Everly had excellent vision. Even in the dim light, she could clearly see that the hand was very strange.
It was long and narrow, with the thumb positioned unusually low. The thumb was much smaller than a normal person’s, while the other four fingers were abnormally thick and at least one segnt longer than normal. Among the five fingers, the index finger was broken, exposing the pale, bare bone inside. The rest of the fingers were intact, each tipped with jet-black nails that looked unnaturally sharp.
The palm was attached to a pitch-black “arm.” It was extrely thin, excessively long—almost like a raised laundry pole. The pole was covered with thick black hair and streaked with bloody wounds. It erged from the darkness, holding that bizarre hand, and scraped across Everly’s windowpane.
Honestly, the scene was terrifying. Especially when Everly rembered she was sleeping on the second floor, the fear intensified.
What… was that thing? Why was it tapping on her window in the middle of the night?
Sensing sothing was terribly wrong, Everly instinctively tried to get up and reach for her weapons and self-defense tools on the nightstand. But at that mont, she was horrified to realize her body wouldn’t move.
Although her mind was fully conscious, her body felt like it was pinned under an invisible weight. From her fingertips to her torso, every part of her was paralyzed, unresponsive. The blanket covering her no longer felt like a blanket—it felt like viscous mud. Everly was like a small insect trapped inside, struggling in vain. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t free herself from that sluggish, heavy sensation.
What was happening…?
Just as she desperately tried to send commands through her nerves to break free, a “shh-shh” sound ca from the foot of the bed. Imdiately, a chill ran over her body as the blanket that had been covering her was violently yanked downward.
The force of the tug caused the blanket, which had been pulled up to her neck, to slide down to her waist, exposing most of Everly’s body.
Everly had been ditating on her side, facing the window, so she couldn’t see her feet. But the chill creeping along her shoulders and back, along with the constant rustling from the foot of the bed, reminded her that this was no illusion. Sothing was lurking there, tugging at her blanket!
What could it be? A person, or one of those long, monstrous hands she’d seen outside the window? And what did it want?
The blanket continued to slide down until Everly’s entire body was exposed to the cold air. Her feet pointed toward the foot of the bed, and the sensitive skin of her soles seed to sense sothing in the thick, inky darkness—a presence staring at her with malicious intent. The intensity of that gaze made her soles tingle as if on fire, and she desperately wanted to curl up, tucking her legs and shrinking into a ball.
But paralyzed by sleep paralysis, Everly could barely even blink. She couldn’t move at all. All she could do was wait in terror, anxious and tortured—one second, two seconds, three seconds…
After a long while, there was no more movent from the foot of the bed. Even the rustling noises had stopped.
Had it left?
Everly strained to open her eyes and rotate them downward, but the angle was too poor to see anything. All she could feel was her heart hamring relentlessly in her chest.
After a while, her eyes grew sore, and she instinctively closed them. Just then, the bed suddenly sank sharply at the foot. The old bedboards groaned under the pressure with a “creak… creak-creak.”
Everly froze in terror.
“Creak… creak-creak…”
The sound of the boards being pressed continued, and the area of depression gradually moved upward—from the foot of the bed to the middle of the mattress, and then toward Everly’s back. It was as if sothing was slowly crawling up from the foot of the bed, climbing onto the bed, and lying down right behind her.
Humans have an instinctive fear of the unknown. Even though Everly prided herself on being brave, she couldn’t help breaking out in cold sweat under these circumstances. She tried to focus every nerve in her body, straining to sense her surroundings.
“Huff… huff…”
She heard clear breathing. Then, a sudden gust of cold air blew across her back. It was icy, foul-slling, carrying a raw, beastly stench… The chill crept like winding vines up her exposed shoulders and the back of her neck, making her scalp tingle violently.
She wanted to scream, to run, to grab the collection of exorcism tools she had and strike the creature behind her. But thoughts remained just thoughts. Without the ability to move, all Everly could do was, like countless helpless victims in horror movies, close her eyes in terror, deluding herself in the darkness, and wait for a forgiveness that would never co.
“Huff…”
The breathing behind her drew closer, the icy air brushing against her neck. Goosebumps spread over her arms and the back of her neck. In the stillness, Everly felt the mattress sinking closer and closer beneath her, until finally, the heavy, massive presence pressed tightly against her back.
Then, a cold, coarse hand shot out from behind, gripping her tightly. A second, a third… countless hands reached for her from above and below, pinning her entire body down. Everly was like a helpless insect being made into a specin, and these claws were the pins holding her in place.
