Trembling When Waking Up Novels & Stories

I muttered, slowly dragging myself from beneath the covers. I entered the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water, hoping to wash off the remains of sleep. The sound of shattering glass and cursing burst through the thin walls, causing me to flinch. I grabbed the sink with both hands, my knuckles bleaching. My body began to tremble, and the well-known tension clenched every inch of me.

My skin shivered though the morning air wasn’t cold. “Maybe it’s from the nightmare,” I muttered, my voice cracking. But it felt like more. My limbs trembled when I tried to move. Even lifting my arm felt like dragging a stone. My legs felt useless, stiff, like they didn’t belong to me. Something was wrong. Something inside me was breaking apart, shifting in ways I couldn’t control. What’s going on with me? A sudden knock rattled the door, making me jump. My heart skipped. It wasn’t a soft knock. It was heavy, commanding, shaking the small room.

A whole-body tremor pulled me out of a sound sleep. I couldn’t catch my breath, my fingers and toes ached with the pins-and-needles feeling. Bina’s head popped off the pillow. “What’s wrong?” I couldn’t even catch my breath long enough to answer her. As it was, I could barely shake my head. Shrugging my shoulders was not in the cards at present. “Do I need to call a doctor? Linsus?” As if those symptoms weren’t bad enough, I broke out into a cold sweat.

My fingers don’t stop shaking even when I clench them. I try to hide it. But Kael notices immediately. Of course he does. “You didn’t sleep,” he says from the doorway. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at my hands as if they belonged to someone else. “I did.” It’s a lie that I hope he won’t call me on it. “You didn’t.” I don’t argue. The lie isn’t worth the effort when I am this exhausted. The tremor jumps up my wrist, and I curl my fingers tighter.

Every small sound from the other side of the wall, the rustle of sheets, the heavy thud of a pillow, the faint squeak of the bed frame, travels through the plaster and vibrates in my own marrow. I sit on the edge of my mattress, staring at my hands. They’re still trembling. I can still feel the ghost of his cool, damp palm on the back of my neck.

I’d just end up distracted again, wasting time. So I got to work. I focused on mopping the floor, deliberately keeping my gaze low. I didn’t want to look at the walls with those awful paintings again. But no matter how much I tried to reason with myself, the trembling wouldn’t stop. My hands were still shaking. My knees felt weak. I was cursing myself for reacting like this. My body was responding on its own to what I had seen. I kept scrubbing, trying to hold myself together. Then until I heard the soft creak of a door opening behind me.

And then nothing. I woke with a scream, my body jerking upright in bed as if I had been shocked with electricity. My hands clutched at the sheets, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The room around me was dimly lit by the early morning light filtering through the curtains, but the shadows seemed to stretch and twist, distorting in a way that made my skin crawl. I was trembling all over, my hair sticking to my damp forehead, my skin prickling with cold sweat. My heart raced, my pulse thundering in my ears so loudly it drowned out everything else.

Does this imply that I was sleeping for another month? What the hell? I must refrain from feeling too much negativity in order to prevent collapsing and returning to slumber. What's happening to my body? Why do I keep having these symptoms? I looked down at my trembling hands that were shaking due to anxiety, and I almost forgot how to breathe when two warm hands suddenly grabbed my hands. I was about to look down at this "D" again, but I hurriedly raised my head. When did he get out my blanket burrito wrap? This is a crime!

Her fingers trembled where they rested on the sheets, the fabric twisting under her grip as her hands began to shake in earnest. She pushed herself upright too fast, the sudden movement sending a wave of dizziness through her. She swayed, one hand flying to the mattress to keep herself from falling, her breathing already turning uneven. “No,” she whispered, the word cracking as it left her mouth. “Please… not again.” Her chest rose and fell too quickly now, breaths coming in shallow, broken gasps that refused to slow no matter how hard she tried. Her mind betrayed her, racing ahead, pulling her back into places she had sworn she would never revisit.

My stomach twisted. I wore the nightwear slowly. It fit perfectly… of course it did. Then I climbed into the bed, my heart pounding. I pulled the duvet over myself, clutching it like a shield. But it didn’t help, but after the shower, my body still trembled. His voice still rang in my ears. That warning, that sounded deadly. I shut my eyes and tried to pretend I wasn’t there. I tried to sleep. A few minutes later, I heard the door open. I didn’t move.