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Sleep Attacks

An Experience of a Life Time

By Alyce CranePublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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For as long as I can remember I have had bad night experiences. My name is Asher and I’m writing these experiences down before I lose the memory holding them. The earliest experience I can remember was when I was three years old living in Kansas. I was sound asleep in my pastel blue room with my Scooby-Doo night light by the door. The little three-year-old me was all snuggled under a fish covered blanket. I don’t remember what exactly woke me from my dream, but I remember the man at my door. His shoulders were wide, and he resembled a shadow. The pure fear that flooded over me and the vulnerability I felt when I tried to move and scream but couldn’t. I felt hopeless and every night he’d get closer. The panic I felt seemed to increase each night that he would move closer. I’d always close my eyes and just wait until the sun would peek into my room.

After a while, they would quit, and I’d start forgetting about the man. A few days during Christmas break of my sophomore year the attacks came back. My room over the years changed from pastel blue to an unusual calm blue with posters of my favorite bands that I would find in magazines. My Scooby-Doo night light was trashed by age six. As I slept under my black, fluffy cover, the sudden fear I felt as a small child reappeared. The helpless feeling overwhelming me as the ability to move was taken from me. My muscles tensed and I slowly started to panic as I failed to try to calm myself. All I could move was my eyes, and they seemed to drift towards my door. Standing there in the doorway was the shadow man, who I later named the Dark Passenger. I closed my eyes and prayed that he was not there when I open my eyes. The softest touch started on my cheek and slowly moved over my body. When the Dark Passenger got to my ankle, he tightened his grip. He whispered, “If only my grip was around your neck, Asher.” I had started to cry as his grip felt too tight that my mind instantly told me my ankle was broken. Keeping my eyes closed tight as the tears dripped out from the corners, I had finally fallen asleep as the sun rose in the sky.

Just like before, my nights of pure terror subsided for a little while and by the time they returned I was in college. From Kansas to Texas by now, my dorm was small and every space was meant for something. After a long day of school plus work, I had barely any time for sleep. One night though, I didn’t have classes and I took off work. Sleeping in my bed and listening to the soft, soothing music, my mind wondering around my memories. My mind stopped on my Dark Passenger and how helpless I felt laying there in my bed, not able to move. It had puzzled me when I had thought about my mysterious shadow man. The way he stood arms and legs evenly proportioned and evenly spread, it was like he knew me in a way. As I thought about him and what he had whispered that night I shouldn’t have laid there helpless. Just when my mind wondered onto something different that childish fear set in. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself he wasn’t there and that it was just my mind playing tricks, it got worse. Voices all around me whispered my name and grazing their fingers over my skin sending chills up my spine. The Dark Passenger’s grip on my ankle once more following with something new. A sudden pain sears into the side of my leg and pain along with tears fell from my body. The pain felt like someone was drilling into my leg slowly and painfully. Sweat pours from every pore on my skin. By morning, my sheets looked like someone threw a bucket of water over me, panting heavily as I try making sense of what had happened.

Years went by before my last well-known attack. I had a wife and a little boy, and also I had a beautiful country home out in Texas. My wife was on my left and to the right was the wall of my child’s room. I, Asher, had laid there listening to the soft snores of my beloved wife. I had thought about my boy and how he was having nightmares of a shadow man, who I had named the Dark Passenger. Thinking about how my boy described him reminded me of me as a kid. My fear suddenly returned as I thought of how I cursed my own flesh and blood with the sudden attacks. Whispers in my eyes started once more along with my wife’s screams of pain and agony. My head refused to turn as the screams became louder and my wife slowly died. At the door, the Dark Passenger stood at the door holding my once alive son. Blood splattered over his Scooby-Doo pajamas and some squirted from the clean slice across his neck. I had cried, frozen in place as I stared at my dead son until the sun was high in the sky.

I, Asher, was convicted of the murder of my wife and son. A psychologist issued me into a mental institute and to be given electroshock therapy. I don’t know how but the Dark Passenger killed my family. He visits on occasions. Although each time he shows up he tries to finish the job. The job is to kill me, and he has to do it before I figure him out. I miss my wife and son. Their lives will be avenged whether I live or die.

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