-Zoey’s POV-

It was like sleep paralysis.

That’s the only way I can think to describe it. The horrifying sensation of suddenly losing control still lingered in my mind. For just a few minutes, I was but a spectator to whatever whims the demonic creature that entered my body wished to act upon.

The sense of relief I felt after waking up from that nightmare was a high like walking out of a movie theater at the end of a good horror flick. Though, that high was shorter lived than I would have liked.

If only it were just a nightmare, right? Just the silly musings of my subconscious taking form in the shape of a cruel joke. Though, if it were my subconscious, I couldn’t help but wonder why I would do such a thing in my own dream. In the first place, I’ve never once felt pity for any man who has made a pass at me.

And why should I? Why should I feel guilty that their delusions of who I am caused them to fall in love with me? Do any of them know the real me? Of course not.

Should I acquiesce to their desire for a relationship out of sympathy rather than accepting the truth? The truth that I would rather crawl over searing coals than go out on a single date with any one of them?

No, that isn’t me.

If there’s one ubiquitous law that’s surrounded my existence since I was born, it’s that I respect myself far too much to be subjected to something I’d rather not do. I would never commit such a brutal act of self-harm as by going out with someone that I dislike.

And yet, in that dream, I texted Benjamin Otto and affirmed my desire to go to the homecoming dance with him.

What a cruel joke.

Made crueler by the fact that, upon waking up, I had come to the stunning realization that it wasn’t simply a dream at all. The text message had existed in reality, and he had already responded confirming that we would be partners from hence onward. It seemed as if my nightmare had done the impossible and traversed past the walls of my subconscious.

I couldn’t understand it. Did I sleep-text him? Why or how would I even be capable of this?

I haven't done a sleep-anything in my life before, much less a sleep-text. In fact, I haven't even heard of something like that ever happening. So what exactly happened?

“Uh, hello? Are you even listening to me?”

Whatever the case, that incident led me to this situation.

Classes were over for the day, and Gwen Diaz decided to take it upon herself to interrogate me right outside of the school’s main entrance over my completely unwanted relationship with Benjamin.

The whole thing was a farce.

The other students walked past us in silence, doing their best to feign disinterest, but it was fairly obvious thanks to their poorly disguised gazes that they were eavesdropping. I turned back to face Gwen.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Very funny, bitch.”

Her left eye twitched as she did her best to smile off my snide remark. “No more games, okay? Just tell me why you’re going out with Ben.”

I couldn’t help but wonder how much it pained her to do this. To not only be this much of a stereotype, but to also parade yourself as such before the entire student body. It honestly felt like a caricature of Gwen. A portrayal of a preppy, fun-spirited girl turned deranged stalker over her abusive ex-boyfriend.

If it were me, I’d die of embarrassment.

Then again, is Gwen the kind of person to even have enough self-awareness to realize how bad it looked for her?

“Why do people date, Gwen? I don’t know, you tell me.”

“So you do know who I am.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh, it will be unfortunate if you keep playing smart with me.”

“Calm down."

“No, you calm down. Just quit it with all the passive aggressive bullshit and… you know what, actually? Let’s just skip the small talk. Why don’t you just do us both a favor and break up with him. By tomorrow. Or else.”

She had cut right to the chase.

Her offer honestly wasn’t a bad one. By tomorrow? I was considering doing it before the day was out. I entertained the novelty of the situation with Benjamin for a while, but as I thought, I wasn’t the biggest fan of being that confined and controlled by someone I don’t care for.

Especially not to the extent that he takes it. Not even my own parents bothered to look over my shoulders as much as he did. He would get upset if I so much as made eye contact with other guys, he constantly, and I mean constantly texted me, and he tried making like a million plans to go out on dates just this week alone.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It’s a wonder that he gets across the basketball court carrying that many red flags around. And this was without talking about how he smacked the barbie doll over there while they were dating. So why not break up with him then? Well, what changed my mind was a conversation I had with a certain student earlier that day.

“Or else? Or else what?” I asked.

“Yeah? You really wanna go there? You think I don’t have shit on you, Zoey? You try so hard to be likable, but oh, if only they all knew who you really are deep down.”

“If only I were so lucky,” I said, turning my attention back to the entrance.

And there, I saw him.

That boy.

It’s all his fault that I didn’t simply break it off with Benjamin during lunch. What he said to me back then had stuck out to me. The way he spoke about my situation was far too accurate to be written off as merely a coincidence.

It was suspicious. Why had he chosen to speak to me for the first time in our high school careers on today of all days? Why did he tell me a story that was so comparable to my situation?

It was eerily suspicious. In fact, it led me to believe that something stranger than I initially believed had happened last night. Perhaps I was being paranoid. Something like that is far too supernatural an idea to entertain. But the sensations I’d felt during that dream were far too real to ignore.

Hypothetically, what if my body was “hacked”? What if someone else had taken control of me in the midst of my sleep, and decided to have me accept Ben’s advances? I thought back to my actions during that dream. They’re strangely vivid in my mind, even at this moment.

I woke up, glanced around the room, studied myself in the mirror, assailed my clothing drawers, checked my phone, sent the message, then went back to sleep. Those aren’t the actions of someone with an agenda. It’s almost like they were trying to get a grasp of their situation. When you combine it with the fact that I felt so helpless in my own dream, it felt possible. Possible, really? Was my body actually hacked that night?

