He opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, his head tilted slightly to the right, just enough to barely read the 3:00 on the screen without his glasses. He sighed a bit, glad that he didn't have to get up yet. He was exhausted from all the mental machinations he had been dealing with over the past few days, and the culmination of him no longer wanting to be mentally and emotionally batted around like the plaything of a cat.
He tried to roll over onto his other side. Sometimes, the light of the clock made it difficult to fall asleep. He found that he couldn't move, like he was weighted down. He had no control of his body. He tried to move his arms, his legs, nothing worked. He had gone from relief that he could rest some more, to utter panic in moments. He tried to turn his head away from the clock. Nothing moved. His breathing intensified, short wheezes, managing to drag the most minimum of air into his lungs, but he felt like he was suffocating. He quickly tried to tell himself that maybe he was still asleep, but his difficult breathing made it hard to convince his own mind.
He felt a change in pressure in the air, and there was a sound in the other room that he would be hard-pressed to describe. Almost as if all the air in the apartment was being sucked into an open door. He struggled to move, turn his head...nothing worked. He couldn't even blink, and for the first time in a very long time, he was scared. Terrified. Like the fear that he hadn't experiences since he was a child. The noise stopped suddenly, like a switch was turned off. He tried moving again but was still completely paralyzed. The absence of sound was almost louder than the sound of rushing air.
His breath caught in his chest as he heard something move outside his room. He thought it was his coffee table because it made the same sound when he accidentally crashed into it many times in the past, but this sound was slow, like it was being pushed out of the way deliberately, slowly. He heard a footstep, or more like a footstep coming off the floor, like a wet, sucking sound, then, a wet splash and a thump. That was definitely a footstep. It made him think of the times when he was a kid, when he would walk through the mud. Those, however, were happy sounds, outside sounds. Sounds of a happy childhood. That sound should not be happening in his carpeted apartment.
He heard another repeat of the stepping slurping sound and frantically tried to move his eyes, twist his head, anything to see the door where he heard the terrible sounds. There was a high-pitched, groaning like nothing he had ever heard. His heart started racing...his breath came in ragged gasps, a slight whimper as he inhaled, his fear making it difficult to remember to breathe.
A shadow moved across his field of vision, the water soaked footsteps getting closer. It was coming from the door at the end of the bed, but the clock's digital readout was all he could see. It seemed too bright, pulsing. It seemed like it was matching his thunderous heartbeat. He didn't know if he could survive this much terror.
A whisper, barely audible, came from the doorway. It sounded old. No, old wasn't the word. It sounded ancient, grotesque. Like the words were covered in dust,
"You want what you can't have."
He would have recoiled at the voice. It cut through his ears like some sort of razor, physically painful to hear.
"She doesn't want you. She never did."
He whimpered, trying to say anything. Trying to remember to breathe. He felt a hand on his leg, the wet, walking sound continued to get closer.
"You can never be whole. You are broken. Ruined. You have nothing left. You are lost." The last word lingered in the air, a hissing echo around the room, the pain in his ears increased and his head thrummed in agony. He felt pressure on the bed. Dear god, is it getting into my bed? He felt rough, dry hands on the leg that was uncovered from his blanket. His could see his breath, the room felt like a meat locker. The hand on his leg gripped hard, nails...or god, was it talons?...pressed into his leg and he felt the creature pulling itself over him. Please. Please let this be a dream. It's the worst damned dream I have ever had, but it has to be a dream, right? He pleaded at the universe, but the universe was not listening.
"You have no reason to be here, in this gods forsaken world, but I will give you a reason. Your despair has brought me to you. You have one thing left to do and then you can sleep. You can embrace the darkness that has called to you for your whole life. Before that, you will do this for me" He felt the creature crawling on top of him. He thought it felt human, but it was cold, like the time he burned himself on dry ice. Everywhere he felt the weight, there were waves of burning agony. It crawled further and straddled his torso. He could feel it's leathery, dry legs on either side of him. He felt the thing sit on his pelvis and lean forward, sniffing, snuffling like some sort of animal at his neck. He felt those rough hands on either side of his face and he tried to scream, not just from fear, but from the pain of the touch. Nothing came out of his mouth but the desperate gasps of air.
"You, are mine." The creature forced his head to the side and in front of him he saw a white, humanoid face, the head was too wide, the skin, cracked and broken, like land in a drought, a seething green mist leaching from the gaps in the skin. It had two open holes where a nose would be, and a slim, lipless mouth with rows of teeth between the gap. Thin, straggling hair drooped across it's face. Long, wet snarls of black and gray hair, clumped together and tangled. It looked as if insects were crawling through the strands. The worst part was the eyes. They were too big for its face. The center glowed an unearthly red flickering as if they were aflame. There were black hourglass shapes inside the luminescent iris. The outer parts of the eye were black, as close as he was, it seemed stars were moving inside. They eyes alone made him scared, but they were attached to this horror that had crawled atop him.
The creature leaned forward and put it's maw against his open lips. It breathed in, hard, and he felt his insides collapsing, as if he were a plastic bottle attached to a vacuum. The air leaving his chest. He could no longer breathe. The creature stopped and he tried to breathe. He felt like he was drowning.
"Dig the hole. Say the words." It looked directly into his eyes as it spoke to him. Those eyes moved closer as it leaned forward, towards his face, repeating the words. "Dig the hole. Say the words. Dig the hole. Say the words. Dig the hole. Say the words." The creatures brow touched his, and he felt the same agonizing cold on his face. The thing leaned back, looked at him as if checking its work, then it slapped a hand against his face. "Sleep," it whispered. He tried to shake his head, he couldn't move. His fear was too much, beyond anything he ever expected a human could tolerate and he felt his eyes close, now unable to open them, and a rush of darkness enveloped the room, he could hear the air sucking sound again, but it faded slowly as he gave in to oblivion, the darkness embracing him like death.