It was just a usual night like any other. I walk home, eat dinner, get ready for bed, and sleep. My mother always said that I had a gifted mind, the kind that could imagine a cure for cancer. That’s not what college thought though. I was still pushing forward on the tipping point of failure, barely holding my dead-end job. I needed all the cash I can get, since my mother was barely holding on to life herself. I came home that night more drained than usual but everything seemed like it always was, fridge door wouldn’t stay closed, tree branches tapping the window above my sleeping mother, and my mother’s cat, laying on top of my mom. The night stretched its tired fingers into my brain making my more drowsy than ever. I struggled to lift my mother’s spoon to her lips. My mother grabbed my arm and said, “Go to bed sweetheart, I’m fine.” Resentfully, I agreed that I needed sleep. But the night was just getting started, right as my head hit the pillow.
An inhuman like screech woke my with a start. I tried to jump up to rescue whatever was screaming so deafeningly, but my arms wouldn’t move. Fear gripped my heart. I tried to lift the invisible force off of me but it kept my pinned like I was nothing. That’s when I saw what was letting loose the deafening screams.
It’s hands, scaly and white, where ripping the floorboards above me away. Black veins spread like tentacles throughout its body. It’s face became visible and it’s smile glinted down at me. It’s eyes was like tare except for one white dot in the middle of them. When it let out another screech it was like an electrical current was running up and down my body. I became more desperate to move. I clenched my fists and pushed. My arms started shaking. The began to rise off the covers. Spiky pain was covering my entire arms. A cry of pain left my lips. Though the cry’s a whisper, almost inside my head, hissed, “Impressive.” I looked beside me right as a hand covered my mouth. The last thing I saw before darkness was the smile.
I woke still crying and throwing my arms around me. My mother’s raspy voice was calling my name. She heard me throughout the night and was unable to do anything. She was feeling exactly what I was feeling. Helplessness. I stood from my bed that now had covers thrown all over it. I fixed it as best I could and walked into my mother’s room. My mom was almost as terrified as I was. Sitting in the chair beside her, I grabbed her hand and sat. Just sat and looked at each other. We must have been like that for at least thirty minutes before she asked what happened. I told her that it was just a nightmare as I got up to make breakfast. She frantically snatched my hand and told me that I should sleep in her room. I agreed only to make her let me go. I made breakfast, feed my mother and maya, and went to work like nothing happened. But something did happen and I felt like it still was happening.
I almost forgot what happened as I walked in to my slightly colder house. Everything was the same. Everything was at peace, I did what I always did and walked into me mother’s room to set up my bed. She woke up when maya got up off my mother to look at me get into my newly made bed. My mother turned in her bed and looked at me. She told me that she was glad I went through with sleeping in her room. She sat back and almost whispered, “Just like old times.” After a few minutes I knew that she had fallen asleep, just before I did.
I did not even realize that I had fallen asleep because my eyes opened up to find that I was on my bed. Sitting up, I thought to myself that I must have moved back in here in the night. That was not the case. Looking out my door is saw something that chilled my very being. Red. Dark red was smeared across the hall wall and on the ground laid maya. My eyes widened seeing the deep gashes across maya. Almost sprinting, I ran out of my room to my mother’s. I reached her door and threw it open. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. It was the same thing that I saw in my other dream. He now stood above my mother with one of his scaly hands on her stomach. He turned and looked at me, still wearing his white smile. His eyes pierced into mine as he sunk his hand into my mother.
I woke covered in sweat. This time beside my mother. I got up and walked to her side. She looked the same as always. I touched her cheek. It was cold. My heart started pounding. Quickly I checked for a pulse. Nothing. I stepped back in horror, I thought to myself that this is just a dream. But the longer I sat by my mother’s side the more I realized it was real. I didn’t attend work that day, the police came. Everything was just a blur. It was night before I knew it. I hadn’t eaten that day, just sitting and staring at maya laying where my mother once laid.
I feel asleep in that chair, and woke in that chair. I woke up and saw something laying in my mother’s bed. My eyes widened quickly with hope, but nothing was there. I slumped back, and gazed at the bed. A cold breeze filled the room. That’s when I felt something pull my back farther into the chair. I looked down to see black rough legs where pinning me to the chair. Someone breathed onto my cheek and with a scratchy hissing voice it whispered, “Don’t worry, you won’t be gone for a long time, and I’ll be with you until then!” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the same thing smiling beside me. It almost looked human from the angle I was looking at it. The legs started getting tighter and tighter. Pain spread through my body. The legs dug deeper and deeper into my flesh until it finally broke the skin. I woke up on the ground. Maya looking at me.
I could still hear the laughter ringing throughout the house. I looked back at maya. The sight I saw sent chills down my spine.
Maya was smiling at me.