Marked.
Chapter 1
The first time I noticed the mark, I thought it was just a bruise from sleep. A pale, circular imprint just above my hip, as if I’d pressed against something hard in the night. I ran my fingers over it absently, dismissing it as one of those strange bodily mysteries that come and go.
But then there were more.
A faint series of dots along my forearm, perfectly spaced. A small, almost imperceptible incision on the inside of my thigh, no more than a whisper of a cut. I pressed at the skin, expecting pain, but there was nothing. Just the smooth surface of my body, altered in ways I couldn’t explain.
It was easy to ignore, at first. I was tired, work had been overwhelming, and I told myself I was clumsy, inattentive. Maybe I was sleepwalking again, like when I was a kid, waking up in the kitchen with no memory of getting there.
But sleepwalking didn’t explain the time lapses.
One night, I went to bed early, the exhaustion of the week settling deep into my bones. When I blinked awake, the clock read 3:46 AM. I didn’t remember waking up, but I was standing in the middle of my apartment, my hand gripping the doorknob as if I’d been about to leave.
My mouth was dry. My heart pounded. I let go of the doorknob and turned on the lights, needing to see. I checked my phone; no calls, no messages. The apartment door was locked from the inside. I shook my head, blaming stress, but my body felt strange. Heavy. Like I had walked miles in my sleep.
And then there was the blood.
Not a lot. Just a drop. A smear at the base of my neck when I woke up the next morning. I rushed to the mirror, tilting my head, finding nothing; no cut, no wound, just the faintest red mark like something had pressed hard against my skin. The idea of a spider bite made my stomach twist, although there wasn’t any irritation or swelling. This was… precise.
I searched my body for answers, for patterns. The bruises, the incisions, they were in places I wouldn’t have touched in my sleep. The nights felt stretched, like time had bent around me. Sometimes, I would close my eyes and open them only to find the sky was light again, as if no time had passed at all.
I started drinking coffee late into the night, trying to stay awake, but it never worked. I started locking myself in my room, pushing furniture against the door. I woke up outside, feet bare and cold in the grass.
The last night I tried to fight it, I wrote something on my wrist in marker: I AM AWAKE.
When I opened my eyes, I was in my bed, the marker scrubbed clean.
And there , just beneath my collarbone , was a new mark. A perfect, tiny circle, almost luminescent in the dim morning light.
I wanted to believe it was a dream, that all of it was in my head. But it wasn’t.
I just didn’t know what it was.
And I was starting to fear I never would.
Chapter 2.
The bruises weren’t fading. They should have, by now, at least turned that sickly yellow-green. But they didn’t. They stayed dark, perfectly round, like the pads of fingers pressing too hard against my skin.
I started setting alarms. Midnight. Two AM. Three-thirty. I’d wake up, check my arms, my legs, my ribs. Nothing ever changed. I even tried filming myself, but each time I checked in the morning, the videos were… wrong. Corrupted. Stuck on a single frame of me sleeping, no movement, no sound.
I barely slept that night. When I finally let my eyes close, I kept telling myself “ I won’t dream, I won’t dream, I won’t ”
And then I was somewhere else.
It was like stepping out of a movie theater in the middle of the day ; too bright, too disorienting. But there was no sun, no sky, just a pale, endless glow pressing against every surface.
And figures.
Tall. Thin. Arms too long. Their skin was smooth, a muted shade of grey, almost like it absorbed the light rather than reflected it.
I tried to move. I couldn’t. I wasn’t even standing , I was floating. Something thrummed in the air, a deep, electric hum that made my teeth ache.
I felt something brush against my wrist. Not fingers. Something sharper. A strange, cool pressure ran along my skin, and the hum grew louder. My mind screamed for my body to move, to fight, to do anything, but it wasn’t mine anymore.
A voice , inside me, not outside, whispered in a language I couldn’t understand.
And then , darkness.
I woke up gasping, my sheets tangled around me. My heart pounded so violently I thought I might be sick.
The clock read 3:14 AM.
I sucked in a shaky breath and pulled up my sleeve.
New bruises. Fresh ones.
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And just beneath my wrist, an incision I knew hadn’t been there before.
Chapter 3
I feel it before I even close my eyes.
That hum. That thick, electric weight in the air.
As I drift, I remember.
The nights I woke up on the kitchen floor. The times I swore I’d fallen asleep in my bed, only to wake somewhere else, my closet, the porch, once even outside on the lawn. My mother used to laugh, called it sleepwalking.
I never questioned it. But I should have.
It was never sleepwalking.
The realization coils inside me like something alive, something waiting. I don’t fight sleep this time. I just let go.
And I don’t dream.
I wake up.
But not in my bed.
The light is different. Too white, too sterile. The air is thick, buzzing, pressing against my skin.
I can move. I can move!!!
My arms float, weightless, unrestrained. My fingers twitch, reach forward. There’s something, someone , just ahead of me.
And then I see them.
I’m not alone.
They’re here. Others. Dozens of them, suspended like me, their bodies drifting in the same weightless nothingness.
Naked. Silent. Covered in marks.
The same bruises. The same incisions. The same patterns of tiny, perfect dots carved into their flesh.
I look down at my own body.
My fingers trace the darkened skin on my wrist, the ridges on my ribs. The same. The same.
My heart lurches. It’s never been like this before.
I always wake up.
I always open my eyes in my own bed, with the morning sun slanting through my curtains. No matter how strange, no matter how vivid, it always ends the same.
So why am I still here?
The hum grows louder.
The others don’t move. How long have they been here?
I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the pull, the slip back into unconsciousness. Any second now.
Any second now, I’ll wake up in my bed.
Any second now …
I don’t.
My eyes snap open. The light is still here. The hum is still here. The others are still here.
I let out a shuddering breath. My pulse pounds against my skull. I claw at my skin, desperate. My bed. My room. My life.
I need to wake up.
But I don’t.
I don’t.
And for the first time, I understand.
I’m not going back.
