Chapter 16: Nightmares or Not

I was sleeping, in my room, partially aware of the way the wind blew the curtains away. I was half-asleep after crying for more than two hours. I even declined when Loren came to call me for dinner. I said I was not feeling like eating, so she let me be. And to my surprise, or not, Azran also didn’t visit me that night. The weight of emotions was too much to bear and I couldn’t sleep for a long time, and when I did, it was somewhere between reality and dreams.

I was dreaming again. I knew it because everything felt so wrong. I lay half-buried beneath the weight of sleep, my body felt heavy and my limbs slow to answer me completely. As if I could sense everything yet I couldn’t do anything.

There was no sound or movement I could point to. It was just the slightest change in the air. I held my breath.

I tried to move my hand and failed, though my eyes fluttered open. Panic trembled weakly in my chest, dulled by exhaustion and by the lingering fog of sleep. My eyes cracked open, lashes sticking and too heavy to lift while my vision tunneled.

The window was open. I knew it shouldn’t be. I remembered locking it and the thick click of latch. I even checked it twice I thought. Cold air spilled into the room and curled over my senses, raising goose bumps along my arms and neck.

The curtains stirred slowly at first, the moon outside peeked through the thick fog of clouds. My heart began to pound loudly. I wanted to get up, and run for the door but I couldn’t. it felt like as if my limbs were locked in a place and I didn’t know what to do.

I wanted to call out, to sit up and to do something. My body refused me, pinned beneath an invisible force of nature, my breaths were shallow and uneven to the point I didn’t know if I was even breathing. And there was a strange type of scent in the air. It felt strangely familiar even though I didn’t know where I knew it from.

My eyes darted to the window and the shadows stirred, taking a shape of something behind the curtains, as they swayed. I felt like there was someone here. The certainty settled over me so heavily I nearly screamed but my mouth wouldn’t open.

I couldn’t see properly, my vision was tunneling and blurred, but the presence, I could feel it from the edges of my sanity. My eyes couldn’t quite focus on anything in particular. I felt as if someone was watching me.

I thought I heard the floorboard creaking.

No. no, no, no. Please.

My pulse roared in my ears, and I squeezed my eyes shut, then forced them to open again, my breath catching as the shadow near the window deepened and darkened. It didn’t move closer though but didn’t retreat even. It simply stayed there.

Tears burned behind my eyes as I hoped it to be a nightmare.

This wasn’t like my other nightmare where I usually see blood and violence, there were no memories crashing into me, no familiar horrors. This was different. Far more terrifying cause I could wake up from those nightmares, but not this.

I felt a brush of air near my cheek, as if someone had leaned closer but there was no one. My skin reacted and my breath stuttered.

My throat worked soundlessly.

I thought of Azran, this presence felt closer to his but still far more dangerous. Whatever was there in my room carried none of Azran’s horror but amusement.

I shut my eyes and chanted to God again and again.

It was my nightmare. Only nightmare. I was hyperventilating, there was no one, I was alone, no one could hurt me here. I must had left the window open.

After what felt like hours, when I thought the presence lifted soddenly, I gasped, my body jolting as life rushed back into my limbs. My eyes snapped open and I bolted upright, breath tearing from my chest, eyes wild as I scanned the room. And to my horror and surprise, it was empty.

My head snapped toward the window and I realized it was closed.

I looked down to find the sheets tangled around my legs and damp with sweat, the lights were off, I didn’t remember switching them off. Did someone entered while I was asleep?

Of course, Azran and Loren had the key. If they entered, then why couldn’t I sense them?

I pushed the sheets off me and walked to the window. The cold floor beneath my feet seemed colder. My hands shook as I reached for the curtains, preparing myself for the terror. As I pushed the curtains away, I was met with my own reflection on the glass and the darkness beyond the glass. There was no one outside, just the porch and the fence. My eyes roamed around with breathless whimper.

The crickets made noise outside, and my eyes travelled beyond the fence to the forest Azran warned me about. Curiosity and anticipation gripped me. What was in the woods that Azran didn’t want me to see? What horrors or secrets it held for Azran to go out of his way to remind me to not roam there several times?

I swallowed, trying to see beyond but I couldn’t.

I stayed near the window longer than I should have, forehead pressed against the glass as I took deep breaths. I wanted something to be there so that I wouldn’t look insane if I told someone.

And yet the feeling didn’t leave. It was creeping up my chest and circled around my throat.

Maybe  I was imagining things. Like I always do.

Old habits die hard I guess. In the brothel, paranoia had been with me as a survival instinct. You learned to read shadows and darkness, to assume danger even when none showed its face. It kept me alive for a long time. But here, in this massive house, that same instinct was misplaced.

And still, it made me feel ridiculous.

If someone entered my room, I would have felt it, right? I thought I would have. After everything I endured, after all those years of learning how to sense predators.  How to brace myself before a presence closed in, shouldn’t my body have known?

Unless whoever it was, wasn’t a man at all.

A sudden chill ran down my spine as I shook away the thought.

What was I saying? There was no way. If anything, Azran would’ve noticed it too. He was far too controlling to let anything enter his house.

What was out there that even he didn’t want me to close to?

I hated how small I felt in that moment. How ignorantly stupid.

Eighteen years in one captivity had not prepared me for this one. Everyone here spoke in half-riddles and omissions. I didn’t know whom to trust anymore.

I stepped back from the window, and pulled the curtains shut. I climbed back into the bed and drew the covers up to my chin as is stared aimlessly at the ceiling. Sleep was nowhere now.

Instead, my mind kept circling the same thoughts restlessly.

My eyes remained open until they burned, wondering if I was truly going insane.