Elaine?--Sarah

I open my eyes barely breathing feeling like I'm suffocating. I'm not moving . .  I physically can't move. I hear someone cackling and out of the corner of my eye I see something hunching over the end of my bed. I struggle to get up until I somehow kick off my blankets and I can breathe again. I sit on the side of my bed staring at the edge of my bed. . . There was nothing.

     The next morning I slowly sat up and took a deep breath. I've been having a lot of sleep paralysis and each episode is getting worse and worse. I haven't had this happen to me since I was a little kid. I live in a little town and go to a little high school. I feel absolutely alone with no friends though I did have one once. I brush it off my mind as I get ready and grab my bag to go. I walk to the bus stop but a couple blocks down the street I look and see the cemetery. There is a forest behind the cemetery which always gave me the creeps. I don't break my intense stare into the woods until the bus arrives.

     All day at school I was thinking about last night and that thing in the corner. Did I always see the black figure every time I had the episodes or is this the first time noticing it? Did I actually see something or am I now making it up? I don't know and I don't want to know but it's been driving me insane. I hear a jumble of sounds coming from somewhere and I snap back into reality. My teacher, “Elaine? Ms Elaine? Are you listening? Please pay attention to class please!” She exclaimed. “I’m sorry Mrs. Gardener.” I said in a monotone voice. By the end of the school day my brain was fried and I was ready to go home.

     The next day after school I had to walk home because the bus didn't come but the October weather is nice. I was walking past houses getting closer and closer to home until it began to get cold and the sky suddenly became dark as gray clouds had cascaded over the sky. It started to rain so I picked up my pace to get home quickly without getting wet until I heard thunder and saw lightning flash near my house. I sprint to my house as fast as I can but abruptly stop in my tracks to look at the cemetery next to my house and see that the lightning hit one of the tombstones. I walk through the gate and walk up to the headstone to see the damage. I slowly put my hand over my mouth as I finish reading the inscribed words “Luna London October 30th 1988 - October 29th 1999”. My childhood best friend. She died the day before her 10th birthday of an asthma attack. I looked at the crack on the headstone and touched it. As I turned around to leave, my hand lifting off the tombstone without warning the earth started to shake. I fell down and backed away from the grave as the ground started to split apart, breaking the stone in half until everything stopped moving. I slowly got up still keeping my eyes on the grave when a hand pops out of the ground! I scream a bloodcurdling scream when I see a whole body come out. I had to get out of this cemetery but I stop in my tracks - “Elaineee.” I stopped and turned around “Luna?” Luna walked up to me but I backed away. “I don't have much time. Come with me!” I looked at Luna for a moment. “What? How? Why? You're alive? You're brain is actually showing, this is too much-” Luna interrupts “Don’t ask so many questions. We need to go!” I stopped and follow Luna deep into the forest.

     “That thing you saw is real and it's there in your room for a reason. The black figure is here to kill you!” My eyes widened “And how do you know this Luna?” Luna looked away from me and closed her eyes “be- because that thing is how I died.” I put my hands on over my eyes as I sat down. I sobbed “But I thought you had an asthma atta-” “That's what it convinced everyone to think even you.” I looked up at Luna with revenge in my eyes, “How are we going to kill this thing?” “No Elaine that's the wrong question, you should be asking how am I going to kill you?” “Wait what?” Luna's little remains of flesh on her small body melted off as well as her bones until there was nothing but a black figure. I turned ghost white and passed out.  I woke up with the feeling of small pieces of something hitting my face then I realized it was dirt and I was being buried alive. I screamed and screamed but nothing came out and I couldn't move at all. All I could hear was laughing as I slowly lost all oxygen under the heavy dirt . . . .

      I sat up suddenly sobbing uncontrollably looking around my surroundings realizing i’m in my room. It was all a dream and I'm relieved to know the nightmare is over.I lay back down in my soft, warm bed and i finally close my eyes knowing all was well and there was no reason to believe this horrible series of events had actually occurred when a voice from behind me whispers in my ear “Elaine?” as it's cackling laugh echoes in my head as all goes black.