18
I wake to malevolence. The room is peculiarly sepia. I can only guess that the time is early morning. There’s no rationality now. Panic attacks produce fear, but that’s internalized. This exists everywhere – I am immersed in a terror that is absolute. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t escape. Strangely, when the Aropax was instigating parasomnia episodes, it was driving me out of the bed. Now I’m locked in here. It’s ten years ago. I haven’t had a sleep paralysis episode for over thirty years. Right now, I can’t even reconcile that’s what’s happening. Then a greater truth presents itself. There’s somebody to my right. Somebody cold…
11
I lay in bed, caught between sleep and waking, but feeling a peculiar tiredness I’d compare to the lassitude that comes from a sedative. It’s my first bout with Covid – I thought I was going to be invulnerable from it. But waking up with an overwhelming lethargy, I bought a test on the way to work, took it into my makeshift office, and was surprised to see it come up positive. Four years ago, this might’ve terrified me – at the very least, I would’ve worried myself into what might happen. That’s always been my worst enemy: my imagination. But now I only feel disappointment that I’ve tested positive.…