[Jake.Ashworth]

He sat there in his warm bed. The pure white cover had been pulled up to his nose. He peeked over the edge into the darkness. The dream had become so regular that it almost didn’t bother him anymore. Something was different about tonight. This time when she was done she didn’t leave.
Jason watched from just above his covers. His whole body shook in fear. Strained whimpers escaped his lips with every short breath. He always felt drained after she came to him. Normally immediately falling into a deep sleep. It had been years since the first time Jason had seen the woman.
Jason was just fifteen the first time she came. He could remember it clearly because it was almost the exact same every time. He opened his eyes to the darkness of night. Jason had never been scared of the dark before but that night terror crept through his entire body. He laid still looking into the dark room. He looked around the dark room looking for anything that might have woke him.
His room was pretty standard for a teenage boy. There was a small hand me down wooden dresser and desk against one wall and his bed against another. On the other side of the room was his closet. The door slightly ajar. He started to think to himself “There’s someone in there.” He had never thought that before and he was way too old to believe in the boogeyman but something in his body said that he should be nervous.
His Attention on high alert he listened closely for any movement but there was nothing. Actually now that he was listening he realized there was no sound at all. Normally he could hear his parents TV from down the hall. His father stayed up late every night watching Jimmy Fallon. His gaze shifted to the window next to his bed. The dim light from the moon filtering through the trees spilled across his carpeted floor. The rain ran down his window, dripping from the nearby trees yet there was no sound to be heard.
His heart thudded so hard he could feel it moving his chest. A cold sweat formed on his brow. Trying to reach up and wipe his brow he realized he couldn’t move his arm. He tried to sit up but couldn’t move at all. Straining with every muscle in his body, he couldn’t even lift a finger. He felt the panic setting in. He didn’t know what to do. It seemed like his body had forsaken him.
A light flickered on in the hallway. He tried to yell out to his parents. His mouth opened and stretched wide but no sound came out. Pain shot through his throat and he felt the blood rush to his face. No sound escaped his mouth no matter how hard he screamed. He looked around the room in a state of panic he had never felt. Expecting to see something or someone coming at him out of the darkness. There was nothing. A shadow broke the light at pouring in from under his door.
A sense of relief washed over him. His father must have heard him screaming after all. Jason’s body relaxed as the door knob turned and the door opened slowly. Again he tried to raise his body. The light from the hall spread through the room. The light was muted as though it were straining to be visible through a thick mist.
His eyes adjusted slowly to the new light. He blinked fast and hard trying to get them to adjust. Tears began to form at the corners of his eyes. As the room came back into focus he saw a dark silhouette standing in the doorway. It was a short, petite figure. Jason couldn’t make out any features just a darkness that seemed deeper than it should. The figure didn’t move at all. The panic flooded back into his body. He didn’t know who this person was. The figure stood there as still as a statue as Jason did everything he could to get out of the bed and run.
Still he couldn’t move at all. The dark figure stood there for what seemed like hours. Jason’s mind was blinded by panic. There were a thousand thoughts shooting through his mind, “Who is that at the door, is there something else in here with me, why can’t I move?” His head throbbed like it was being crushed between two boulders. He was unable to break away from staring at the figure in the doorway. It demanded all of his attention.
It began to move forward into the room. It wasn’t walking but gliding about an inch above the carpet. Jason tried to look away but his eyes were locked onto the figure as it got closer. At least if it got close enough he could see who it was that was terrorizing him.
As the figure got closer the hope of recognizing the person faded. The silhouette stayed just that, solid and black like a shadow. It moved up the side of the bed gently brushing its dark fingers over the cover. Another wave of panic flashed over Jason. Again all of the muscles in his body tensed to no avail. He could feel that something was about to happen. In a flash the shadow was on top of him. Pain shot through every inch of his body. It felt like he was being torn apart from the inside. The figure was jamming its hands into his chest.
He could tell the entire bed was shaking violently back and forth yet there was still no sound. He could concentrate on nothing but the intense pain as it racked his body. He wanted to scream but still couldn’t make a single whimper come out.
Tears flowed down his cheeks as this thing attacked him. The room spun and then a loud piercing shriek filled his head. It was so high pitched he thought his eardrums would burst. A final surge of pain rolled from his toes to his head. The sound increased to the point that he thought he may lose his mind before it was all over.
The pain released its hold. He caught a glimpse of the shadow as it raised from his body and began to move toward the closet. It seemed to reach back and wave just before everything went dark.
When he woke up in the morning he was tucked neatly into his bed just as he was when he fell asleep. The whole night was a little blurry but he could remember enough to know something happened. Goosebumps raised on his flesh as he remember not being able to move but when he tried to lift his hand it moved without any trouble. He pulled the sheets back and sat up not seeing anything out of place. His body and sheets were soaked with a cold sweat as though it was a hundred degrees in his room. The sun filled room looked exactly as it did every morning. He assumed his parents had forgotten to turn on the air and the heat made him have the horrible dream.
The rest of that day and the following week went by without any trouble and the whole thing slipped out of his memory. Everything seemed to be going back to normal. Then his eyes shot open in the darkness of his room. Again he was frozen, deaf, and mute. And again the shadow figure was there in his doorway. Once again it moved from the doorway and the entire thing repeated.