Page 86 of Possessed By Shadows

Chapter 27

Nightmares sometimes lingered, even if I startled awake, heart racing. The memory of a screaming, demonic face glaring into mine through a swirl of black shadows stuck with me. A glaring repeat rewinding and playing in my head until I thought maybe my heart would burst from the fear.

I woke with that strange sleep paralysis thing I’d only encountered two or three times in my entire life. My brain coming alert, tripping out of the memory of demons, while feeling like I couldn’t really move anything, even my lungs tight for a few seconds. The oddest part was that I was actually moving, I just couldn’t feel or control it.

Eerie, was the mildest word I could put to it. The fact that I was standing outside an unfamiliar house, buzzing a doorbell and pounding on the door, was damn near terrifying. And I couldn’t stop. Instead, pacing in a circle, body twitching as if it were full of energy, yet it was dead to me, untouchable. I didn’t feel my hands pounding on the door, though I couldseehow hard they hit, enough to vibrate the entire frame.

Someone off to the side reached for me, but I didn’t turn their way. It was dark, and the crunch of glass underfoot told me why the light above the door was out. Had I done that? I tried to breathe, center myself and take back control, waking up my body, but it was like floating, tethered, but unable to reel myself back in.

What the fuck?

The sleep thing never lasted this long into waking, and it was never this hard to breathe. What was I saying?

“Open the fucking door! Give me back my stuff!” It rolled in a constant refrain, my lungs refilling enough to scream it again, and repeat, not giving me enough time between to actually breathe. My vision spotted, brain issuing a warning, oddly connected when the rest of me seemed not to be.

Someone reached for me again, this time putting themselves in front of the door and my fists. There were a lot of gasps and cries around me as my fists still raised, moving to strike, and suddenly I was face-to-face with Micah.

“Micah, don’t!” I couldn’t tell who said it, only feel the horror of not being able to control my fists as they headed his way.

No, no, no! I screamed inside my head. Like trying to break through an invisible brick wall, I slammed every sense of my thoughts and will forward, demanding control. No one hurt Micah. And no one mademehurt Micah.

The screaming words eked out of me from coherent rambling repeats to a half scream as my fist landed, not in Micah’s face where he’d planted himself directly in my path, but just to the side of his head. Ripples of awakening nerves began where my hand met the door, quickly etching a sharp wash of prickling pain up my arm and spreading across me.

I was on fire. It was the only way to describe the insanity of every nerve suddenly jarring to life all at once. Tingling of a sleeping limb did not cover it. Acid through my veins, electricity shocking every nerve to contract? I had never hurt as much as I did in that second. Body screaming, mind scrambling to keep a hold as that rolling repeat of thought shoved at me like it could kick me out of myself.

I hovered, unsteady, suddenly able to suck in large breaths of air, but still having dark spots over my vision and something raging inside my head like it wanted control.Give me back my stuff!

What stuff? Whose stuff?

I half collapsed against the door, head hitting the wood, my body pressed to Micah’s. There was noise around us, and I could only sort of see his face.

I let out a long breath and had to work to unclench my fists. The hand on the door slowly came down, the nerves still jumping and popping, sensation stunted, and too intense all at once. That hand, my hand, found Micah’s face. Had I hurt him? There were tears on his cheeks. The wetness beneath my fingers a bit electrified by my touch, made my heart skip a beat.

“Micah?” I whispered; voice hoarse like I’d been screaming for hours.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You in there?”

I pressed my forehead to his, wishing there was more light, and behind us there was flashlights and people, but I wanted nothing between us. “I almost hurt you…”

“Not you,” he said. He touched my face.

“The cops are going to be here soon,” someone said. “I’d really like to not get arrested tonight.”

“We have lots of numbers, and cameras.”

“And two black men that the cops can say look shady in the dark,” someone else said.

“He back?” That voice was familiar enough. I turned my head a little to find my father standing off to the side, flashlight in hand but aimed at the ground.

“Dad? What? Where the fuck?” I looked around, not willing to let go of Micah. We weren’t in the Garden District anymore but a little further west and north maybe? This wasn’t the normal sort of row house I was used to seeing in the area, more a suburban type of community build, where the houses were all cookie cutter boring with two floors, pale outsides, attached garages, and manicured lawns. There was no craftsman vibe or any real artistry to the house, and since I wasn’t well versed with neighborhoods outside of our little corner of NOLA yet, I had no idea where I was.

“That was bizarre,” I heard another voice say, this time recognizing it as Jason.

“Total psych ward shit,” someone I didn’t recognize said, but when I glanced around there were a lot of people, cameras, and phones pointed my way. My stomach sank. Would they send me back? Call me crazy? Maybe they should. I had almost hit Micah.

“Hey,” Micah said again, his hands on my face. “Breathe.”

“What?” I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to start.