#sleeping

Have you ever experienced the typical thunderstorm as your head lay sleepily upon your pillow as a kid? I believe we all have many a time. Were you scared? I’m sure a good portion of you were. Of what though? The gusting winds? The hammering thunder? The epileptic lightning flashes that seep through your windows blinding you as fear seeps into your mind from the unknown frenzy outside? Or maybe its...the tree branches. Rapping against your windows. Watching the dark cast its aura transforming…

Coffee is a damned thing. I hate the wretched bitter stuff, it was never compatible with my mild palate - and yet as of late I've been up to almost four cups a day. Might as well stick a caffeine IV in my arm. In fact, I'd greatly prefer that. But right now my fondness of coffee is really the least of my worries. I have to stay awake.

“Wake … up … you must … wa-“. That’s when it stopped. Those were the last words the tall, dark figure spoke to me when a white curtain fell over all that I saw, covering the previous scenery with an endless sea of snow.

I gathered the feed from a bucket in the barn and proceeded to pour the mixture of dried corn and grain into the trough. As soon as the feed hit the bottom, they came rushing. Running, running, the chickens all gathered around the feeding trough and gorged on their favorite food.

I awoke that night to Echo, my dog, barking up a storm. He was perched on the edge of my bed, facing the door and yapping away like crazy. I scratched him behind the ear to get him to calm down and guided him to his usual spot on my bed. In hindsight, him barking was the first warning.

The floor was vibrating. The walls shook, pathetically trying to withstand the shifting below the foundations of the apartment complex. The television fell over, coughing up shards of glass in it's last breath. I cursed all the money wasted, calculating the price of the setback in my head. Outside my window lay a contrasting scene of a magnificent Sun shining over the city.

You wish you had followed your instincts. If only you had not ventured down into the subway tunnel, in pursuit of the masked stranger you had unfortunately encountered less than forty-eight hours ago. You quickly become adjusted to the dim white light, as you look down the seemingly endless tunnel. All too quickly, you feel a quick push and then become aware of the cold rails beneath you. A blinding light gives your eyes cause to squint, as the stars that cloud your eyesight clear. A loud horn…

It all began when our grandfather died.

Did you know tens of thousands of people die in their sleep each night? Most of them succumb to natural causes like heart disease, stroke, or just plain old age. But in that vast group of the fallen, a small subset of them have perished with no explanation at all. Hell, I've heard some have outright disappeared. The funny thing is they all shared one curse that led them to such a demise.

She walks into my life after dark—and disappears before the world wakes up. I rent a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a quiet coastal town just outside San Francisco. I work from home doing overnight tech support for a major software company I’m not allowed to name. Most of my calls come from system admins in Europe or Australia — people who get locked out of their accounts or freak out when syncs fail. It’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills. Anyway, I’m Nate.

In highschool, I had this friend who had really weird dreams. We would drive to school in the morning and she would tell me about them. They all had the same premise, and they all started a little ways into our junior year.

I have to say one of the things I hate the most is to have somebody walking behind me, doesn't matter if it's a friend or a complete stranger, I don't like it. I feel insecure, watched and uncomfortable. You might call me paranoid but honestly, for me, it’s unbearable. Let me begin by saying that the reason I practically hate that is because of some occurrences during my childhood. All of the events that I will tell you actually happened so you probably will understand that for protection…

"I just needed to sleep; it wasn't personal," he murmured, focusing intently on his fidgeting hands to avoid my gaze. "During the war, to desensitize us, our superiors played the harrowing screams of dying men over the speakers in our barracks. Initially, it was deeply unsettling, but over time, I couldn't sleep without it." He yawned, revealing the dark circles under his eyes. "I see," I responded, sitting across the table from the soldier. "And this justifies your actions?"

Larson woke up startled in the middle of the night. He clutched his chest with his tiny hand trying to dull the sharp pain in his heart. As he gasped for air, he desperately tried to remember what his nightmare had been about. He looked over at his alarm clock and discover it was 4:58 AM. He began sobbing and thought about calling out for his mom to come calm him down, but he couldn’t bring himself to make a sound. That’s when he realized that he was not the source of the sniffling and heavy…

I know, what a generic thing to talk about in a story like this, as stories about creepy dolls were shared around to death, but hey, surely someone on here will be interested in what I am talking about as I have something similar to share.

I've been talking to this cute punk girl online for a few months, and eventually I asked her to move in with me. This was 2008, and websites like Myspace were in full swing. We met on a site called VampireFreaks.com, which was basically Myspace for emos, punks, goths, and metalheads. I stood at the Greyhound station, excited to meet my once-online, now real-life girlfriend, and really hoping she was who she presented herself to be. The moment she stepped off the bus, I melted.

This story was archived and was sent to me by a 12-year-old woman from a small town in coastal South Georgia, near the Florida line, who just lost their family due to mysterious circumstances. Here’s their story: My parents have been gone for quite some time, and I always prayed for them to come home. I live alone, and I sat on the couch, holding my blanket until I saw my front door open slightly.

I still don't know why my father drove away before sunrise. For years, I believed that was the part of the story that would never make sense to me. I was wrong. I was too young to understand it then, and every time I asked my parents about that morning, they either laughed it off or admitted they couldn't remember it at all. Sometimes I wonder if forgetting is easier than remembering.

Once again I am having trouble falling asleep, I feel as if I have been awake for hours now yet it’s always 12:00am. If time won’t go forward, I have to wind it forward myself. I placed my headphones in my ears and I played my favourite song on repeat; it seems to have worked, it’s 1:00am. I must have drifted off to sleep because I woke up, although something seems out of place. My headphones are not in my ears and other things from my room are missing. I hear growling coming from my closet; I…

My fiancée, Robert, had gone to his best friend Lewis’ house for a night of gaming and movies. You know, Guy’s Night In. I personally imagine a lot of manly grunting and crude jokes. Anyway, at around 5 pm he kissed me and said goodbye. I spent most of the evening working on my art. Drawing commissions are a pain because usually, what inspires my client is usually one of the things that turns my creative wheels the least.