“Hey, look at me when I’m fucking talking to you!” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently for a second. The sudden assailing of my personal space left me disheveled for a moment, and I adjusted my glasses before turning back to face her.

“Let go of me.”

“Yeeeah, that’s more like it. Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, you fucking whore."

“Gwen. You’re not listening to me,” I said. “I’m only going to repeat myself once: let go of me.”

“Yeah? Or what?” she asked.

“Are you sure you want me to repeat it a second time?”

Despite being threatened, Gwen stared straight into my eyes with a deranged smile stretched across her face. As if she were enjoying every second of making me uncomfortable. It’s like she was daring me to try something in front of all these people. I glanced around, and it was apparent that other students had gone from pretending not to eavesdrop on us to stopping occasionally and whispering to one another as they cast us lengthy glances.

With how little she apparently cared about appearing absolutely unhinged to everyone else, it would probably be a bad idea to keep egging her on. It might have been a safe bet to just let her have her fun and later let the chips fall where they may. I was definitely the victim in that situation, and she’d easily be appraised by the student body as a complete lunatic if she continued escalating.

But, even knowing that, for some reason, I couldn’t stand the idea of letting her have her way with me like this. So, with that selfish thought propelling me forward, I grabbed her right hand and plunged my lengthy nails deeply into her skin.

“Ow!!! What the fuck!” Her body reeled back from the sudden shock. “Fucking Christ! Why’d you do that?!”

“Self-defense.” With a cold expression, I glanced past the crowd of people who had suddenly turned to face us and stared back at the school. The boy had left. He had probably already boarded his bus to head home.

“Yeah?! Self-defense?” Her voice shook as she uttered the words, as if trying to rally support from the murmuring onlookers. “I’ll show you self-defense, you fucking...”

But just as she moved forward, a tall, male frame stepped in between us. “Woah there.”

I recognized him as the captain of the basketball team, Lawrence Young.

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

“Noooo can do, Gwen. I think you’ve had enough fun for today.”

“You don’t get to say when I’ve had enough. I don’t need you protecting Zoey just because of your stupid little crush on her.”

“Oh, is that true Lawrence?” I grinned playfully. “Do you still have feelings for me?”

“Out of respect for Ben, I’m going to have to plead the fifth.” He returned my smile before putting his hand on Gwen’s back.

Lawrence is very conventionally attractive. He’s tall, he has jet-black hair, a nice jawline, pearly whites, and his face is usually cleanly shaven. Honest to god, he looks like he belongs in one of those Korean boy bands that everyone seems to be into. He’s any girl at this school’s idea of a dream guy. In fact, if his reputation with women weren’t what it was, he would have piqued my interest romantically too.

But my relationship with him would have to be a story for another day.

“Hey, don’t touch me! I’m not done with her!” Gwen screamed.

“Yeeeaaaah, I think you are. Let’s get you to your car.”

“God! Fuck you!”

She half resigned herself to The Law and decided to let him guide her over to the parking lot. This ordinarily would have been a relief for me, who wanted nothing more than to avoid any unnecessary conflicts with other students. However, this time, him doing that was an inconvenience.

“Hey,” I called out to them. And as I did, I thought back to my insane theory about the boy. About how he might have hacked my body.

“You win. I’ll break up with him.”

As if synchronized, the two of them both stared back at me with puzzled expressions.

The thought of my brain being hacked by another human being was a bit out there, I’ll admit it. If I were to talk to someone about it, I think the natural, more logical explanation they would offer me is a theory somewhere in line with me sleep-texting Benjamin. It’s something of course, I personally chose to toss out the window, but it does fit the bill far easier than this supernatural body-hacking theory of mine.

However, that boy is not a normal boy.

If it were anyone else, I would have simply brushed it off as a coincidence. Something like, he just happened to guess how uncomfortable the relationship made me and spoke based on that.

But with him, with Tristan, I can’t simply shake it off as something so convenient. Not after that time all those years ago. And even without that being the case, it didn’t change the fact that he seemed to be uniquely aware of my circumstances, and that the loss of control I felt in that dream was a very real phenomenon.

That’s why I decided to move forward on that assumption, and took note of who he was like I had done with so many others before. I only had a few hours, but I trailed him to the best of my abilities.

Studied him.

And if I were to go off what I had found out, then he was just an ordinary student. But the Tristan I knew was anything but an ordinary student. And an ordinary student couldn’t do something like hack my consciousness. No, only something like a demon could. That’s why I decided to set that trap. If it truly was something as supernatural as dream hacking, then this should do it.

Tristan.

You sounded like you understood me.

In your own roundabout way, you chose to empathize with my situation and ease the pain of those circumstances. I admire you for that kindheartedness. Really, I do. However, there’s one thing you’ve misunderstood about me. The reason I didn’t break up with him on the spot wasn’t because I felt guilty. After all, I don’t believe in guilt. I just thought it was fate that things turned out that way, and decided to try it out. And I’m glad that I did, because that fate has led me to you.

Now, come to me.

Come, so that I might find out how deep this rabbit hole goes.

My little dream paralysis demon.