Be Careful of the Dark. It's not rocket science to perceive that when scary and evil things transpire, it most likely will occur while it is dark outdoors, or when all your lights are off in the house. And here is another reason why you should be terrified of the dark: 

This happened the other night, and this individual further explains:

I work an early shift and have to be up at four in the morning so this all happened sometime between 10 pm and 4 am.

I'd gone to bed early and found myself asleep after a while, having strange and unnerving dreams, all of which I've forgotten the particulars of. These were your garden variety of unpleasant dreams and paled in comparison to what happened when I woke up. (Sounds like me with my nightmares, for which I will be posting shortly if given the green light to do so). 

I woke up to a suffocating sensation, a tightness in my chest where my heart was pulsating. Now a critical thing to know concerning me is that when I'm fatigued, I couldn't bother less regarding anything.

I once believed my precious childhood hamster had disappeared but was so exhausted I couldn't get up to make sure the cat couldn't capture him (he wasn't in jeopardy, but the point is I was too tired to care about the most important thing in my life at the time). When I'm tired enough, even the reality that I can barely breathe isn't sufficient to frighten me, so even though my chest was tight, and the air was painful to inhale or exhale, I remained calm. I lay there on my back, hands against my pillow, by my face, my limbs solidified in an "X" figure, like being fastened down. I muttered a bit to myself drowsily as I glimmered alert, uncertain if it was time to get up for work.

The moonlight was beaming through my shades, just enough to dimly illuminate the bedroom with a blue radiance. My eyes adapted promptly to this lighting, as I casually censured my room for indications of what could have woken me up. My rabbit, Sir Runt, was sleeping in his cage as was my turtle. And there was no sign that any of my cats had pushed their way in through the padlocked door. When I eventually lounged my head to look upwards, ready to go back to sleep, I saw... it.

Hovering above my bed, was a thick black mass in the formation of a male, about 5'8 or 5'9. He had short hair that jutted out some as if tussled, and his arms were down at his sides, scarcely out, and his toes slightly bend. He seemed as if he had just begun to lift off the bed, or had been paused mind bounce on the mattress, drifting towards me, at about a 45-degree angle.

My first thought (still half asleep, and foggy-brained) as I looked at the boyish shadow, like that of a teenager, was "Why is Peter Pan in my room? Or his shadow?" Absurd I know, I'm half asleep with a thing hovering above me, and I go right to cartoon characters but again, I was exhausted from a double, almost triple shift of work that day, and still half asleep. A more alert part of my mind, starting to clear from the haze of sleep only a fraction of a second later, echoed a sobering thought. In the same tone of dreed, you'd share bad, slightly unnerving news a voice in my head simply reminded me "you're an adult."

The moment I contemplated this, my eyes darted open wide. I don't know what it was about this unnervingly calm statement in my subconscious that did it, but this snapped me wide awake. I've never responded so alert before in my life, or so terrified. The thing had wicked vibes, flowing off it in waves, I couldn't apprehend what I was observing, but I knew two things were undeniable as I gapped at it; I was awake, and this thing was there.

My mind drifted a mile a minute, my first feeling was of the unpleasant dreams I'd been having. There's an old legend about something that perches on a sleeping person's chest and produces nightmares, its where the word comes from. This myth was my initial theory as to what I was seeing, though I immediately ruled it out. I forced myself to slide about half a centimeter away from it, almost involuntarily gasping "no" as I stared. Then, I noticed a flash of two red dots, where eyes should be, as I yanked the blanket over my head, regaining my limb's use.

I laid in the dark wide-eyed and gasping, trembling as I strived to figure out what had been hovering over me in my sleep. I knew whatever it was, wasn't good, and I refused to risk a peek from under the blanket, lest it still is there.

I've encountered a lot of scary stuff in my long life, from unidentified creatures to wannabe kidnappers (stories for another time perhaps) but nothing has ever terrified me like this thing. Whatever that was, a shadow person, a demon, sleep paralysis, or whatever the hell else it could be, I hope it never comes back. Nonetheless, it always seems too.

We all like to think if we ever encountered something dark and possibly supernatural that we'd handle it with a level head, understanding the danger and hop on the first nope-train to Screw-that-Ville and getaway. That's not invariably what follows.

What are you supposed to do when you're trapped between a mattress and something watching in the dark? I always liked scary stories, urban legends, and myths, but I never wanted to live in one, to be a first-hand account of something like that. It's so hard to explain, I just wish it never occurs again. I know most people won't believe me but, I know this happened, I don't think I could disregard it, even if I tried. I just needed to share this someplace with someone. Even just for my sanity.

Incidentally, if you enjoy these true tales of horror you can check out my book called Obliterated, "Everything is About To Change. Haven't I been correct thus far?