Last night I woke suddenly, as if ejected from sleep. I couldn’t see the clock over the vague hump of your blanketed shoulder, but it was the deepest ditch of the night.
A cry had waked me – I was almost certain. I had turned my head even as I opened my eyes, looking toward you, to see what was wrong. What would make you cry out like that. But it wasn’t you. You breathed under my gaze, steady, unaware.
I stayed up on my elbows, listening hard to the night, but there were only the sounds of a sleeping house: the quiet tick of the refrigerator, the slow contraction of the wooden door frames, the secret movement of the air. Sounds of the night watch.
I listened for sounds in the street, but there was nothing – no woman calling for help (and I had been sure the cry was female), not even a cat communing with the moon.
It was only when I laid my head back down and gravity loosened the tears at the corners of my eyes and pulled them across my temples that I remembered the dream, and that the cry had come from me.
reliablyuncomfortable 
Nice. I think I used that pic for something too.
thanks for stopping by…maybe that image is a little too common and I should replace it. It *does* make me think of bad Japanese horror.
I might just be hip to scary shots. I wouldn’t worry to much about it.
I say if you like it and it works for you, use it. Some much stuff on the internet, most people won’t have seen everything.
Very evocative. I like your style. In just a very few words you capture the scene very effectively.
I had an experience almost like this once, but less dark. I shared a room with my brother and I woke in the middle of the night really pissed because someone had been talking loud and I had to get up early. It was only after a minute of glancing around the room and taking stock of the situation that I realized I had been talking in my sleep. I started talking again while falling back asleep and couldn’t stop myself.
thanks for stopping by…yeah, they call that time of the night the ‘night watch’ for a reason….
I like what you wrote. I wish I could write short stories like that.
It is attention getting and excitement all in one.
ExcitementRUs! thanks!
…and you can write like that, it just takes practice – writing is a muscle that gets stronger and more supple with exercise, that’s what I think.