We were sleeping, his right arm under my neck, left under the pillow he was sleeping on. I was on my side facing away from him. (Yes, these positions are important.)
I was just coming out of a dream where I was in my friends' apartment, and some guy who could be easily labeled a redneck was drunk and yammering away, smoking a cigarette in his cut-off shorts and steel-toed boots. He had some weird, intricate tattoo on his arm, and as he's gesturing wildly, he flicks his cigarette in a perfect arch into their window, landing not a centimeter from the cup of one of my friends. Boyfriend picks up the butt and walks it to the door and flicks it back at him, calling him an idiot in the process.
It was then I could feel myself coming out of the dream, and I was giggling to myself and thinking, "That showed him" when I could feel myself slipping into the sleep paralysis. It was like a mesh veil drifting on top of me, and as I was starting to feel it, I thought I'd slipped out from under it. I though I'd be able to ward it off, since I could feel it coming on. I thought to myself, "Wow, I just dodged that one."
That's when the voice of a thousand whispers came back, this time angry and in a fever pitch.
"We can't have any of that, now can we?" it hissed.
It was then that it hit. I felt my body go rigid, and it felt like a left hand was around my shoulder, while a right hand was digging into my belly button. I squirmed as best as I could, but the hand just dug deeper until it was behind my belly button, at which point it pinched as hard as it could. It hurt terribly, and I couldn't cry for help or move it off.
After some squirming, I'd managed to push the hand around my shoulder off and sit up, but the right hand was still in my stomach. And it was still pinching. It hurt so badly I wanted to scream, but no sound would come. I braced my hand against it and pushed. I tried to turn my head to see if Boyfriend was doing it, but it was like trying to move through sludge. It took as much effort to turn my head as it did for me to sit up, which seemed to take forever in itself. Eventually I got around, and Boyfriend was sleeping soundly, none the wiser to the fact that Keepers wouldn't let go of me.
I got another hand around the one at my belly and pushed with everything I had.
And it was gone. Just gone. I almost hit the desk next to my bed, only barely stopping myself. I was breathing heavily and my stomach still hurt. I whispered to Boyfriend, and graciously, sound came from my lips. I woke him up and told him about it, but he was too groggy to comprehend more than the fact that I had a bad dream. We cuddled, and he was out again before I knew it. I don't think I slept much after that. I wanted to make sure these details didn't slip from me before I got a chance to write them down.
I probably shouldn't be trying to keep a record of these...but they'd make an interesting story later. The Keepers coupled with the Shadow Man who would follow me in my childhood.
Anyway, that was it. The whole ordeal took about four minutes total. It felt like at least an hour. This is one of the few ones where there was actual pain afterwards. The first was the time the Shadow Man was crouching on my neck and shoulder, and I woke up standing after trying to pull myself out from under the weight of no weight. My neck and left shoulder hurt like mad for the next few hours.
Now that I'm keeping a record of these, I'm almost excited to see what the next one is gonna be like. Also terrified.
