Reliazation
1200 Words
I had known a long time ago of their existence, I just didn't realize how close they were until they manifested. Some dark night in 2020 as I was about to rest for the night, she felt the weird presence around me, the presence loomed around me as I laid on the bed. Hovering waiting for me to fall asleep and be vulnerable to it, a woman or a man, I couldn't tell which but I could feel its presence fear had not gripped me just yet, it was only the uncertainty of what would come next. Asleep finally, the opportunity for the presence comes. The presence( sleep demon) holding on to my throat and my body, unable to breathe or move, I try to open my eyes but I can not, it is as though the sleep demon is pulling down my eyelids, I try again to open my eyes still I can not, I try again and I do so but the presence holding me down is not visible to my eyes but I feel paralysis and hear distorted voices around me. I hear my name and quirky laughter,"Solaria, Solaria...heenheeenheeee". now I am stricken with fear by this anomaly. I wonder to myself, if this is just a dream or hallucination, I try to get help by calling out to my nanny who is laying next to me but I can not speak or hear my own voice, it seems I have lost my voice. As I believe in the spiritual, I try to call out the name of my Lord and Saviour, that does not work either, the more I try the more the sleep demon gets stronger with the waves of drowsiness, afraid to fall asleep, I try with all my might and strength to fall asleep so I can overcome the sleep demon and not be overcome by it. Tired of this I cry till the hold is gone and I stay awake till dawn as this has made me scared to sleep, as whenever I fall asleep at that time, the sleep demon is always waiting for me. The next day, I search the internet for similar situations and stories, some leave me distraught and some give me a glimmer of hope but none with solutions only justifications that it is physical and not spiritual but I wanted to believe it is physical and not spiritual, the internet says "most likely due to a disruption in the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. During REM sleep, your brain is active but your muscles are paralyzed to prevent you from acting out your dreams. Sleep paralysis occurs when you become aware while your body is still in REM sleep or is just waking up from it". But my Nana and Ama (mom) believe otherwise and tell me to pray and read scriptures before bed, what they say falls on deaf ears and I decide to go with the scientific reason than to believe a sleep demon pressed me while I was asleep, tired of it all I just hoped it would not happen this time, so I went to bed again this time was Sunday after worshipping online, I cried myself to sleep as I felt down because of the bullying the only good thing was I did not have to attend school till January next year. Attacked emotionally by humans during the day, but demons at night. This caused me multiple mental breakdowns, and thoughts of life after all this pain ends, I was over it all and did not even have an appetite for anything, I was just watching as time went by and waiting for a new distraction. going to ride my bike on the streets, passing by my neighbors and looking for suspicious people who I know and seeing them as suspects or likening them to the sleep demon that hunted me at night. The sleep demon caused me to be suspicious of the spirits behind the inanimate objects around me, all I wanted was to get to the bottom of my dilemma, I knew a guard who was suspected of being a wizard, whom I once had a conversation with on multiple occasions while riding my bike with my siblings, all I wondered was why me, I tried to do the right thing, my only problem was succumbing to depression, crying a lot, being overwhelmed by everything and not eating enough. At this point of my life I had existential crisis and was awaiting school resumption, there would be more distractions and my bullies had left so what could go wrong this time was before my final year of high school and I had to get everything under control to have a good year and put on a happy face whether or not that was the case, all I needed was something to focus on and I found that in school, it was also nice to be away from home even though that was for 6 hours plus, all that mattered was the break and space I had, I could be me and enjoy time with my friends and enemies. Sometimes I wondered if the reason for my encounter with the sleep demon walked amongst those I considered friends or those I considered the opposite. Going on with my day and not thinking of the demon hunting me, I attend literature class with my best friends, Aliya and Carnation we study one of the plays of Shakespeare which is based on fantasy, I found it to be quite interesting. After Literature class ends, I, Carnation and Aliya go for break and we meet with their other friends, Eria Sion and Eria Zika, same first names, different last names. I personally was not as close with them because I was in a different classroom than both of them, but I had common classes with Aliya and Carnation and that made me close to them. If I were to put them in a chronological order, my number one would be Carnation, Aliya, Eria Z and Eria S. But jealousy brewed amongst us, mostly between Aliya, Eria Z and I. The one between Aliya was my fault because I was a partly shitty friend but the one between Eria Z and I was because she liked a guy but he liked me, I didn't know how much I liked him but I was attracted to him and he was a senior, he was not all that attractive but he showered me with attention, made me feel seen and was quite hilarious, he definitely made me laugh during times like this I gave no thought to the sleep demon and I just lived in the present. On the other hand I had no feelings towards Aliya's crush until the day I stayed in their classroom. We were seated opposite each other, I was wearing the school's uniform, a shirt with a knotted tie, a skirt and thigh high socks the locker table above our legs, a covering for secretive acts. Aliya's crush Clayton, brushes my knee with his thick long fingers, I act as though nothing happens, suddenly my hand and his touch.
- Writer
