“Can you hear me?”

It was dark and Kalina couldn’t see who was speaking to her. She tried to open her eyes. Were they even closed? She tried to turn over, thinking perhaps she was sleeping. Her body wasn’t responding like it should.

“Try not to move,” the speaker said from somewhere that sounded both very near and yet possibly distant all at the same time.

Kalina tried to speak but no words came. It seemed to her that she was dreaming, she must be, and this was just that rare half awake state where she was still dreaming but couldn’t move. What was that called? Her mind slogged through the dense, semiconscious process of remembering and eventually turned up the answer.

“Sleep paralysis,” she said aloud without meaning to, her voice somewhat slurred.

There was no response to her murmured words from the disembodied voice that had been speaking to her earlier. Instead, the darkness around her began to lighten as though the sun were beginning to rise and shine through her curtains. She didn’t want it to be dawn yet. She wasn’t much a morning person on the best of days. Still, if it was time to get up it was time to get up. No point delaying the inevitable.

Kalina tried to open her eyes once again but found she was still unable to move. She tried to open her eyes with similar results. She’d just have to wait for her mind to finish waking up, but how long would that take? Her alarm hadn’t gone off yet so she wasn’t concerned about being late for work but lying in bed paralyzed wasn’t exactly how she wanted to start her day.

“Is your name Kalina?” the voice asked and it startled her when it spoke. She thought she was too awake at this point to still be dreaming. Apparently not.

“Yes,” Kalina told the voice, though she wasn’t sure why. At least it was something to do while she waited to wake up.

“Are you in any pain?”

That was a strange question to ask and she wondered what that said about her subconscious. Her life wasn’t particularly great but neither was it very bad. Overall she thought she had a pretty average life. Sure she’d like it if her job paid a little better. She wouldn’t mind it if she could meet someone to date who would take their relationship more seriously than her previous boyfriends had done.

“Kalina,” the voice broke into her thoughts once more. “Are you in any pain?”

“Physical or emotional?” Kalina replied, still in her sleepy, slurred speech. She really didn’t want to have this conversation with herself and hoped that if she was sufficiently sarcastic that it would leave her alone.

“Kalina, do you know where you are?”

“Just leave me alone,” she pleaded with her subconscious. “I’m trying to wake up.”

She tried to roll over again, maybe shift some of the blankets off of herself. Unfortunately her body still refused to move more than a couple inches in any direction and the blankets felt as though they weighed a hundred pounds.

“No, Kalina!” the voice exclaimed and it almost felt as though a hand were placed on her to keep her from moving. “You need to lie still.”

“Stop it,” Kalina felt a couple of tears squeeze out from beneath her still closed eyelids and run down her face as a sudden wave of emotion struck her. Either let her wake up or else leave her alone so she could go back to sleep for what little time she had remaining before her alarm was suppose to go off.

“Kalina,” the voice spoke again, “do you know here you are?”

Why did it keep asking her that question? Of course she knew where she was.

“I’m in bed,” she groaned, “now let me sleep!”

“No, don’t go to sleep,” the voice said with growing urgency, “I need you to stay with me.”

How was she suppose to stay with this disembodied subconscious voice without staying asleep? Then again, dreams rarely made any sense and this was just a prime example of that. Kalina decided to just try ignoring the voice and see if that worked.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling particularly tired anymore. At least, she wasn’t tired enough that she thought she could actually get back to sleep. If she could just get over her sleep paralysis she’d be able to open her eyes, throw off her blankets, and begin her day. She tried to open her eyes for the third time bat all she managed to accomplish was a slight flutter, granting her fleeting glimpses of what she could only assume was the dream still playing on inside her mind. It definitely wasn’t her room that she saw.

Details were hard to make out in the dream but there were lights strobing off and on in the otherwise dark landscape. Shapes of people moved in and out of view and there were strange and harsh sounds she couldn’t quite place. A sort of whining, grinding sound.

Perhaps she wasn’t as close to waking as she had thought. Maybe she was just lucid dreaming? She didn’t know enough about it to be able to say for certain what was going on but if she was still asleep then she was just going to let the dream carry on and stop worrying about trying to wake up. Hopefully the lucid dreaming won’t prevent her from still feeling rested in the morning.

“Kalina,” the voice said, “I’m going to need you to be extra still for just a moment.”

She ignored the voice. She wasn’t moving anyways. She just wanted to sleep. The dream could do whatever it liked so long as it –

Firm hands gripped her around the neck. This may just be a dream but she didn’t want it to turn into a horror.

“What are you doing?!” Kalina tried to shout but her voice was still weak and slurred. She tried to slap the hands away but her body wouldn’t respond properly.

“Kalina,” the voice said anxiously, “Kalina! I need you to just relax.”

The hands closed more firmly around her neck. They were massive, much larger than human hands. The spanned from her collar bone to her jaw, even pushing her head up slightly. There was a wet, tearing sound, as though flesh were being ripped, but no pain came and she was grateful for that.

