Sleep Paralysis

This Halloween story was inspired by @The-Princess-Marie’s artwork, especially one piece, and stars, as usual, @MagicalFirefly.

Carlie could not believe how happy she’d been the past week.  It seemed like such a dream to her, marrying the love of her life, Evan. Sure, he was a widower, but she knew he loved her every bit as much as his deceased wife.  That was no doubt.

As they were honeymooning in Ireland, Carlie could never remember feeling such bliss, such joy.

And then it started to happen.  She’d never suffered from sleep paralysis before, that intensely fearful state when you wake up and can’t move at all.  As far as she knew, according to Evan, she only lightly snored.

She’d read about sleep paralysis and how, when someone is suffering from it, they feel a presence or see something inexplicable.  The first night, when she woke up, she could feel someone watching her.  She couldn’t move or breathe for a few seconds, but then it passed.

The second night, someone was over her, looking at her.  What was going on here?  She couldn’t seem to get anything out until it passed, and she could wake Evan up.  He just held Carlie, helping her to relax again before she could fall back to sleep.

The third night is when the real problem began.  Carlie had read that the visions that happen during sleep paralysis were really nothing but a bad dream, but she knew she was awake.  She could feel something around her feet when, suddenly, a sharp pain came through her ankles.  It felt like something was cutting into them, and she could feel it doing so.  She wanted to scream, it hurt, but the paralysis kept her still.

A moment later it stopped, but Carlie felt like her feet were cut off.  She looked down, bending down as far as she could and saw that, yes, her feet were now flat on the bed, clearly separated from her legs.  Carlie screamed for Evan, who scrambled awake. He looked at the feet on the bed, then at Carlie’s truncated legs.  Carlie could only gasp, not sure why she could feel the bed under her feet.  She nervously picked one of them up, flexing her toes and watching as they responded.

The pain was gone, like it hadn’t happened, but she was holding one of her feet in her hands.

The doctor they went to couldn’t explain it.  By all accounts, according to him, Carlie should’ve bled considerably after a foot amputation, and the feet should be completely dead.  They tried to push the feet back onto her ankles, but they wouldn’t stay.  Still, the doctor did find it odd that Carlie could still control her feet and feel with them.

He even tickled her feet in the next room as she laughed uncontrollably.  That night, Evan had the same idea, trying to liven up her spirit by tickling her.  Carlie always did like being tickled, and it made her very happy.

She knew her feet couldn’t run away, they didn’t have legs to attach to, so she went to sleep, uneasily. Carlie had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but she woke up, again in a paralysis, with the feeling that someone was standing over her.  She tried to look, and she saw a form beside her, holding something.  She tried to gasp when she realized that whoever this unknown form was had a saw and was eyeing her waist.

She still tried to scream as she felt the form’s saw on her waist.  It started cutting into her and she couldn’t help it.  She started sobbing, trying to beg this form to stop as the saw sent waves of pain through her paralyzed body.  She could even feel the saw making its way through her one agonizing cut at a time as it continued to sever her hips from her torso.

Would she die this time? That would release her from the pain, but, once the saw cut through her spine, a pain worse than any she could ever imagine, the pain stopped, and she found herself released.

Carlie screamed as she felt below her waist and Evan jolted awake.  Just like before, her body had been mutilated while she couldn’t do anything, and she was clearly cut in half now, her torso a couple of inches further away from her hips than usual.  Evan couldn’t do anything to help as he saw his new bride now in pieces, and not just her feet.

That day, Evan had an idea, one that Carlie wasn’t sure of.  Still, it was better than nothing as he slapped Velcro on the eerily grown bits of flat skin that covered where she’d been cut in half and her feet cut off. Carlie tried to stand, knowing that her halves and feet were only held on by Velcro.  She only stumbled once, but Evan caught her like the gallant knight he’d always tried to be.

Why did it hurt to be cut apart like that, but not after?  Why couldn’t she just get herself back together?  But the big question was this.  Who was doing this to her?

Evan and Carlie did have some fun, though.  She had no idea that having her hips cut away from the rest of her would drive their sexual relationship to a level she’d never felt before.  Sure, she went to sleep happy, hoping that her visitor wouldn’t return.

A few hours later, Carlie woke up, frozen stiff.  The paralysis was back, and she couldn’t move any part of her, not even those parts that were no longer attached.  The figure was back, but, this time, Carlie saw her clearly.

It was a beautiful woman, a few years older than her 19, but with a sad look on her face.  Carlie noticed that she didn’t seem to be all there, like she was some kind of mist or something.  The woman’s eyes went over her form in pieces, then over to Evan with a longing look.

Her eyes than sank into darkness as she produced the saw and Carlie tried to gasp.  The saw came down on her neck this time, and, even though Carlie tried screaming again, she could feel every agonizing moment as this form sawed her head off.

Carlie and Evan managed to have an uneventful rest of their honeymoon after he found Carlie’s head clearly unattached.  Sure, she had to keep herself Velcroed together, but things would be interesting for her if she had to stay like this.

But it was when they got home that Carlie finally told Evan about this figure that had done this to her. Was she an Irish ghost?  Evan wasn’t of Irish descent, neither was Carlie. And they hadn’t stayed in any reputed haunted Irish castles.  So who was she?

Carlie found out when she looked at some of Evan’s old pictures.  There, smiling in one of them, was the face of the figure that had mutilated her.  She told Evan about it who sat down, thunderstruck, and just sat for a few minutes before he identified her.

“That’s Marie.  That’s my dead wife.”