Have you ever felt true paralysis from fear? That primal, ancient terror that freezes every muscle, stops every breath?

  Like waking up one two many times with sleep paralysis, searching up your symptoms online discovering the tale of the sleep paralysis demon, and after many sporadic instances of sleep paralysis, you open your eyes to find a crouched goat horned big-headed, foul-smelling rotting dwarf demon atop your chest?

  Xun Xie was experiencing exactly that.

  Or something like that.

  Just minutes ago, he'd been commiserating with coworkers over an all-you-can-eat barbecue, ironically complaining about struggling to make ends meet while they downed plate after plate. The night had turned into a blur of poor decisions - mixing beer, wine, soda, and who knows what else. His vision began to swim, colors and shapes exploding like fireworks behind his eyes. When the world finally stopped spinning, he found himself somewhere impossible.

  He was standing in a crude dwelling with earthen walls the color of sun-baked clay, topped by nothing more than a thatched roof. Musty air filled his lungs. Something was wrong with his body - his carefully cultivated muscles had vanished, replaced by the thin frame of a child. Coarse sackcloth hung from his diminished form.

  "How... how did I become a child?" he whispered. Without a mirror, he couldn't see his face, but his hair now reached his lower back, and the world seemed to tower above him from this new, shorter height.

  Pain suddenly exploded in his skull, a burning agony that felt like his brain was being rattled around. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears. When he touched his head, his fingers came away red.

  Blood. Blood streaming from everywhere - mouth, nose, ears, eyes.

  Zzz... zzz... zzz...

  The sound came like a thousand invisible flies, an otherworldly whisper that seemed to emanate from both far away and right beside him. It echoed outside the hut's walls.

  Gritting his teeth, Xun Xie took a deep breath and crept to the wooden door, peering through a crack.

  A blood-red sunset painted the valley before him. Through its crimson rays, he could make out twenty-eight thatched huts scattered across the hillside. White mist coiled between the buildings, carried on a bone-chilling wind as a light rain began to fall.

  THUD!

  Through the rolling fog, an enormous shadow rose into the air. With casual violence, it ripped the roof from one of the distant huts.

  Xun Xie's pupils contracted to pinpoints as his mind struggled to process what he was seeing:

  A gigantic hand, reaching down from the heavens.

  The hand filled his entire field of vision.

  He watched, paralyzed, as it casually tossed aside the roof and reached into the hut below, scratching twice before emerging with a villager clutched between thumb and forefinger. The person seemed tiny - their head and shoulders protruding above the monster's grip, feet kicking wildly below.

  Through the deafening ringing in his ears, Xun Xie heard screams - soul-piercing shrieks of pure terror and despair. His eyes tracked the hand's movement upward, and his blood ran cold.

  The hand belonged to something impossible - a colossal humanoid figure with four wings and arms, kneeling among the huts yet still towering like a mountain. Though it knelt on one knee, its torso stretched straight up into the mist like a pillar to heaven.

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  Xun Xie blinked hard, wiping blood from his eyes, desperately trying to make out the creature's face through the thick white fog. But he saw enough - watched helplessly as the hand moved toward a maw that gaped like the abyss itself, lined with yellow fangs sharper than any blade. A single snap, and blood rained down.

  The scene triggered something deep in his memory - a nightmare? - and like then, he found himself frozen, unable to look away as the monster casually discarded what remained: bloody clothes wrapped around fragments of skin.

  Without pause, the giant hand plunged back into the roofless hut, emerging with a woman this time. Her shriek pierced higher than the others, raw terror made sound.

  "Mon-Monster!!"

  Ice spread through Xun Xie's veins.

  This must be a nightmare! Wake up! WAKE UP!

  His silent screams did nothing. His body felt leaden. He dug his nails into his thigh, but the pain only sharpened his focus on the blood and that terrifying silhouette.

  In one fluid motion, the monster devoured the woman and reached down again - this time grabbing a small figure.

  "A baby!"

  Xun Xie's breath caught in his throat as he watched the infant disappear into that nightmare maw. The monster turned, casually lifting another roof with a wave of its hand.

  Grab. Eat. Repeat.

  One thought cut through his paralysis: his turn would come. Every other thought vanished except one:

  Escape. Run. NOW.

  But before he could move, as if on cue, a figure burst from a nearby hut, sprinting madly toward the village entrance.

  BOOM!

  The giant's hand slammed down. The earth itself shuddered. When the hand lifted, only a pool of pulped flesh and blood remained.

  Xun Xie choked back bile, panic clawing at his chest until survival instinct finally ignited. He forced himself to think, scanning desperately for escape routes. His eyes landed on a small depression in the corner - some kind of cellar.

  Relief flooded him. He darted inside, his child-sized body barely fitting as he curled into himself. With trembling hands, he pulled boards and debris over the cellar's opening.

  BOOM!

  The roof exploded outward like a startled bird. White mist and bloody sunset light poured in as one wall collapsed, filling the air with choking dust.

  Xun Xie pressed both hands over his mouth, hardly daring to breathe. His heart hammered against his ribs like he'd just sprinted for his life.

  Through gaps in the wooden boards, he saw it - the giant hand descending from above. Up close, it was even more terrifying: rough as ancient bark yet hard as granite. Three massive fingers rummaged through his hiding place, too large to probe deeper.

  CRASH! BANG!

  The bedboard splintered, table shattered, stove crushed to powder.

  Each second stretched into eternity. Xun Xie's nerves screamed, certain each moment would be his last. Part of him almost wished for it - in his nightmares, death meant waking up.

  But this felt different. The sweat coating his skin, his burning lungs, the solid press of the cellar walls - it all felt brutally real.

  The monster roared in frustration at finding no prey, a sound that shook the earth itself. Visible waves of force rippled through the air.

  In his final moments of consciousness, Xun Xie thought of his friends. An orphan, they were the only family he'd known. He wished he'd treasured every moment more.

  The sound waves hit like a physical blow. His eyes rolled back, and darkness claimed his mind.

  ***

  Time passed.

  Xun Xie's eyelids flickered before finally opening, his vision slowly focusing on thin beams of light piercing through the wooden boards above.

  "Why am I still here?"

  Shouldn't the nightmare have ended? Shouldn't he have woken in his own world by now? As these questions raced through his mind, he noticed something else - silence. Complete, absolute silence.

  The monster seemed gone, but terror kept him frozen in place. Only after countless careful glances through the gaps in the boards, seeing the thick fog had lifted, did he dare consider moving.

  His body betrayed him when he tried. Every muscle screamed in protest, each inch feeling like it might crumble to dust. He remained curled in his hiding place, gathering what little strength remained. Finally, after what felt like hours, he managed to push against the wooden boards, scattering rubble as he freed himself.

  Xun Xie crawled from the cellar like a wounded animal, head swiveling frantically as he searched for any sign of the giant. Nothing. No movement, no shadow, no trace of the horror from the night before.

  The sun rose majestically in the east, its golden rays sweeping across the valley like a tide of light. As the last tendrils of white fog retreated, they unveiled the full scope of the village before him. Twenty-eight thatched huts scattered across the hillside - some crushed, others eerily intact, all silent as graves. The same homes he'd watched the monster tear apart now stood as silent witnesses to the night's horrors, their shadows stretching long across ground stained dark with memories he wished he could forget.

  The morning light should have brought comfort. Instead, it only illuminated a single, terrifying truth: this was no nightmare he could wake from. This was his new reality.