Page 4 of Heavensent & Hellbent

I had brought my iPad and pencil out with me to sketch some of what I saw in my dream. I wasn’t the most skilled artist by any means, but it was something I had begun working on in earnest when the sleep paralysis began. Drawing my nightmares began as a way to document the different images, to keep them fresh in my mind. Otherwise, they faded so quickly I couldn’t be sure of what I really saw. In particular, though, I needed to sketch the blond-haired boy. His beauty, the sharpness of his jaw, and the way he looked at me was something that I had to capture before my mind erased him.

When I got to the coffee shop, though, it was closed, despite Google Maps saying it was open until six p.m. I peeked inside, and the chairs were on top of the tables, the lights off. It was only then that I noticed a handwritten note stuck to the door that readDUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, WE’RE CLOSED TODAY. BUSINESS AS USUAL TOMORROW.

Of course.

So I continued along in the heat down the main street. I passed a plant shop that I couldn’t resist entering and left with a large monstera. Even though I would be here temporarily, my bedroom needed some green.

Eventually, a few doors down, I found a diner that from the outside appeared to be classic Americana. The three-dimensional sign saidCory’swith a large coffee cup next to it. On the window was a sign proclaimingFree Wi-Fi, and also,to my approval,Free Palestine. I pushed open the door and immediately inhaled the scent of freshly brewed coffee. I wouldn’t be telling Penny I came here. It was only half full inside, likely because it was midmorning on a Thursday. In the moment it took for me to close the door, the host had appeared, handing me a laminated menu and leading me to a red leather booth.

I scanned the ridiculously long menu before ordering a coffee and a veggie breakfast sandwich. After connecting to the Wi-Fi, I FaceTimed Nic. She answered on the second ring.

“Hey,” I said, placing my phone against a sugar pourer. I assessed my appearance on the video call, paying special attention to my fringe, which had parted down the middle during the walk. My Dyson Airwrap dupe didn’t work here with my adapter, so I had to let my hair air-dry. The result was a mess of waves and the occasional curl, though due to the soft water my locks were shiny.

“Rox! I’ve missed you,” Nic said, her round brown eyes wide.

“It’s been two days since we last saw each other.” We were not sentimental like that, and someone had to remind her.

Nic rolled her eyes and positioned her phone against something so she could sit back on her bed. She was wearing cream-colored loungewear, her face devoid of any makeup. She must have just done her skincare routine because her face was as shiny as a glazed donut. Her box braids were tied up in a topknot, which made her face appear even more snatched. I was going to compliment her on it, when she gave me a look.

“Are you okay?” she asked. The question meant more whenit came from Nic. Even through a grainy screen, she could tell something was off.

“Yeah. I’ve just begun exploring the city, and it’s cool here. Different.” I kept my voice light.

“Where are you now?” She squinted into the camera, as though that would help decode the answer to her question.

I lifted my phone up and flipped the camera around to show her the diner. “It’s like from TV, isn’t it?”

“I’m so jealous.” Nic said this a lot, ever since I told her I was moving for the summer. She thought Hull was dead. And she wasn’t wrong; most people left as soon as they could, which had always been our plan.

“I mean, I already can’t wait until my time here is up,” I said.

Nic blew air out of her mouth. “So dramatic. You’ve only been there a day.”

I shrugged. That didn’t mean it was any less true.

The waitress came over with my coffee and put it down on the table with a few packets of creamer. As I poured the creamer into my coffee, I caught sight of my wrist again, reminding me—not that Ineededreminding—of my dream. My throat was suddenly dry, and I took a long sip of the hot coffee like it could singe off the strange parts of me no one else understood.

“Something weird happened last night,” I said slowly, testing out the words.

“What?”

“I had one of those dreams I’d told you about before. With the dark figure and then the burning.”

“Eek,” Nic said, grimacing. “I don’t know how you copewith them, they’re so freaky. My dad used to say the dark thing would sit on his chest, and it was so heavy he’d have a panic attack. He pretends he never said that now, though.”

Nic’s dad suffered from sleep paralysis, too. It was common, especially in people with anxiety. I’d had it sporadically as a kid, but after Mum died, it intensified along with the recurring nightmare of me being burned alive.

I figured the dreams must be related to a fear of mine. Again, common, explainable. My dad had taken me to the doctor about it. The eyes of the overworked and often bored-looking doctor lit up as he explained away the demon that frequented my bedroom. “Ah, a sleep paralysis demon,” he’d said. “Much documented, even in medieval times.” He had even Google searched the term as I sat in his office, showing me paintings of the crouched, demonic figure.

In some of them, he sat on top of the sleeper’s chest like in Henry Fuseli’sThe Nightmare. Others had him in the corner of the room, looming. I couldn’t picture mine, aside from it being a shadowy figure. I had never plucked up the courage to look it in the eye, to really see if my demon was the same as those documented over many centuries.

There was no cure, or real explanation of why it happened, just a mystery of the human brain. Sage advice was doled out by the doctor anyway, for me to “reduce any anxiety and stress in life” and to develop a better sleep routine so my REM sleep cycle wouldn’t be disturbed, as that apparently triggered the hallucinations.

When Nic said that her dad had them, too, I asked him about them, but he didn’t seem to find it as triggering as I did. He laughed it off, said it was off-putting but harmless. His reaction made me second-guess whether we were experiencing the same thing because I certainly couldn’t laugh mine off.

“Do you know if he ever had any physical signs of them being there?” I asked. “Like bruising or anything?”

Nic’s head tilted to one side, and she paused for a beat. “Well, no, because they’re not real, right?”