The bars on the windows didn't help. The locked doors didn't help. Everything was still locked when I woke up.
I slept last night, and last night I had another episode. I've talked before about how, in my worst episodes, I can't even move. My muscles don't work, no matter how hard I try to just get my fingers to twitch or my mouth to open, I'm trapped in my own body. In every episode I remember, though, the common factor is always that something else is there. There's a monster under my bed or in my closet. There's a man, standing in the doorway, waiting for me to move. There's something just out of the corner of my eye, watching me to see if I'll notice it, and that's what always puts me on edge. Whatever I think is there is watching me, waiting, and it's always just out of my view or just deep enough in the darkness that I can't make it out.
Last night I saw it. I was jolted awake, as sometimes happens in these cases, and I know something is there with me, and as usual, I try to scream. It isn't something I really choose to do, it's just what always seems to happen during these events. As much as I try, though, I can't make a noise. My mouth won't open to let me scream, my vocal cords won't produce any sound, and my tongue won't move to articulate anything, if I had anything sensible to say in the first place.
Nothing was working. I couldn't move my mouth, my fingers, my arms or my legs, and my head felt like it was held in a vice.
But I could move my eyes. I opened them, hoping to stare into empty blackness, and something stared back.
It was vaguely man-shaped, with what could have been called an arm on either side of what could have been called a torso. It was the differences that made it worse. It had no skin, but what might have been bark; an off-white color like the bark of a birch tree, covered in splits and cracks and gnarls. Through the cracks I saw something squirm and wriggle, and whenever it pressed too hard against the cracks, black liquid would ooze out. Branches, thorns, and spikes sprouted from its arms and shoulders, and formed what could have been a crown around its head. Its mouth was a gape of thorns and barbs, and its eyes looked as if they had been gouged and burnt into its face, with embers still burning deep in the pits. It was holding me down, pressing against my chest with its body while its arms pinned mine to the bed.
The stench of smoke and dead animals clogged my senses, and I realized then that I wasn't breathing. I don't know how long I sat staring at it, but my vision eventually turned black, and I passed out again.
I need to figure out what the hell that thing was, and I need to figure out what I can do about it. I haven't spoken to Dan in a while, and I don't want him to know what's going on. I'm going to handle this on my own, and I think if I told him, he'd only think I had gone off the deep end.
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