I told myself I wouldn’t think about it.

  The bruises. The fingerprints. The pulse in my shoulder that beat like someone else’s heartbeat.

  So of course, I spent the entire night thinking about it.

  At 3:11 a.m., I opened my laptop.

  Bad idea. My body wanted rest; my brain would take none.

  I typed sleep paralysis bruises into the search bar, like it was going to give me a neat WebMD article with bullet points and a cheery stock photo. Instead, I got ten million answers ranging from vitamin deficiency to “demons hate hydration.”

  I scrolled through forums where usernames like nightwatch22 argued with angel99 about whether the shadow people were aliens, ghosts, or just carbon dioxide poisoning. Memes. One guy swore that drinking salt water before bed would stop dreams altogether. Another recommended contacting an exorcist.

  Noise. All noise.

  But noise has patterns if you listen hard enough — if you ignore the outliers.

  I’m cursed with that talent. Cursed to notice links most people overlook.

  Buried in a three-year-old Reddit thread was a reply. Someone asking about bruises after sleep paralysis. Someone else answering:

  “Don’t search here. Look deeper. Use your dreams.”

  No hyperlink. Just those words, italicized.

  Somewhere outside, muffled through the thin apartment wall, my neighbor laughed — a weird, wheezy chuckle that turned into a rhyme about clowns. He was always muttering, always humming nonsense at impossible hours.

  I ignored it, like always.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I knew what that phrase meant. Use your dreams.

  Dark web. Onion routes. Places you don’t just stumble into — places you make excuses never to visit.

  Don’t be stupid, I told myself. This is how horror movies start. Curious geek girl pokes where she shouldn’t and ends up a news headline.

  I clicked anyway.

  Finding it wasn’t hard if you knew where to look.

  I’ve been a geek since before “geek” got rebranded as something cool. VPN layers. Tor browser. Enough paranoia to make Edward Snowden roll his eyes.

  The site loaded after a long minute, as if the server was deciding whether I deserved entry.

  Black background. White serif font.

  At the top:

  USE YOUR DREAMS

  Survive, or vanish.

  No logo. No ads. Just that sentence and a scrolling list of forums:

  First Bruises

  Spectral Encounters

  Ascension Logs

  The posts weren’t neat — no introductions, no greetings. Just fragments, like people typing between panic attacks:

  “Woke with scratches today, third night in a row. Does anyone know?”

  “Phantasms were behaving weird today. Are they evolving?”

  “Ascended to Level 3. Finally bought clear small debt. It worked like a charm. Who else tried?”

  My pulse drummed in my ears. These weren’t trolls.

  They were describing me — my bruises, my flashes.

  But what the hell were phantasms? Ascension?

  One post stopped me cold. No username — just Guest.

  “Forearm, left side. Five oval bruises in a curve. Woke without memory. Started after taking sleep meds. Anyone else?”

  My sleeve slid up on reflex. I didn’t need to check — I already knew it matched.

  I scrolled down.

  The reply wasn’t advice. It wasn’t comfort.

  Just one line:

  “You’re already in. We see you.”

  I slammed the laptop shut so hard the hinge protested. My heart sprinted faster than my thoughts.

  It was nothing. Just a creep. A lucky guess.

  Except luck doesn’t explain fingerprints on skin.

  Luck doesn’t explain how the bruise on my arm felt older than I was.

  Through the wall, Damian muttered again — a singsong laugh, a rhyme cut off mid-line. Probably another one of his episodes. I pressed my palms against my ears.

  When dawn dragged itself into my room, I was still awake.

  The words pulsed behind my eyelids every time I blinked:

  You’re already in.