Søvnkrammer

I was in bed when it started.

The storm didn’t really hit until after midnight.
It wasn’t rain at first. Just pressure.
You know that feeling when you dive too deep in a swimming pool?
That’s what the inside of the house felt like. Submerged. Every damn window rattled in its frame, chattering like teeth.
The gutters outside were shrieking.
Wind kept shoving against the siding in these long, groaning waves; like something the size of a whale was leaning its dead weight against my bedroom wall.

Like back in ‘97. Or ’06. Only worse. Way worse.

I woke up sleeping on my stomach, face smashed into the mattress, which always leaves me horribly groggy.
Took me way too long to actually get up.
I finally dragged myself to the window and yanked the blinds.

And for a split second, through eyes still crusted with gunk, I saw the thing.

Well. I saw its outline.

It stood taller than the streetlamps out in the morning fog.
Its shoulders hunched way forward, and it had these two impossibly long arms.
They just dangled. Freely. Like a pair of grotesque earrings swinging from a deformed head, the hands completely eaten up by the mist.

I blinked. Gone.

I waded through flooded streets to get to work.
By the time I reached the gallery, my shoes were ruined and my nerves were entirely shot.
The day itself was a nightmare. We had a delayed inbound pallet for the new exhibition arrive all at once. Nine massive pieces. Total chaos.
Curators yelling, phones buzzing off the hook, and thunder hammering the skylights so hard I thought the glass was going to cave in.

I decided to stay late. Someone had to catalogue and process the art, but honestly? The idea of going back to my empty, groaning house gave me the creeps.

The collection was upsetting. Just deeply weird stuff. Every single painting had this pretentious little ritual attached to it; specific instructions on how to properly “view” the art.

I got through six of them before I hit number seven.

Søvnkrammer.

I slid it onto the staging table, popped the metal locks on the crate, and lifted the lid.

All the spit dried up in my mouth.

It was the silhouette. The exact same shape from the fog. Same hunched shoulders.
Same dangling, sickening arms.
This wasn’t a trick of my sleep-deprived brain anymore.
The gallery label listed it as Inedito. Unseen. Unpublished.
The artist was a notorious recluse who never posted their work anywhere.
I couldn’t have just seen it online and dreamed it up.

When I picked up the frame, a piece of scorched paper fluttered onto the floorboards.
The ritual instructions.

I should have left it right there. I should have walked out of the building.
But you know that intrusive thought you get when you stand on a high ledge?
The one that tells you to jump? It felt like that.
A sick, magnetic pull.
My hands were visibly shaking, but I wrapped my arms around my own chest, hugged myself tight, and read the charred Danish words out loud.

“Åh, undergangens herold, kom til denne jord og opslug mig fuldkomment.”

I held my breath. Waited.

Nothing. Obviously, nothing.

I let out this pathetic, breathy laugh.
The sheer stupidity of standing in an empty room, chanting at a canvas, completely broke the tension.
I felt like an idiot.
Just a tired, stressed-out idiot letting bad weather and creepy art get to my head.

I locked up, went home, and crashed. Didn’t eat. Didn’t shower.
I just collapsed onto my mattress in my work clothes and blacked out.

Until I woke up freezing. Shaking so hard I bit my tongue.

The storm was still tearing at the house, way louder now.
Rain hit the roof like buckshot.
The pipes inside the plaster clicked and moaned.
Somewhere down the street, metal was scraping against concrete; this awful, high-pitched squeal cutting right through the thunder.

But under all that noise, there was the pressure.

It felt like I was buried under a yard of wet cement. I tried to lift my hands.

Couldn’t.

Then I felt them.

They weren’t hands. They were arms.

Long. Impossibly, freakishly long arms.
They were wrapped completely around me from behind, crossing over my ribcage and stomach like seatbelts pulled way too tight.
The skin pressing against my neck felt damp and freezing, pulled taut over something that felt like knotted wood.

I heard my ribs groan before my brain even registered the pain.

A slow, deliberate squeeze. Then another.

The mattress sank deeper.
Something hot and metallic-smelling gushed out of my nose, soaking right into my pillowcase.

I managed to crank my neck just an inch. Caught a blur of it standing right over the bed.
Its shoulders were jammed up against the ceiling drywall, but those endless arms were still winding tighter around my chest.

My spine snapped.
It was a wet, heavy pop that completely drowned out the storm outside.

And through the static whining in my ears, through the thick, bubbly sounds backing up in my throat, I heard it.
It was breathing. Softly. Right above my head.

Almost affectionately.

Like a lover trying to pull me closer.