Zara finally woke up from her sleep paralysis with beads of sweat accumulated on her forehead. This was her sixth time over the month. She always woke up with a jolt from feeling trapped in her body like she could never move or feel. It felt like being paralyzed in pitch black darkness yet you cannot even scream and your eyes are taped shut.
She flipped over her bed and pulled out the curtains and opened the windows to take in the cool winter breeze, unlike her friends she always liked winters than summers. The sun had still not risen and she couldn't sleep anymore so she decided to go for an early run. She changed into her joggers and tied her shoulder length black hair into a bun and left her apartment building tiptoing around lobby as she wanted to avoid her flatmate Ray who was usually awake till five in morning playing video games.
She never understood why young men these days were so hung over playing fortnight to a point they lost all sanity or sense of hygiene.
She never saw Ray leave the house even once during lock down where as Zara took every opportunity to go out of the house even if it meant to buy some groceries.
Finally the lock down was lifting and she would be working at the Art gallery. She was excited and looking forward to the new chapter.
The day would have been perfect minus the sleep paralysis but well it is something she has been dealing for sometime now. Making a mental time table for her day she was running at a decent pace near around the empty footpaths of the quiet city and looked up at the night sky and saw the morning star.
it looked beautiful or maybe just to her as she kept going looking up at the star and ignoring the group of cyclist who passed her, barely missing her.
One of them yelled, " hey, careful. Watch where you are heading."
But Zara went into some type of trans and quickened her pace and stared running faster towards the morning star as if she was trying to catch it.
After finishing up as she entered the apartment she heard Ray calling out to her.
"Yo, whats happening. Did you just come back from somewhere? "
" No, I just got back from some run, ahm ahm ahm. What's all this smoke and I just got a message from the landlord that the smoke alarm lit up."
"What, Omg Ray! what the hell are you doing god ! Is that what I think it is. "
" I was out of paper and was trying to make brownies, but I guess it was disaster ." Replied Ray
"Allright, I will make some excuse," sighed Zara.
Zara went back to her room it was still dark outside so she climbed her and tried to get sleep. But the moment she closed her eyes she saw the face of a guy with very dark eyes unlike her's; amber. She could not place those deep dark eyes, where she had seen those. So she decided not to dwell into it further and drifted into a quiet slumber.