The Wake

Ishare a room with my younger brother, who sometimes wakes at night and shuffles around. He might just twist and turn in bed or he might get out of bed and walk around, before realizing what he is doing.

This one night I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep. It was real late, like midnight or later. There was no light in the room at all, apart from the glow-in-the-dark stars that are stuck to my wall. So the room was more or less totally pitch black. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard my brother moving around in his bed. I thought to myslef, "Big deal, this always happens." I heard him move around more, and then I heard him get out of bed and put his feet on the ground. I heard his footsteps as he walked towards the door. Again, I didn't think much of this. I could see his figure clearly as he blocked the view of the shining stars. When he reached the door, he stopped and didn't move. By this time, I couldn't see him because there are no stars around that area. I didn't hear anything else. "Get back into bed," I said to him. No answer came and he remained silent. I knew he was still there so I called out to him a second time, but again he didn't reply. That's when I became kind of freaked, so I reached out of my bed and turned on my lamp. When I turned my eyes to the door, there was no one standing there. The room was totally silent. My brother was still in bed fast asleep. I knew that he couldn't have gotten up, from the way his bedclothes were coiled around his legs and tucked under his body, and the messed up position he was in. I knew that he couldn't have risen from bed, walked to the door and come back, because I would have heard him walking back and seen him in the glow of the stars.