Hakala III nosleep

Part II: Hakala II

I could feel my head start to ache as we neared the college. The long drive through the cold weather had taken its toll on me. I had almost fallen asleep in the wheel twice in spite of two whole monster cans and so many cups of coffee. Thank God for, Lisa!

She’s such a champ, I don’t know what I would do without her.

Once we reached campus, we took turns taking a shower and then falling asleep. It was night by the time we got back and we were bitter from the cold. We didn’t say much to each other and just went to sleep since it was quite late in the night. We had made good time on the drive. I went to sleep hoping the nightmares were gone.

They weren’t. They got worse. I don’t know how to put it. I was being chased and I was running into the temple. I heard them say Hakala. I was scared, but I slithered away. I was chased once again. I cornered a man who was alone, looking for me. I squeezed him and constricted his movement. I swallowed him whole. God, I remember the exact moment his neck snapped, the sound his bones made when I crushed them, the way his head felt in my mouth, everything.

I woke up puking, in the shower. The shower was turned on. It was cold. Here I was covered in my own puke and in a cold shower, clothed in pyjamas, with no idea how I got here.

Scared, but not wanting to trouble Lisa, I quickly turned off the shower, cleaned up and went back to bed, shaking in fear and cold.

That’s when I heard it, for the first time, a slow humming sound. At first, I thought maybe they had music playing in one of the rooms on the dorm. It didn’t sound like anything I had heard before. I didn’t even recognize the language.

As I fell asleep to the sound of it, I realised it was more like a chanting. Repetitive. Slow. Accompanied by a deep drum beat. It slowly started getting louder and louder as my head started ringing in pain with it. I was asleep, but I wasn’t. The ringing was loud and quiet, and I felt the sound was coming from both inside and outside my head. When I pain got unbearable, I opened by mouth to scream, but no sound came.

Familiar by now, with the term sleep paralysis, I tried my best reason with my fugue state of mind, now tainted with fear, but no amount of reason could explain why I woke up screaming, my mouth full of blood and shaking violently against the wall. This was how Lisa found me. It was 3:30 AM. Tears streamed down my face when I realised the horror that my friend had to witness. It was too much for one night.

I decided to get myself to bed, but Lisa would have none of it. After making sure that there were no severe injuries (I’d bitten onto my already dry lips and bled out more than was expected), she made me some hot chocolate and told me to sleep in her room, in the sleeping bag. As any obedient child would, I did exactly I was told. My mind was, at that time, not capable of doing anything more.

The next morning, when I woke up, it was half past eleven and I found a note on the refrigerator.

“Called in sick for you. Got you some milk. Stay in today. Sleep. Later, Liz”

I cried and cried at the thought of what I was putting Lisa through.

Even my parents had been so nice. I couldn’t fathom why this was happening to me. I kept hearing the chant every once in a while as I kept drifting in and out of sleep, still very afraid to move.

It was around 3:30 PM when I woke up to the sound of knocking on the door. Thinking Lisa must have been back from classes and wanting to give her a hug, I ran to the door and flung it open.

He rushed in before I even had a chance to react. He shut the door behind him as I resigned myself to my fate. It was the Indian kid from class, the one that drained all my energy. I fainted.

When I came to, he was sitting across from me, going through his phone. He looked at me when he realised I was awake and I could tell he wanted something.

“Relax, you were only out for a few minutes. I made you some hot tea. Here!” he said, softly.

Surprised, from the tone of his voice and suspicious still, from the sudden concern, I declined.

“It’s good for you. Himalayan Oolong tea! I heard from your friend that you were sick and thought I’d drop by” He said. I said nothing.

He took a sip from the same cup and said, “It’s not poisoned, you know? I don’t intend to kill you. Or hurt you. I just wanna help.”

I held up my hand to get the cup. At the worst I would die, and then may be my family and friends wouldn’t have to suffer on my account. I thought to the events of last night and my pitiable state.

The sip of tea felt refreshing, I could tell it had some ginger and chamomile. It felt good and I could feel the goodness as it slipped from my lips all the way to my stomach.

“Why?” I asked him. I could barely wrap my mind around what was happening.

“Why?” He asked quizzically. “Because, I know about the curse” he said. I could tell that there was a semblance of pride in his face and in his voice as he said the words.

“What?! How? Who are you, really?” I asked him, feeling almost violated that my secret was out with this person I didn’t even know.

“Name’s Ongan. I’m from an island in the Indian Ocean. I belong to a tribe named Nevala. We hunted snake-skins alongside the Hakalas. You may have heard of them?” He asked.

I did remember reading the name Nevala, but it hardly registered in my mind, amidst all that I read about the Hakalas. I shot him a quizzical look and he took it a chance to continue. “Well, we worship snakes and only ever look for its hide. We also only look for poisonous snakes and get the venom. It is used in tradition to make poisoned darts which are used in hunting. Not the Hakalas. They have a blood lust for snakes.”

I slowly remembered what I had read the previous couple of days.

“Do you know about the Ketas?” I slowly asked. “Yea, snake people, right? My grandpa says they are real but I think they’re just a legend to scare kids about snakes.” I looked at him with the strangest curious expression. He must have caught on, because he looked directly into my eyes and said “You must know by now that your friend didn’t exactly tell me where to find you. I got here because of the chants.”

“You hear them?” I almost screamed.

“Yea, even now, but they’re not very loud now.” He placed a finger on his lips as if to silence me. I could hear it. The low chanting. He started chanting something else in slightly hissing tone a tad bit lounder. The other chanting got even louder and he got louder and this kept on until both voices were ringing in my head and I could feel darkness creeping around the corner of my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in my snake form, just lying around Ongan’s neck and as I lifted my head to him, I don’t know what came over me. Years of animosity and decades of blood lust ran through my veins and before I knew it, I wrapped myself around his neck twice before he could grab me and tightened my hold on him.

As he used all his might to pull me from his neck, I was fuelled by a wrath I hadn’t known I could feel. I trudged at his neck harder and harder until I felt his body fall limp under my pressure and as his eyes rolled back, I felt relief. I laughed and laughed, louder than I ever had. As darkness, enveloped the corners of my vision, I could feel such intense pleasure.

When I came to, I was in my apartment, alone. As I looked around, steadying my blurry vision, I felt my feet bump into something.

There, sprawled across the living room was the body of Ongan. I heard a knock on the door.

What have I done?

Submitted March 01, 2017 at 07:00AM by Distant_claws http://ift.tt/2maQVHE nosleep