The Nightmare

I only remember waking up wrong. Not groggy.
Not confused. But Wrong.

Like my consciousness booted up before my body did. I tried to lift my hand but nothing. Tried to blink, still nothing. My eyelids stayed open, burning, dry, frozen. I was trapped inside myself, screaming commands that my body ignored like a dead phone with a cracked screen.And then... something tugged.Not on my clothes, Not on my limbs, but inside me.

A slow, nauseating pull, like invisible fingers hooked behind my ribs and started dragging me upward. My spine didn't bend. My muscles didn't react. My body just lifted, stiff and puppet‑like, rising toward the ceiling.

I felt every inch of distance between me and the bed stretch like a rubber band about to snap.Then I hit the ceiling. Except I didn't hit it - I passed through it.

The sensation was the worst part. It wasn't like floating through air. It was like pushing your face through cold, thick gelatin - except the gelatin was drywall, insulation, wood. I could feel the texture of it sliding across my skin without touching me. Like the world was brushing against a version of me I wasn't fully inside. My stomach flipped. My mind clawed at itself. I kept thinking:

"I'm not supposed to feel this. I'm not supposed to be able to feel this."

But I did.

The roof spat me out into the open night, and suddenly I was miles above the ground, dangling in the air like a marionette with its strings pulled tight.I couldn't breathe.
Not because I needed air - I just couldn't. My lungs didn't respond. My chest didn't rise. I was stuck in a body that wasn't obeying the rules of being alive.

The wind whipped past me, but I didn't feel cold.
Didn't feel pressure.

Didn't feel anything except the horrifying awareness that I was completely helpless.Then the invisible force let go.And I dropped.The fall wasn't fast at first. It was slow, agonizing, like someone wanted me to feel every inch of descent. My stomach floated up into my throat even though I couldn't swallow.
My eyes watered even though I couldn't blink.Then the speed hit.The world blurred.
The air screamed.

My mind begged for impact just to make it stop.But instead of hitting the ground...
And I hit water.

The ocean swallowed me whole, cold and endless. I sank instantly, like my body was made of stone. The pressure wrapped around me, squeezing, crushing, but not hurting. Just... reminding me I couldn't move. Couldn't swim. Couldn't fight.

I sank deeper.
And deeper.
And deeper.

The darkness thickened until it felt like it was pressing against my eyeballs. My ears filled with a low, vibrating hum, the kind you feel in your bones more than you hear.

Then I saw it. Saw its shape. Seemed small but closing in, it became Huge. Gliding toward me with slow, predatory confidence.A shark.Its mouth opened, rows of teeth glinting like broken glass. It lunged, and its jaws clamped around my torso.The pressure was unreal.Not pain but pressure.

Like being squeezed by a hydraulic press wrapped in sandpaper.I felt my body fold, twist, shake as it thrashed me like a chew toy. My head whipped back and forth. My spine bent in ways it shouldn't. My ribs compressed like bubble wrap under a boot.But nothing broke.
Nothing tore. Nothing bled.
I was being violently mangled without the mercy of injury.

That was the moment I realized the nightmare wasn't trying to kill me. It was trying to use me.

Something yanked me upward again violently, like a hook ripping me out of the shark's mouth. I shot through the water, through the clouds, through the atmosphere until the sky turned black and the stars sharpened into cold needles.I was in space.
Floating.
Weightless.
Silent.

The Earth glowed beneath me, beautiful and terrifying. I wanted to close my eyes, but they stayed open, burning.
Then I dropped.

No warning.
No sound.

Just the sudden, sickening plummet back toward the planet.The atmosphere ignited around me, flames licking my skin without heat. My body spun, twisted, tumbled. My mind felt like it was being shaken loose inside my skull.I braced for impact even though I couldn't move.The ground rushed up.I hit.And nothing happened.

No pain.
No cracks.
No death.

Just the crushing realization that I was trapped in a nightmare where nothing could kill me, but everything could terrify me.

A nightmare designed not to end my life......

but to break my sanity.