noticed that I was floating in the same classroom I saw before. The Tutor was standing there looking at me as I floated down. When I landed he grabbed my arm so tightly I can feel my arm bones shatter. When I tried to yell my mouth was suddenly erased by The Tutor. He used a rubber eraser to remove my mouth… I wanted to run and escape but he had other plans. “Now class, what do we do if someone runs away? That’s right we punish them for being bad.” At this point, the other students stood up and were reaching out to me while laughing. I could feel the first one scratch my back and this woke me up from the dream.
I sat up screaming and in a cold sweat. I felt so real that I patted my body down to check all my parts. Everything was normal thankfully. I sighed in relief thinking “it was just a nightmare”. As I said this silently I heard my friend say “Hey you ok man?” I jumped a little not knowing it was him at first. I looked at him while holding my chest “Y-yea I think so. Just had a really bad dream”. Wesley looked at me with a smirk. “Pro tip: Try not doing that next time” We both had a short laugh and he asked if I wanted to go somewhere to eat. “Hell yea! I’m still hungry from last night” We both were making our way to the door when Wesely stopped me. “Hey man… your back is bleeding. Did you get hurt yesterday?” In an instant, a wave of fear and dread washed over me like a commanding tide. I tried to play it cool and said “Uh, yea I just didn’t wanna bug you” I laughed and didn’t want to tell him that a fucking dream hurt me. “Well go take a shower and change out man you can’t go out with dry blood on you” I just agreed and walked to the bathroom.
I stepped inside the shower and let the warm water flow over my chest and back. I felt a sting of pain as the water rushed on my back. In my head, I could still hear his voice as if he was mocking me. “Good morning class! Today we will watch this man break down psychologically. Aren’t my stories so fun class?” His words rang in my head louder than anything I’d heard before. It was painful as if my mind was trying to process information outside of human understanding. My brain felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t help but cry in pain. I closed my eyes and covered my ears while curling up. It was then a flash of white light appeared and when I opened my eyes all of the sounds and pain were gone. I could hear my friend yelling and asking if I was ok.
“Yea just having an issue with this back pain. Maybe I should just go home man I can help you move the rest of the stuff tonight” He could tell I wasn’t ok but he agreed. I got out of the shower and looked at my back and the scratches were really deep but at least they weren’t bleeding. It looks like something drug a knife down my back. I put my shirt back on and got into my car and drove home. When I got home I went straight to my bed and laid down. I was so exhausted that I thought I needed to sleep… which was a mistake.
After I drifted off to sleep I woke up in the same classroom in the vast white space in which it floated. The Tutor was standing there looking at me and said “You’re late. Do you know what we do to tardy students? We punish them.” Chains came out of thin air and pinned me down so tightly I couldn’t move. One of the “students” rose out of their seat and walked toward me stopping just in front of the desk I was restrained in. The kid leaned toward my hand and opened its maw revealing sharp and jagged teeth. I couldn’t stop looking into its tv static eyes as it closed its mouth around my pinky finger. I could feel the teeth of this creature pierce my skin. muscle and bone. They took a long time cutting into my finger and gnawing it off.
Blood sprayed like a fountain of crimson mist. The smell of iron was in the air and I was in shock. My ears started to ring and all I could hear was my heart beating and my breath as I stared into the place where my pinky once was. The tutor looked at me and try speaking to me but I ended up blanking out. The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor in a puddle of blood. My pinky didn’t hurt but it was gone…
I remembered what The Tutor asked of me. “Write a story and tell them about me… bring more to my class so I can feast on their stories.” I… I doomed you all at least I warned you… The class is in session.