The Hollow Hover

It was 3:47 a.m. when the lamp on my nightstand flickered, not electrically, but as if something passed between it and my eyes. I had been staring at the ceiling, counting the water stains from a leak I’d never fixed, trying to trick my brain into sleep. I hadn’t managed it. The silence of the apartment, a converted warehouse unit on the second floor of an old textile mill, was thick enough to chew.

Then came the hum. Not from the refrigerator or the flickering neon sign outside, but from inside my skull, a low, resonant buzz that made my teeth ache. My body went cold, then impossibly light. I felt myself rise, not with a jerk, but like a balloon slowly filling with helium. The sensation was nauseatingly familiar—it had happened once before, in a dorm room on a night during exams, but this time it was stronger.

I opened my eyes. I was hovering near the ceiling, looking down at my own body on the bed. My chest rose and fell in a rhythm that seemed separate from my awareness. I saw the swirl of dust motes in the lamplight, the crease in my pillow, the half-empty glass of water on the nightstand. All too real. Too vivid. A cold dread pooled in my stomach as I realized I couldn’t move, couldn’t control the descent.

The hum swelled, and I shot upward, passing through the ceiling as if it were water. For a moment I was in the crawlspace between my floor and the unit above, dark and full of old wiring and pigeon droppings. Then I was above the roof, staring at the city’s sprawl under a sickly orange sky. Below me, the mill’s long shadow stretched toward the river. I saw my own window, a faint rectangle of light, and I knew that in that light, my body was still lying there, unaware.

I tried to scream, but no sound came. I tried to will myself back, but the buzz only tightened, like a vice around my consciousness. That’s when I noticed the other shapes. Hovering over the neighboring rooftops were other translucent figures, still as statues, their heads tilted as if listening. They were not human. Their limbs were too long, their faces smooth except for a single, vertical slit where a mouth should be. They did not look at me, but I felt their attention like a cold draft pulling at my edges.

One of them turned its head. The slit widened, and a sound like a thousand needles falling on glass erupted inside my head. I recognized it as the same buzz, but magnified, and it was coming from them. They were the source. They were the reason I was here.

I remembered the last time, seven years ago, in that cramped dorm room. I had woken up just as I hit the ceiling, and spent the rest of the night with the lights on, trembling. I had never told anyone, convinced it was sleep paralysis. But now, seeing these things, I knew it wasn’t. They had been waiting for me to fall asleep at the wrong time, to be vulnerable enough.

Suddenly, the figure nearest me raised a hand, and I felt a violent yank. I was pulled back down, through the roof, through the crawlspace, and into my body with a jolt that rattled my teeth. I snapped upright, gasping, my T-shirt soaked with sweat. The hum was gone. The room was quiet.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I turned on every light in the apartment, sat in the corner of the kitchen with my back to the wall, and watched the curtains for any movement. In the morning, I convinced myself it was a lucid dream, a chemical misfire.

But tonight, as I lie in bed, I can hear it again—faint, but growing. The buzz. And from the corner of my eye, I see a shape standing outside my window, its head tilted. It has been there for three nights now, watching. Wait, I’m not sure if it’s watching. Its face is smooth, no eyes. But I know it’s waiting for me to let go. And I know that if I open my eyes while hovering, it will not let me back this time.