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I don’t know how long I’ve been hearing him move around the room before I actually become aware of it. When I do, I know that something isn’t right.

‘Why haven’t you left for work yet?’ I mumble, too tired to open my eyes.

‘I forgot something.’

His voice sounds strange, like it’s an octave lower than it usually is.

I’m already falling back asleep when I hear someone call my name.

Clara.

My eyes shoot open, and I’m certain I’m going to see a stranger standing right in front of me. It wasn’t Jay’s voice, and it didn’t sound like it came from the room. More like it was in my head. But I can see there’s nothing there, nothing but a dark room.

I try to sit up, but I can’t move.

No, I think. Not again.

I try again to move, but it’s like my arms and legs have been completely disconnected from my body. They feel heavy and slack, as controllable as someone else’s limbs.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from irregular sleep paralysis. It’s never easy because the fear I experience is irrational, but I’ve mostly gotten used to it over the years. It’s an annoyance—an inconvenience. I’m so tired, and I just wanted to have a decent sleep in on my day off.

I can still hear Jay moving around in the room. He’s sifting through things on the bench and rummaging through the clothes on the floor. He’s not really trying to be quiet about it, either.

‘Jay,’ I say, and I can finally hear the slur in my voice. ‘It’s happening again. Can you help wake me up?’

There’s silence for a moment, and then he sits at the end of the bed. I move my eyes to try to see him—the only part of my body that I can move—but all I see from the very corner of my sight is that he’s sitting with his back to me. I can barely see the shape of his body in the dark room.

‘Jay?’ I mumble, speaking as if I’m still asleep even though my whole body thrums with an inexplicable anxiety.

He doesn’t turn around.

‘Jay,’ I say again, this time a little stronger.

He half turns his head to me, but I still can’t see his face. I suddenly—desperately— need to see his face.

‘Clara,’ he says, and again his voice sounds wrong. ‘Do you want to know a secret?’

The anxiety inside me spikes into true fear. Whoever is sitting at the edge of my bed isn’t Jay.

Then, even though the figure on my bed hasn’t moved, I hear its voice as if it’s speaking centimetres from my ear.

‘Why don’t you wake up, Clara? Wake up wake up wake up wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup.’

And then: an awful feeling unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before creeps over me. It’s like something is moving through me, passing through flesh and bone and starting to merge with my essence, my soul. It feels wrong, as though something fundamentally unnatural is taking place at the very core of my being.

I try to scream, but all that comes out is a little whine like a scared dog. My mind is in absolute terror, wanting to run, to hide, to flail my arms and legs in a desperate attempt to defend myself from whatever evil thing is in my bedroom and whispering into my ear. But my body and mind are completely disconnected, so I stay as limp as a boned fish, a pitiful noise in my throat.

The thing laughs. I feel its hot, putrid breath wash over me and I want to be sick. It’s never been this bad before, the sleep paralysis. I’ve always been able to quickly establish in the rational part of my mind that it is nothing more than a waking nightmare, even while the irrational part is consumed by fear. But this time, something feels truly wrong.

Suddenly, a bright light hits my eyes, and I involuntarily shut them against the pain. A moment later, I see Mum poking her head in through the gap in the bedroom door. The light is from the big window in the hallway, which lets in the mid-morning sun.

I want to cry in relief. I try to call to her and, of course, nothing comes out. I know that it’s not always obvious that I’m having a sleep paralysis episode because my eyes are usually barely open. But I’m breathing heavily, so I’m hoping that maybe she’ll at least think I’m having a nightmare or something and come and wake me up.

Instead, she just stares at me. The light behind her is bright so it makes it difficult to see her face properly, but I can see her eyes are large.

And it’s like she’s got a slight smile.

The dread hits me as I remember I don’t live at home anymore. Mum is a couple thousand kilometres away in a different timezone. I just spoke to her last night on FaceTime, and she showed me Dad sleeping in front of the TV again.

‘Don’t you want to know the secret, Clara?’ she asks, the mocking smile becoming wider.

She brings her hand to her face and places her index finger against her lips.

‘Shhhhhh.’

The smile splits, showing a mouth too full of teeth. She steps back and closes the door with a firm and final thud.

My eyes struggle to adjust to the once-again dark room. I want to cry. It should be over by now. None of the episodes have ever lasted this long before. I keep telling myself that it’ll be over in a second. Just another five seconds. I keep trying the methods I’ve come across over the years to snap myself out of it, but nothing works.

It seems my eyes are finally starting to adjust to the gloom because I can see the shape of a tall man standing in the corner near the mirror. He’s mostly in shadow so all I can see is the basic outline of him. He seems to be wearing some kind of old-style hat.

As soon as I notice him, he starts walking towards me, his footfalls making deep thumping noises, rattling the windows and making the walls shake.

The terror inside me finally reaches a peak, and it breaks the paralysis. I scream and push myself back, away from the shadowed figure that reaches for me. My movements are imprecise and uncontrolled, like I’ve just woken from deep sleep. I fall off the bed and hit the ground hard, sending a shock through me. I bite my tongue and taste blood almost immediately.

Any second now, he’s going to reach me. I know I can’t let him touch me or it will all be over.

‘Clara! Clara!’

I’m still screaming, but I can hear my name being called.

I feel hands on my shoulders.

I open my eyes.

Jay.

It’s only Jay.

His face is lined with concern.

‘Clara, are you okay? Talk to me.’

‘Jay?’ I say. My throat is dry, and I barely get the word out.

‘Babe what happened?’

I look over his shoulder. No shadow man. No thundering footsteps. Just bright mid-morning light steaming in from the open bedroom door. In my terror, I hadn’t even heard it open.

I start to cry, and clutch at Jay as if he were a life ring and I’d fallen overboard. A part of me worries that he’s part of it, that I’m still stuck in that waking nightmare. But as I hold him close and breathe in the scent of him, I know he’s real.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I mean, it felt like sleep paralysis but it was worse than anything I’d ever felt before. It felt so real, Jay.’

I can’t say anything else, so I just cry into his shoulder as he strokes my hair. He doesn’t say anything, but the fact that he’s here with me makes all the difference.

Soon, he suggests we go to the kitchen and get a drink of water.

‘If you need, I can Irish it up for you. Sounds like you need it.’

I laugh, and things start to feel normal again. Like maybe it wasn’t real after all.

The hallway is bright. Jay walks slightly ahead of me, and I’m a little unsteady on my feet.

‘Lucky I came back, right?’ he says.

I stop walking. I’ve just realised something.

A cold fear creeps up my spine.

Jay stops too, quickly realising I’m not following him down the hallway anymore.

I can’t move, can’t take a single step for the utter terror that courses through me again. Because I’ve just realised that his voice still sounds a little off, an octave lower than it should be.

His face is only half turned to me.

And I think I see him grinning.