You wake up in hazy, hot darkness beneath your comforter. There is a sound coming from somewhere in your room. It is the sound of a foot, shifting positions. It is soft, but heavy, as if someone tall is trying not to make any noise. You go through your list. Your roommate. But he is gone until Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. And why would he come into your room unless it was an emergency. Your girlfriend, but you saw her last night at her place and then left. Sometimes she comes here to shower after the gym, which could be it. Very quietly, you turn your wrist towards your face. It glows green, illuminating the time: 3:32 a.m. So yeah. Your girlfriend would not be coming from the gym at this time. Your cat. But she didn’t sound like that. Plus, she is a very vocal cat, and has never not yowled at you when she wants to come on your bed. So not her, either.
A step, a creak. You inhale and try to hold it, but know you are going to have to exhale soon. Another step, another creak. You turn your head slightly to the right and see that there is a small gap in the covers where you can see your bedside lamp. You are not sure if it is better to be able to see something or nothing. You decide to leave it.
There have been five steps, and now you can feel it standing by the side of your bed. Your comforter is thick and dark—dark enough to obscure any shadows. You hear a guttural groaning, like something coming out of a sick, bleeding throat. A metallic sound.
Then it is on the bed. You are on the far left side, and it is on the right, but you can feel the indentation of the mattress. You hear a shuffling of the sheets and part of the comforter is pushed into your body as it crawls up the bed. This takes a very long time, you think. Why is it crawling so slowly? And the groaning all the while. Then it stops, abruptly, as does the groaning. It is a few inches from your body. It is hot under these covers. Not easy to breathe little shallow, quiet breaths. Then, unmistakably, you hear the sound of a tongue licking skin. Not fur, not feathers. Raw skin. This continues for thirty seconds. You count.
Then a shift, and it climbs awkwardly onto your shape. It is not as heavy as you were anticipating. In fact, its frame is rather small compared to yours. It sits in the way a dog sits, on all fours. But you remember the way it was standing, the way it sounded like it was on two feet. You tilt your head to the right and try to see something, but it’s directly on top of you now, you won’t be able to see anything.
You count two minutes. You are still able to breathe, and are sure that it can feel you breathing. It doesn’t seem to mind, though. You just have to wait this out. Then outside the window, you hear a piercing screech, like a hawk, but more human. The shape on top of you twitches, whimpers, then climbs off, and as it does you feel distinctly a human hand, or at least human-like, with long fingers, on your shoulder. It gallops to the end of the bed, there is a loud thud, then you hear it back on the hardwood floor, footsteps retreating, and then the door closes behind it.
You lift the covers up and look. The light in your room is blue.There are clumps of dirt smeared on the covers. You peer over the side of the bed to see if there are footprints. Nothing. Only more dirt. You look up to the ceiling and take a few deep, shaky breaths. You let yourself drift back into the comforting abyss of sleep, where nothing can harm you, because the strangest things happen when you are awake.
