As a young child, Kat Harper had night terrors. Her mother would put her to bed and an hour or two later, she'd hear screaming from her daughter's room and have to come to wake Kat up. Waking her up would usually stop the night terror and the young girl would quickly go back to sleep. As she got older, the night terrors slowly faded away.
When she finally moved out of her mom's house, it began once again, but it started slowly. The night terrors were every other night, mixed with sleep paralysis. At first, the sleep paralysis was nothing but slightly terrifying since her brain was awake but her body was unable to move. It was all pretty harmless once her roommate got used to it. Until it wasn't.
One night, during a sleep paralysis episode, she saw a shadowy figure standing in the corner of her room next to the door. It didn't appear to have a face or any features, but Kat could tell that it was staring at her. Her body felt cold and on edge and she felt an evil presence coming from the figure. When the sleep paralysis ended and she sat up in a sudden burst of energy, breathing hard, the shadow figure was gone.
As nights went on, the shadow figure began to get closer and closer to her bed. She had to convince herself that everything was okay and it was just an image she'd put into her mind. Some nights, she'd have night terrors about it and would fight off the shadow figures in her sleep. In the morning, she'd come to the kitchen table and her roommate would ask her every morning, "Any better last night?"
Kat would laugh and rub the back sheepishly and respond with a simple, "Well, you know."
Just before three am the morning of Halloween, Kat found herself trapped in another sleep paralysis episode, or so she thought. This time, the shadow figure was sitting on her chest, pushing down on her. It was cold and felt wrong. This was not the harmless dream, this was something else entirely. As it finally looked at her, she could see two red eyes and the outline of sharp teeth. Her breathing picked up and the mouth curved into a sinister smile. She let out a scream and the shadow lunged for her.
The next morning at breakfast, Kat's roommate had coffee ready and was making pumpkin pancakes when Kat came into the kitchen. "Happy Halloween!" her roommate greeted and Kat smiled slightly as she took a seat at the kitchen table. "Any better last night?" her roommate asked, as usual, turning back to the stove.
Kat grinned and her pupils flashed red for a moment. "Everything was just great."
