Sleepless Nights

I woke up gasping for breath, clutching to my sheets. I felt dried streaks of tears on my face and had a pounding headache as I groggily tried to remember reality. I was in my room.

I am in my room, I am fine. Nothing is after me. I am safe. 

But as I looked around at the pitch black room around me, my brain began to conjure monsters that would prey on a helpless being like me in the middle of the night. Fear irrationally filled my stomach, but I immediately pushed it away.  

I am fine. There’s nothing here. I’m too tired right now to deal with this.

I stared at the ceiling in an effort to calm down or become so bored I’d eventually fall asleep. Directing my thoughts toward happier things, like the summer and the plan a group of us had to go to east to Virginia Beach and just relax, and have fun, and rest. Rest. The word surrounded me as I eventually began to drift back to sleep. The last thing I remember seeing was a small spider slowly wandering across the ceiling. How innocent that small creature is. How unfair this world can be. I held on to the small happy feeling that the spider would be safe with me for the night.

The next morning I felt awful. My head pounded and I was on autopilot the entire day, mindlessly going about my actions.

Lunch wasn’t so bad though, even though it began with Macy coming right out and matter-of-factly stating, “Wow, you look like shit bro. What’s up with you?”

“Thanks,” I shot her back a fake smile.

Georgia quietly laughed, trying to keep her food down. She swallowed and looked at me with a smile, “Sorry, what happened though, rough day?”

“Yeah, I mean I woke up at three in the morning with this crazy nightmare that this scientific experiment went wrong and a bunch of crazy monsters came after everyone, including me.” I sat and put my heavy head down on the cool table.

“Hey guys!” Laura cheerily said as stood by our table, “So, I was wondering if any of you guys wanted to help me film something for a school project.” She hopefully looked at us until no one answered. “Come on, it’s due tomorrow.”

“Count on Laura to wait until the day before,” Danielle interjected as she slowly moved her food around with a fork.

“Count on all of us to wait until the day before, everyone does it.” Georgia shot back. She turned back to Laura, “Sorry, I can’t my mom has this thing later tonight.”

“Ugghhh,” Laura groaned. Danielle began slowly ripping apart her napkin, “Eh, I have a ton of homework. Plus I need to take a nap.”

“Guys,” Laura desperately pleaded leaning down on the chair in front of her, “I asked everyone else.” She looked to me, “What about you Caitlin?” Her eyes pleaded.

I knew if I went home I’d end up sleeping for the rest of the afternoon anyway, I sighed, “Fine. When and where?”

“Okay,” she excitedly pulled up a chair next to me. “So, we’re going down by Miller Creek to get some shots of the soil down there and the weathered rocks and all that. It’s for a science project where I demonstrate what ‘natural processes are occurring everyday all around us.” She put on a bright smile to complete her imitation of the overly cheery science teacher Ms. Genakowski.

I smirked, “Fine, I’ll meet up with you around five-thirty at the creek because I don’t think my mom’s gonna drive all the way to your house.”

Later that evening I walked down the hill to the creek. It was a surprisingly warm fall day and the leaves were coming down with a light wind that gingerly brushed my face.

I waited for a few minutes, getting more anxious with every passing moment. I was sure Laura would eventually get to the creek, but it was progressively getting darker, and by this point I just wanted to get the film done and go home.

Finally, I saw someone with a black coat coming down the hill. I waved to her, but she was coming down the hill really fast.

 “Hey,” I called out to her, still clutching my coat against the cold wind. “Don’t fall!” I joked. But as she came down the hill I began to think it wasn’t Laura, and all of a sudden I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Whoever it was came hurtling in my direction, I turned to run, but their footsteps were soon right behind me. They hit me on the head. Hard. Everything went black.

I woke up, still in the woods, but all I saw, about thirty feet away from me, was Macy, Laura, Georgia, and Danielle. “Guys, run! There’s somebody here!”

I continued to scream to them, but they wouldn’t hear me. They wouldn’t listen.

“Guys, please.” Tears wouldn’t stop rolling down my cheeks. I tried to think logically but I was so tired. My eyes began to close on themselves, they were so heavy. I must’ve been drugged. I slowly tried to get up, but I continued to fall back into the musty earth. I lifted my head up to see where my friends were.

My eyes opened slowly and all I could see were large spiders coming near my friends. They screamed in the night, shrill and unnerving. The spiders went up their legs and overtook their bodies. All I could do was look on in stunned horror, suffocated by fear.

“No!” I began to scream, “NO!! Stop!!!”

 I got over what fear I had, wiped my tears away, grabbed the largest stick I had and ran after the ginormous spiders. Anger and pain fueling my rampage. As I ran I caught a glimpse of the cold half-eaten faces of my helpless friends; it only fueled me to run harder.

Eventually, I caught up to the group of spiders, and with nothing to lose I stabbed wherever I could whenever I could, turning round and round, thrusting the weapon as hard as I could into the villainous flesh of these awful beings.

One by one, somewhat to my surprise, the spiders began to fall and the ground began to shake. After my initial satisfaction of destroying the attackers, fear was a heavy stone within my gut reacting towards the earthquake. Eventually, I realized the earth wasn’t shaking, it was…vibrating?

My heavy eyes awoke with my phone furiously vibrating beneath me. I quickly pulled it up to see who it was. Laura was calling.

Oh no, the project, the creek, I totally fell asleep!!

I quickly answered, “Hey, I’m so sorry, I just woke up.” I croaked, my throat surprisingly dry. I heard her sigh, “Okay, that’s fine, just hurry, it’s starting to get dark and I want to get this done and over with.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. I’ll be there in 10 minutes at most.” I replied, quickly getting up to change and get my stuff together.

“Hurry up, I’ll see you then.” She hung up.

             With my stuff together and bag of supplies in hand I walked out the door.