The Static in My Veins

I’ve never told anyone the full truth about what happens to me. Not my parents, not my friends. They think I’m just a moody teenager who spends too much time in the dark. But the truth is, something has been inside my body since I was a child, and it’s getting bolder.

My name is Maya, and I just turned sixteen. My family is loud, sprawling with cousins and aunts, but whatever this is, it only follows me. It started when I was five: vivid nightmares where I’d wake up paralyzed, a pressure on my chest like a weight I couldn’t lift. I’d lie there, eyes wide, unable to scream, until it finally released me. My mother called it ‘night terrors’ and rubbed my back with holy water, but I knew it wasn’t just a dream.

As I grew older, the dreams faded, but the flickering started. Lights in my room would stutter when I walked in. Objects—cups, pencils, my phone—would shift when I wasn’t looking. It was subtle, almost dismissible, but under my skin, I felt a hum. A low vibration, like a distant power line. I chalked it up to being observant, but deep down, I knew it was tied to me.

Then the touches began. At first, they were gentle brushes on my arm, my shoulder. I’d brush them off as phantom sensations, but they felt too real, too deliberate. Then they started at night, just as I was drifting off. I’d feel a finger trace a line from my wrist to my elbow, ticklish and electric, as if it were traveling just beneath my dermis. I’d jerk awake, but the feeling would linger, a ghostly residue.

Last week, things changed. I was lying in bed, the room dark except for the blue glow of my alarm clock. The hum in my veins grew louder, almost a crackle. Then, the static began to coalesce in the corner of my room. It looked like a heat shimmer, a distortion in the air, and it was watching me. I couldn’t see eyes, but I felt a gaze, heavy and hungry. My heart hammered, but my body was frozen again, like in those childhood dreams.

The shimmer moved closer, and I felt something cold press against my forehead. A voice, not audible but felt, whispered in my mind: ‘I have been waiting.’

I don’t know how I broke free, but I shot up and screamed, and the static vanished. My mother rushed in, but I told her it was a bug. She didn’t believe me, but she left, and I spent the rest of the night with the lights on.

Now, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not done with me. The static in my veins never stops; it’s a constant companion, a hum beneath my skin that intensifies when I’m alone. And tonight, as I write this, the lights in my room begin to flicker. The air grows cold, and I feel that electric touch brush my cheek. It’s asking for something, and I’m terrified to find out what happens if I refuse.