Hantu

by Adrianna Haris

I awoke to nothing but utter darkness. It caused my heart to tremble slightly from the lack of awareness. All I felt was a haunting sensation. I didn’t understand this uncertain feeling.

Still awake, I switched on my lamp. The hairs on my cold body stiffened at the click of the button. As I scanned my surroundings, my breath shortened at every unlit corner of the room. I suspected something. I felt an urge to act on this feeling and inspect the room, for what would I find in reality is much more plausible than the scenarios my mind kept generating.

I stirred in my slumber as there were sudden sensations around my feet. The prickling touch of scaly fingers travelled the length of my body till it reached the strands of my hair. My inert reaction was to tightly suppress my ability to see. My eyes could play tricks on me, but I soon realised how wrong I was. These uncomfortable sensations continued with the added weight of beady-like eyes fixed adamantly on my restless body. The thought of stares so intense had me feeling as though I was suffocating.

It was as though the life was being sucked out from me – I couldn’t breathe. I tried, but every breath was like a sharp puncture to my lungs. Gasping for air, I removed myself from the safety of my covers and into the treacherous terrain that was my room. I could only get what felt like a few centimetres away from my bed before I was stopped in my tracks. There was a mumble, I couldn’t quite work out what it was. The strange manner in which it was speaking chilled me to the bone. When I needed my eyes to decipher what it was, it decided to create blurriness in my vision. I could only make out loose forms of colour in this dimness. It was in that moment that I realised that every basic function of the human body had betrayed me. And for that I felt lost.