The Wake-Up Call

"I can't sleep," Sophie muttered to herself in frustration. 

Sophie checked the time on her phone, which read 4:00 am. She sighed in frustration and looked up at the ceiling. 

"I'm so stressed. I can't call in sick to work tomorrow; that would put everyone behind." She thought to herself. 

Sophie starts work at 8:30 am at the office. It has been a very busy work week with a lot of deadlines to meet, being tax season. Sophie has been working in accounting for about six months. She finished school and got her first full-time office job. She was finally able to quit serving in restaurants. Sophie didn't mind being a server, but the industry can be very stressful and cause burnout. Sophie is 25 years old, and after she finished school, she wanted to start working her way up in an office environment. The idea of having a regular schedule and stable wage sounded nice. During her childhood and teen years, she has always been an early bird. Sophie enjoyed the mornings and got more out of her day. When she started university, she was working part-time jobs. It was difficult to make enough money to pay rent, so she decided to work in restaurants. It was the only job that was not demanding in hours but still paid well. While working in restaurants, she had to completely change her schedule since the job required a lot of late nights. At first, it was difficult, and by 10 pm, she tried to cover her yawns with her hand so the guests wouldn't see. Since Sophie was finally able to get a job in an office, she was so happy to be working the same schedule every day, and she would be able to be an early bird again. 

Now that Sophie was six months into her new job, she hoped she would finally be able to have a healthier sleep schedule, but it was still difficult. She expected it would take a couple of months to get used to the new schedule, not six months. Sophie found herself getting distracted on her phone between midnight and 2 am. She never used to be so distracted before bed; she picked up a lot of bad sleeping habits. It was also difficult for her to fall asleep because of the new stresses her office job came with. Headaches became more frequent because of the hours she spent looking at the computer screen. Her team is currently understaffed and cannot find enough time in the day to get all the work done. Sophie started to get more tired and less motivated at work. It became a struggle to get up in the morning, and she had a habit of showing up five to ten minutes late each day. She has never been late to work before. The stress has been keeping her up, and now she feels like a night owl with an early bird job. She started to become unhappy because of how overworked she felt and how little sleep she got. 

  When Sophie does manage to get a bit of sleep in the night, she starts to have more intense and vivid dreams the more stressed and less sleep she gets. Some of the dreams were just so crazy it was very comical. However, the other dreams were so disturbing that she would wake up in a sweat and her heart beating fast. For some reason, Sophie always dreams in the third person but never has any awareness that she is dreaming. This was making her nights even more restless because when she woke from her alarm ringing, she felt as if her mind never even got any rest in the night. The headaches would pound even worse in the morning after the disturbing dreams. 

Sophie sighed, not wanting to let her team down, and started to get ready for work despite barely having any sleep. She started trying to plan enough time for each task but started to get overwhelmed. She started to walk to the back room of the office to her other coworkers. 

"Hey Megan, I just need to vent a bit. We have so many client tasks to do today, and I thought they were going to hire another person months ago to help us. Do you think there will be a meeting to discuss our concerns soon?" Sophie vented to her very understanding team lead. 

"Hey Sophie, sorry to hear that you're so stressed. I've tried bringing up hiring someone, but Max keeps agreeing with me, and then that's the last I hear of it. I just feel like they're not making it a priority. I haven't been getting the greatest sleep over this, and I've been taking my computer home to work. My kids have been a little restless because I haven't been able to spend as much time with them. I just tell them to go play while I keep working. I'll try to bring it up again; I can see a lot of the staff are getting burnt out, including myself." Megan responded. 

"Thanks for listening, Megan; you're the best," Sophie said, a bit deflated.  

Megan looked at Sophie with concern. When Sophie started working at the office, she was enthusiastic and full of energy. Now, she looks tired and depressed.  

"If you want to get some fresh air in a bit, you could go for a coffee run if you want! I know you like going, and I'm sure it would brighten everyone's mood." Megan suggested. 

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Sophie said with a slight smile.  

"Oh, and don't worry about being behind on work. If you don't get your tasks done today, I will vouch for you. Go home on time, don't stay at work late today. Also, if you ever need to talk, I'm always here to listen." Megan said. 

"Thanks, Megan, I appreciate it," Sophie responded. 

Sophie felt a bit better after talking to Megan, but once she got home after work, the stress started to come back. 

"Maybe an office job isn't for me. I miss being able to sleep in. I've gotten so used to working evenings in restaurants that I feel like I have a better work-life balance as a server than I do working in an office job. I guess I have a lot to think about. Maybe a good night's sleep would help." Sophie thought to herself.  

Sophie tried to get in bed a bit sooner than she normally does, hoping to get a better sleep. Maybe an earlier bedtime would also prevent her from having nightmares or vivid dreams. After about half an hour of lying in bed, Sophie started to feel very sleepy and started to doze off. Right before she was about to fall asleep, she opened her eyes and looked at the foot of her bed. Someone is there. 

Sophie tried to speak, but no words came out. Then she tried to move but couldn't move. Suddenly, her view changed to the third person, and she was beside her bed, watching herself sleep. Her sleeping body didn't move, except the chest was moving up and down from breathing. She then turned to look at the figure at the foot of the bed. The figure just stood there, looking down at Sophie sleeping on the bed. There was hair covering its face, so Sophie's third-person view couldn't see who it was. The figure then started to slowly move its head upwards and turned to the right, facing away from the third-person view but looking directly into the wardrobe mirror. Sophie then looked into the mirror from the third-person view, directly at the figure. The figure was her again? This one was different, though; it now looked directly at Sophie's third-person view, and it was aware that she was there, not the real Sophie sleeping on the bed. The figure made direct eye contact and slowly started to grin. It appeared as Sophie, but the grin it displayed was the most sinister smile ever, almost inhuman. Pure terror overwhelmed Sophie, and she woke up with a jolt and sat upright in her bed.  

"What kind of dream was that?" Sophie thought to herself, shaking. 

She thought she was awake and wasn't even aware that she had fallen asleep. The dream started in the first person, with her frozen in fear, staring at the figure at the foot of the bed, but then it switched to the first person, and she saw the figure watching her sleep. 

"Did I just experience sleep paralysis...but is it even possible in the third person? Why was the figure me, but it was creepy? Like a demon or something." Sophie thought to herself. Trying to make sense of what she just dreamt. "I can't sleep... again." She sighed in frustration, too scared after the confusing dream she just had. 

This was the most unrested Sophie felt. She assumed she had that dream because of stress and lack of sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about it. She has never been so scared of a dream.  

The next few nights, Sophie grew even more restless. She couldn't even turn the lights off out of fear of that dream. She decided to leave the lights on all night. Then, she covered all the mirrors in her room with blankets. She was too scared to look in the mirrors, too scared to see that sinister smile appear on her face. She had a broken and restless sleep for two months after that dream, scared to have that dream again, but she never did. Sophie decided to quit the office and go back to working evenings in a restaurant. The office lifestyle doesn't suit her, and the restaurant industry turned her from an early bird into a permanent night owl. After a week of serving in a restaurant again, Sophie's headaches stopped, and she was able to catch up on a lot of sleep and wake up at noon if she wanted to. She never had that dream again and never fully understood what it meant, but she speculated that it must have been her final wake-up call to get back to the sleep schedule that she needed. Once an early bird, but forever a night owl.