I didn't know what was happening.

Everything was so beautiful, but I was horrified.

It was like a nightmare, one where I could sense my impending doom.

But it was real.

I knew it was, even though everybody, my mom, the doctors told me it wasn't.

I felt my stomach churning, like I was going to throw up. I probably should. It would definitely help. But I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move, and I could barely take shallow breaths. I felt that something was coming, and I didn't want to know what it was, so I turned my head. The only thing I really could do was turn my head.

Colors, like a rainbow made my room seem like a paradise, but I knew how these things ended. Like always, bit by bit, the room returned to normal, then got darker and darker.

In the bottom right corner of the room, opposite to where I was paralyzed in my bed, the white outline of a person appeared. I forced my vocal cords to form a string of profanities. I said them like prayers, trying to do anything I could to make this fucking monster go away. The thing got up, its legs like sticks. It didn't have feet, its legs ending in knife-like points. It didn't have a face, and as it faded into reality, I saw it. No eyes and no nose, but it had a mouth, gaping wide open, threatening to swallow me whole. Not just my body, but my soul, my existence. It would be as though I never existed. 

At first I thought that is was just some sort of sleep paralysis, some sick part of my already fucked mind, but it was so real. It had never gotten so far across my room. I got closer every night, and I was afraid to even sleep. I wanted to fly away, to never go back to this room, to this evil place. I had slept in other rooms before, at friends' houses and floors of hotel rooms, and nothing happened. 

My mom thought I was lying when I told her about the room, and made me sleep there anyhow, so i grit my teeth and put up with the horror each night brought me. I told my friends about it, and they now tried to have me over at their places as much as they could. But tonight, Sara had a jiu-jitsu tournament, and Ava was competing in the semifinals of her gymnastics thingy or whatever. 

The thing was trying to walk, its long knife-like legs stabbing holes into the wood floor. There wouldn't be any marks there in the morning, but right now, it was the only thing that did matter. I think the floor is trying to stop the monster, it was sucking it downwards, like quicksand. Maybe the room felt badly for letting this... thing in. 

I wanted to cry, to scream, to do something, anything, but I was useless in this situation, just a bystander in my own life. I wanted my mom to believe me. I wanted somebody to help. But help never came and I was always just a liar. Even in my dad's house, thanks to my stupid stepmom, I was never heard. I needed help, that was for sure. Not even just for this, I was just screwed up in general. Even though I only saw the demonic thing in my dreams, I couldn't help but seize up at the sight of the knitting needles my aunt uses, or the kitchen knives my stepmom cooks with. I couldn't breathe when objects like that were near me. God, I'm screwed up. Maybe I deserve this? Maybe it's because of what I did. Maybe it was HIM, coming back for me to exact his revenge by tipping me off the same edge he fell from. It wouldn't be surprising. I am, after all, just a stupid, idiotic little girl with a broken family and a worse social life. Which is to say, none. The doctor thought it was because of stress, and to stay away from "stressful situations". Whatever that means.

It got closer.

Closer than the night before, or the night before that.

Help.

I screamed it in my mind, hoping to god, to whichever god existed or cared.

And my eyes, locked open for so, so long, burning from the dry air and fear, finally closed. And when they opened again, There was nothing but the same room, but without the horrifying creature, without the deathly silence consuming my everything.

And I was awake.