When her entire body was held in that cold, rough grip, one exceptionally thick, grotesque claw suddenly crept up her shoulder, moving in a disturbingly deliberate way, and slowly made its way toward her face.
Everly recognized it—it was the sa hand that had appeared at the window earlier.
The long arm ended in curved fingers like claws, the black nails slicing into soft skin. It slanted across her forehead, over her eyes and nose, scratching viciously and leaving four deep gouges across her face.
“Ahhhhh! My face!”
After the giant hand withdrew, Everly’s entire body relaxed. The paralysis that had held her stiff suddenly lifted, and she regained control over her movents.
The other strange hands were still there, but they no longer pinned her down completely, allowing her to shift her position at last.
At this mont, Everly couldn’t even think about escaping. She clutched her bloodied cheeks, her mouth opening as a piercing scream tore from her throat. She curled up on the bed, her thin, fragile body trembling violently.
Beneath the palm of the hand, the scratched skin was swelling rapidly, erupting with hard pustules coated in sli. Everly could feel it—her face was ruined. From now on, she would never be able to dominate the school with her beauty, her proud head no longer had the right to tilt arrogantly. She would no longer be able to toy with boys’ feelings at will, relishing the envious and jealous gazes of other girls…
Fear and despair burned through Everly’s heart, making her cry uncontrollably.
Yet, perhaps because everything had happened so bizarrely, so suddenly, even at the peak of her emotional collapse, there was a kind of surface-level detachnt—a floating sense of unreality—that left Everly with a peculiar feeling of being neither here nor there.
Years of ditation had instilled a deep habit: even when her mind was overwheld by fear and grief, Everly unconsciously split off a tiny “ntal projection,” observing her own inner state as an outsider. Through this inner perspective, a series of questions surfaced.
So strange… Was she really the kind of person who cared only about her appearance?
Had she truly been strutting through the school relying solely on her beauty?
Wasn’t it far more important—rather than lanting her ruined face—to escape the monster, find her exorcism tools, and fight for her life against these evil creatures?
At first, these questions were like tiny bubbles rising in a soda glass—small, light, and barely noticeable. But as the bubbles floated upward, more and more joined in, and the doubts grew like a snowball, gaining montum until they could no longer be ignored.
When Everly tried to move her fingers to touch the “Blue Eye” bracelet on her wrist, she felt nothing but empty space. That’s when her suspicion reached its peak.
It was gone—the protective bracelet she never even removed when bathing had vanished!
The “Evil Eye” bracelet was strung on a silver chain. Even if the glass eye ant for warning had broken, the chain itself shouldn’t have disappeared. Unless… this wasn’t real.
It was an illusion—a dream! Sothing was attacking her in the world of dreams!
The mont she realized this, her thin, frail limbs—once as delicate as toothpicks—suddenly bulged with muscle. Her previously weak body filled with strength. Everly removed her hands from her face, propped herself up with one hand on the bed, pushed with her legs, and rotated from lying prone to facing backward. She crouched on one knee, then quickly adjusted into a battle stance.
Her eyes widened.
Everly saw her enemy—perched on the bed behind her was a massive, black-furred, one-ard ape. Its body was huge, its eyes pitch-black, lips protruding, and sharp teeth sared with blood and bits of flesh. Its laundry-pole-like right arm rested on its knee, covered in claw marks and net-like ligature scars, fierce and nacing, staring at Everly with predatory intensity.
It was enormous, strong, and its exposed teeth looked like two rows of pale spikes. Its breath, foul and gusty, blew across Everly’s face like a stinking windstorm.
But Everly was not afraid.
She had realized sothing crucial—this was her illusion. This was her dream. And in the world of dreams, she was the true master of this space!
Recalling the knowledge she had learned from Rebecca, Everly forced down all her fear, dread, and fury, transforming her ntal world into an impregnable fortress of defense. She told herself that she was strong, invincible, and that in her dream, all evil existed only to be defeated—utterly powerless against her!
As she repeated this self-hypnosis, she clenched the fingers of her right hand into a fist. This was Everly’s strongest arm. She bent her elbow, pulled it back, and then, like drawing a bow, rotated her waist and hips, unleashing a fierce, concentrated punch toward the ape’s right eye.
“Bam!”
Everly’s fist struck with the force of a thunderclap, hitting the ape’s eye dead on.
The next mont, it was as if a huge balloon had been pierced—what had just been a terrifying, monstrous ape let out a “squeak” of anguish. Its massive body shrank abruptly, transforming into a desiccated, scraggly, emaciated ape corpse. Screeching chaotically, it leapt off the bed and vanished from sight.
User Comments
0 comments from readers