The Nocturnal Visitor

I always pray before sleep. It’s a habit my parents taught me, one of the few things I’ve carried unchanged since childhood. The words are supposed to form a shield, a comfort against the dark.

“LORD, let us have a good night’s sleep and wake us with the morning light. In Jesus’s name I pray, Amen.”

The moment the words leave my lips, I sink into the mattress, letting the hum of the aquarium fill the silence. My tower fan churns on full blast, the steady white noise masking the creaks of the house. The only light in the room is the faint blue glow of my alarm clock.

11:42.

I close my eyes.

Sleep takes me quickly—too quickly. It feels less like drifting and more like falling, my stomach lurching as if I’ve been pushed through a hole.

When I land, I’m in a meadow.

The grass is impossibly green, waist-high, swaying though I feel no breeze. A waterfall thunders nearby, spilling into a pool that reflects a sky painted an unbroken blue. No sun. No clouds. No birds. Just an endless sheet of wrongness stretched overhead.

For a moment, I feel peace. I lay in the grass, watching water glisten at the edges of my vision. My mind unspools, shedding the weight of the day.

Then movement.

A figure.

A tall woman in a long, flowing white gown. She drifts into the meadow, barefoot, carrying a wooden basket in one hand. The other hangs loose by her side. With each step, flowers spill from the basket, tumbling to the ground in slow, unnatural spirals.

I sit up, startled. She doesn’t acknowledge me. She skips—actually skips—around me in wide circles. Her gown sways unnaturally, each movement delayed by a half-second, like it belongs to another body.

And then she sings.

“Ring around the roses… ring around the roses…”

The voice is muffled, warped, like someone trying to sing through thick glass underwater. The words vibrate in my skull. My teeth ache.

I squint at her. There’s no face. Just smooth, pale skin stretched across a blank oval, gleaming faintly in the false daylight.

She keeps skipping, tossing petals, her faceless head cocked slightly upward, as though her non-existent eyes are fixed on something far above.

Each lap she completes, the meadow grows darker, hazier. The grass climbs higher, wrapping around my arms, tugging at my chest. I try to stand, but my legs won’t obey. My body folds, sinking lower and lower until I collapse.

Flat on my back, staring at that painted sky, I feel her presence loom. The figure leans close, faceless head hovering inches above mine. Though she has no mouth, I feel her breath on my cheek—wet, cold, wrong.

And then she whispers.

“Relax.”

The word oozes straight into my ear, not sound but vibration, pressing into my skull.

My vision snaps.

I’m awake.

Or I think I am.

I’m back in my room. The aquarium bubbles. The fan drones. My alarm clock glows.

3:2—

The last number is blocked.

Something’s covering it.

At first, I think it’s my hand. But my arm isn’t there. My body isn’t moving.

I try to roll over, to sit up, to scream. Nothing. Not even a twitch. My lips are clamped tight.

Sleep paralysis.

And then I see it.

From the corner, beside the dresser, a figure leans out.

She’s tall. Too tall. Her head nearly scrapes the ceiling. Long, black hair spills forward, a curtain of shadow that hides most of her face.

But not all of it.

Behind the strands, two eyes glow faint red. Dim embers, yet burning enough to pin me in place, to flood my veins with ice.

She tilts her head, slow, deliberate, until her neck bends far past what’s human. Her hair shifts just enough to reveal a sliver of her face—skin stretched tight, lips trembling as though savoring something.

She moves.

Not walking. Not gliding. A jerking, string-pulled motion, each step cracking joints that sound too loud for the small room.

My chest convulses. My lungs fight for air.

And then, in a voice dry as paper tearing:

“You can see me?”

The words stab through me. They aren’t surprised. They’re delighted.

She skips once, twice, closer. The jerking grows more dramatic, like a marionette controlled by a child with trembling hands.

She stops at my bedside.

And then she drops onto me.

Her weight slams into my chest. My ribs creak. My lungs flatten. The air whistles out of me in a strangled gasp. I can’t refill them.

Her hair spills forward, brushing my face, damp and icy. The stench follows—thick, sweet, rotting. Meat left in the sun. Breath that belongs to something long dead.

Her red eyes hover an inch from mine. Her lips split into a grin, the skin stretching wider and wider, until it tears at the corners. Black blood beads at the seams. Behind it: too many teeth, jagged and uneven, crowding a mouth that should not fit inside a human skull.

My heart pounds against her chest. She smiles wider, pressing down harder, delighting in my panic.

Her lips graze my ear.

“Relax.”

Cold needles surge into my body. My limbs burn, then freeze, then go numb. My skin prickles like a thousand insects are crawling just beneath it, gnawing, tunneling.

I scream silently, thrashing inside a prison of flesh that won’t move.

Jesus, help me. Jesus, please help me.

At the name, her body spasms. Her head jerks back unnaturally, bones cracking like breaking sticks. The red in her eyes flares to a furious white, blinding.

Her mouth opens, stretching until it splits her face entirely in two.

And then—

I jolt awake.

My body moves. My lungs drag in air like I’ve been drowning.

The room is still. The dresser stands empty. The aquarium hums. The fan spins.

But in the doorway, I see it.

A pale shape slides silently into the hall.

I slam the door shut, pressing my back against it. My legs shake. I don’t move again until dawn bleeds across the ceiling.

When I stumble into the kitchen hours later, my parents are already at the table. My mom looks flustered.

“Have you seen my wooden basket? The picnic one? I swear I left it in the kitchen.”

The blood drains from my face.

I shake my head quickly. “No.”

We search. Minutes pass. Then my mom calls from my room.

“Found it! It was right by your bed.”

I freeze.

She sets it on the table, laughing softly. “You must’ve borrowed it and forgotten.”

I can’t answer.

The basket is filled with flowers. Wilted, their edges brown, their veins faintly glowing like embers.

My stomach lurches. My hands tremble.

That night, I lie awake, refusing to close my eyes.

The aquarium hums. The fan drones. The clock glows.

11:42.

I don’t move. I don’t pray. I just listen, waiting.

The air thickens. The shadows stretch. The hum falters.

And from the corner, behind the dresser, I hear her whisper again—soft, eager, crawling straight into my skull.

“You can see me?”