Alone

It was a little past midnight when I woke up. I rolled over and checked the digital alarm clock. It blinked 1:52 am in bright neon green numbers. I groaned and rolled on to my back. It was dark in my room. I stared at the ceiling in the darkness. The only sounds were of my breathing and rustling under the blanket. The silence was almost deafening. I reached in to the blackness and grabbed my stuffed unicorn Charlie. Grunting, struggling to get comfortable I rolled back over on to my side. Curling up and holding Charlie close to me I started to drift back into sleep. TAP. TAP. TAP. The tapping was faint. I couldn't figure where it was coming from. Or what was making the tapping sound. I sat up and looked out the window. Thinking it may have been a branch blowing in the wind.

Frowning I curled back up into bed. I began to drift back into sleep a second time. THUD. THUD. THUD. It was louder. It sounded like it was coming from all over the room. I sat up again. I held Charlie close to my chest. The thudding started to get more and more frequent. I began to rock back and forth. Then there was a whisper, it sounded like wind. Like when you are in a crowd and everyone is talking but you can't make out what they're saying. I looked over at the at the clock it read 3 am. THUD. THUD. THUD. Three times every two minutes and on the third minute was a whisper that got louder. I started to cry into Charlie's polyester muzzle. It felt like hours since I looked at the clock. I could barely see through my tears. It blurred my vision and barely missing the numbers the clock read 3:33 am. I felt something gently touch my back. I could feel the cold through my thin shirt. It felt like someone put a hand in the freezer and then touched me. I let out a small whimper and started choking on my spit as I cried harder.

I started rocking back and forth with more fervor. The harder I rocked, the harder I cried. No one heard me cry. The room temperature dropped a few degrees. Then hands. Hands coming up from the mattress. Ice cold hands grabbing at my legs. I let out a shrill scream. My heart began to pound even harder. I thought it was going to explode from my chest. I tried to wriggle free but they held me tightly. Then hands came out from behind the wall. Grabbing at my arms and chest and face. One pair of hands grabbed at my eyes and mouth. I couldn't see, I couldn't even make any noise. As the hands grabbed me the whispering got louder. It sounded like it was screaming in my ears. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream for help. The hands held me tightly. I wanted to get free. There was a loud thumping. It was so loud. I felt like I was going numb.

The hands that covered my eyes let go. I shifted them towards the clock. It still read 3:33 am. I began to cry again. The hands gripped tighter and tighter. The coldness burned into my flesh. I struggled to move. The noises getting louder drowned out the sound of my panicked heartbeat. I felt like I was in a war zone. It felt like an aural assault, my insides thumped with the reverberations. I wriggled trying to get the other hands to let go of me. I could feel my runny boogers slip between the hand covering my mouth and my lips. I started to gag. The hand clamped tighter. I cried even harder. I couldn't breathe. Everything started going black. Not just my vision but my thoughts as well.

The hands no longer held me, they propped me up. I stole a quick glance at the clock once more before the blackness swallowed me. As I looked at the clock, it flashed 3:33 am twice and then flashed once as 3:34 am. The hands vanished. The noise stopped and all was quiet. It was gone as suddenly as it had started. I let out a choked whimper and let the darkness swallow me.