She couldn’t help it and she tried to open her eyes once again. The lights and moving outlines of people were still there but there was no sign of any monster, though she could still feel the hands tight around her neck. It didn’t seem to be choking her though, or perhaps she didn’t notice it because she was lucid dreaming and so it couldn’t actually effect her in that way.

It wasn’t as difficult as before to keep her eyes open this time and she was able to see more of her surroundings. She was outside, in a somewhat wooded area, though there were no trees immediately where she was. The source of the strobing lights was behind her so she couldn’t see what they were exactly. The moving shapes of people passing between trees in the distance seemed both hurried and purposeful, though what they were suppose to be doing she couldn’t tell. Some of them carried what looked like tool boxes.

“Kalina,” the voice said and at last she saw who it was that was speaking to her. It was too dark to make out details, but the person was kneeling on the ground beside her. “Kalina, can you look at me?”

“I already am,” she replied, unamused. She shouldn’t have opened her eyes, she realized. Now the dream would try even harder to seem real. She could hear more of her surroundings now, the crunch of leaves and twigs as the people in the background walked around, the slight hiss of the wind, occasional voices speaking incoherently in the distance. At least she didn’t feelthe dream. It looked cold there, though not freezing, and lying on the ground didn’t seem like it would be all that comfortable.

“Kalina, look at my eyes,” the person beside her said and Kalina obliged as best she could. With the light all coming from behind the person it was difficult to make out exactly where their eyes were. “Do you know where you are?” they asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “I’m in my bed, dreaming.”

The person beside her shifted their weight uncomfortably.

“No,”’ they said, “you’ve been in an accident.”

Kalina laughed as best she could and decided to just go along with it rather than fight the dream.

“Okay then,” Kalina said, “Where am I and what happened?”

“You were driving your car and lost control somehow,” they told her. “Your car went off the road and struck a tree. You were ejected from the vehicle and landed here. Can you wiggle your toes or feet  for me?”

“Wow, that sounds really bad,” Kalina said dryly. “I can’t move anything right now though.”

“Well we’ve put a neck brace on you for now,” they said and Kalina realized that that was what was wrapped so tightly around her neck. “an ambulance is on its way and we’ll get you to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“It’s a good thing I’m dreaming,” Kalina muttered.

“What’s that?” the person asked.

“I said it’s a good thing I’m dreaming,” she repeated, though she knew it wasn’t going to make the person any easier to deal with. “There’s no way I could afford the hospital bills.”

“This isn’t a dream, Kalina,” the person told her and Kalina didn’t argue the point.

She continued to lie there, looking around as best she could. Every time she tried to move more than her eyes the person beside her would get anxious and upset, insisting she remain still. Even so, she noticed that she could feel and move her neck a bit now. It felt slow and stiff, especially with the neck brace, but she could move it if she wanted.

“I’m actually getting a little cold,” Kalina remarked. It wasn’t the terrible chill she would have expected had this been real, but it was nonetheless uncomfortable. She wondered if she’d kicked her blankets off. “And I’m getting really bored of just waiting for this ambulance.”

“I know,” the person said, and they patted her on her shoulder. Kalina didn’t feel it.

More time passed and nothing new happened. No ambulance arrived. The person beside her repeated their assurances that it was on its way but other than that nothing happened. Then an idea struck Kalina.

“People wake up when they die in their dreams, right?” It was a rhetorical question but she said it out loud anyway.

“I’ve heard of that happening but never experienced it,” was the reply.

Kalina twitched her neck to the side as hard and as fast as she could. If her neck was suppose to be broken or something in this dream then sudden movements like that would surely result in her death within the dream.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The person cried out in shock as Kalina’s vision flashed briefly white.

“I’m waking myself up,” she told them through gritted teeth and jerked her head to the other side.

Pain shot through her neck and the white flash lingered longer this time, fading slowly back into the dark forest.

“One more ought to do it,” Kalina said and she gave her head one last solid jerk to the side as the person beside her dove to try and hold her still.

Pain shot through her neck as well as her skull this time as it seemed as though she’d hit something solid with her head that time. She instinctively reached up to cradle her head in her hands. As she moved, she jammed her hands against the wall beside her bed. There was a decent sized dent in the sheet rock where she’d smacked her head against it moments before.

Kalina looked dazedly around her room for and took a moment to fully awaken, occasionally seeing the dark forest again as if it were a thin, translucent overlay. While she lay there she massaged her neck and head. She’d probably need to take it easy that day, probably gave herself whiplash waking up that way.

At last she was fully awake and she began kicking off the covers. Her alarm clock showed that she was just a few minutes early in waking up.

“Sheesh,” Kalina breathed out as she sat up in bed.

A hot shower and then some breakfast was what she needed now. Maybe some painkillers as well. Then she’d record this latest dream in her journal. It was an odd practice she’d begun doing years ago, but one that she found to be immensely fascinating to her friends and family whenever she read to them her most recent dream.