...Hunted...

I wanted to put the title as 'Haunted'...but it wasn't just that... I felt so helpless... I can still remember screaming...

I'm still trembling...when I should be asleep...

I was sleeping, not for very long. About an hour, an hour and a half maybe. But it wasn't peaceful and there was something with me... Something that wouldn't let me wake up.

I haven't had a night terror in a Very long time. Not just any kind of night Terror (My Version of a True Nightmare) it wasn't just my brain playing a nasty trick on me... There some Thing Hunting Me...

I thought I was Awake. I was literally Conscious, knowing I was lying face down in my bed (which is how I started to dose off) but I sensed something was wrong. I'm not kidding, I was Not asleep. This was not sleep paralysis either. Some thing was fucking with me... I don't know how...

One minute I'm awake, it's my room, my bed... But the room was darker then it should've been. I have excellent night vision (possibly better then most) and there's enough light bleeding into my room that I can see everything in shades of rich blues and grays. So when I peered into my room and realized that the colors were slowly being swallowed by a Black Mass that seemed to spread out all around me like ink poured into a glass of water... I knew I wasn't awake, but I wasn't in the safety of my Own Dreams.

I was pulled somewhere else... A place I never willingly go.

It's not real... It's this eerie realm of consciousness just between sleep and awake. Where I'm suddenly a Rat within a well constructed maze...and I have no affect on anything around me. It's the place this Thing likes to Hunt me...

It makes it seem safe, as if I'm Lucid Dreaming... Everything has a crisp quality, but it's too crisp. Like watching an old movie in extreme HD; it looks so very real, but you know something is very wrong...that it's not what it appears.

Usually I can catch on to what's about to happen, and I'm able to rip myself away from that place before that Black Mass can find me.

This time... *has to force down the solid lump of terror from the back of her throat as her heart hammers within her chest*...I wasn't that lucky.

As my room became as black as pitch, I felt strong hands grab harshly at my waist, unnaturally long fingers Pinching bruises into my skin, just over my hip bones... *shifts uncomfortably at the sting on the left side of her hip bone, the flesh still tender* I jerked away from the assault and felt those hands DIG into my hip bones and now I'm literally bruised from it (I'm not making this up, I'm actively leaning more to my right because of it as I sit here and type this all out).

I knew it wasn't My Dream. I knew I was thrown into that horrible place where I have no control. I was completely Aware of my surroundings and couldn't get myself back into my body. I tested this by sitting up and when my top bunk didn't hit my head, I felt my skin grow cold and tried to curl up into a ball with my sheets tangled around me. The Black just ahead of me seemed to be alive and filled with hatred. I couldn't get away from it... I was trapped.

I felt someone trying to break into that terrible place, someone trying to protect me. I started calling out his name, my voice rising in pitch with every frantic breath... But the more I called out to him, the more those skeletal hands bit into my flesh...

I was rocking back and forth, my eyes clenched tightly shut, repeating his name like a Mantra because I could feel him trying to break through, trying to come and save me from this Thing attacking me... But I was helpless, surrounded in this fog of black and as soon as I felt him there, I was thrown into a different place... 

It looked like my home, but I knew it wasn't. It was too dark, the night was too black...and too still. There was no sound, no life. Not even white noise. Just a void made to appear like I was somewhere familiar and safe. But I knew otherwise...and felt that cold panic begin to crawl up my spine.

I crept to the hallway and tried to focus into the shadows that consumed my vision, and realized there was a door slowly coming into view, as if it was being formed out of nothing. When it finally materialized, I could hear a faint sound coming from the other side and felt the fine hairs on the back of my neck bristle and stand on end.

I went to take a step forward but caught myself when the sound registered in my brain. It was supposed to sound like a baby crying... But just beneath the sound was something else... It wasn't a baby... Babies don't sound like that...

...Nothing Human sounds like that.

My body was already moving when I started Screaming out to my Dad down the hallway toward his room. I could hear him faintly, as if he were so very far away... "Dad get up!" I called out in terror, hoping that door wouldn't open behind me and unleash the Thing that was waiting for me...

He answered but it was so very faint... And that hallway just seemed to go on forever and I didn't know if I would make it in time... 

I could feel It behind me and that horrific crying echoing somewhere within the darkness...

That's when I suddenly snapped awake, trembling and had to fling myself out of bed, my hips aching as if someone had been punching me and stumbled out into the living room... To find that my Father was awake...and I was no longer trapped in that horrible place between sleep and awake.

I'm terrified to go back into my room. I don't want to go anywhere near my bed. Not yet... It's only been an hour now, but I can still hear that monstrous crying... I can still feel that icy dread coursing through me. 

Thankfully I don't have to work until 4:30pm... 

*shudders and takes a steadying breath* I just hope that when I do finally calm down, I won't be Hunted again... And I'll dream.

-Anon

[Side Note; Originally written at 2:25am, had several Strange computer issues and was forced to Finally finish it close to 5:30am]