This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Pattmasta on 2024-10-26 06:36:01+00:00.
Ashlyne had never talked in her sleep before. She’d lived alone for years, and she’d never been the type to even murmur. But lately, her nights had become disturbed by strange whispers in the dark.
It started small. One night, as she drifted off, she thought she heard a faint murmur. She figured it was just the wind or perhaps a neighbor’s TV through the wall. But the following night, it happened again. And the night after, the murmuring became clearer.
Then, one night, the words came.
Ashlyne woke suddenly, heart pounding, her bedroom cloaked in darkness. The whispering continued, soft yet unmistakable.
“…don’t…look…”
The voice was hers. Clear, familiar, but somehow… wrong. She lay there, paralyzed with fear, her own voice echoing through the room as if speaking from her own unconscious mind.
“Ashlyne, don’t look. Don’t look at him,” the voice said softly, insistently, as though pleading.
Ashlyne’s eyes darted around her bedroom, but the room was empty. Her pulse raced as she lay still, too afraid to even turn on the light. She wanted to call a friend, anyone—but how could she explain that she was afraid of herself?
The whispers returned night after night, slowly growing in intensity. Soon it was as though someone else was there with her in the dark, a presence that was slowly gaining form and voice. Her sleeptalking became filled with warnings, instructions, descriptions of things she couldn’t imagine. And every time she drifted off, she could feel her mouth moving, words forming from somewhere deep in her subconscious.
But Ashlyne didn’t understand the words. She couldn’t, until the night she finally recorded herself.
She had propped her phone up on the nightstand, set it to record, and lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come. It was the only way to make sense of what she’d been saying. Hours passed, and she finally drifted off, phone still running.
The next morning, she sat in the early dawn light, listening to the recording. It started with faint mutterings, barely audible, her voice whispering words she didn’t remember ever speaking. Then, two hours in, something different happened.
Her voice trembled, low and strained. “He’s here. He’s watching. Don’t let him in.”
Ashlyne’s skin prickled. She skipped ahead, unable to listen to more. But what she heard next was worse.
A voice—low, unfamiliar, and chilling—came through. It was not her own.
“Ashlyne…”
The voice was calm, whispering directly into her recorder, as if whoever it belonged to was sitting right next to her.
“I’m here.”
She stopped the recording, heart pounding. It wasn’t possible. There was no one else in her apartment. She hadn’t let anyone in.
In a panic, she called her friend Jess, who agreed to spend the night. Ashlyne didn’t tell her everything—just that she’d been having “weird dreams” and wanted someone around. Jess, ever the loyal friend, was at her door by evening.
That night, with Jess sleeping soundly on the couch and Ashlyne in her bed, she felt a bit safer. But as she drifted off, she could feel it again—that pull, that invisible presence in the room.
She woke in the dead of night, cold with dread, and heard herself whispering in that same, pleading tone, “Don’t look. Don’t let him in.”
Ashlyne gasped, wide awake now, staring at the ceiling. And then, there was movement in the dark.
At the foot of her bed, something shifted. A shadow darker than the darkness around it. Her heart raced as she dared to look down. She could barely make out the shape of something crouched by her feet, watching her, waiting.
With a trembling hand, she reached for her phone on the nightstand, but it was gone. She could see it lying on the floor, halfway to the shadow.
The figure shifted, standing slowly, impossibly tall, a grin barely visible in the faint moonlight. It leaned in close, so close she could feel its cold breath against her cheek.
“You let me in,” it whispered, using her own voice.
Ashlyne tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips.
The next morning, Jess found the apartment empty, the bed sheets rumpled and cold. The only sign Ashlyne had ever been there was her phone, lying on the floor beside the bed.
She pressed play on the last recording.
And the last thing she heard was Ashlyne’s voice, trembling and weak, whispering, “Please… don’t let him in.” Then a man’s voice, chilling and low, chuckled softly.
“Too late.”