3AM

The sun has fallen below the horizon. Darkness engulfs the face of the earth. The wind blows gently against my window, sending whispers through tiny cracks within the walls. A small flame struggles to hold onto life. And there are eyes... watching me as I sleep.

I wake up instantly, breath caught and sweat slowly roll down my temple. I stare down my bed, at the corner of my room where the light of the dying candle doesn't reach. My heart beats quickly and without a second thought, I rush to grab my phone beside me, switch it on and point it towards the corner. Nothing. Yet my heart keeps beating, my breath is hitched, there are shivers running through me. I check the time. It is 3AM on the dot, and that doesn't surprise me at all.

This is a regular occurrence to me... waking up at 3AM. Nowadays, I wake up not frightened and say f*ck off to whatever it is that is in the room with me, just watching as I dream of unspeakable nightmares. Sometimes I wonder if that "thing" is controlling my dreams. I don't remember when waking up to 3AM regularly began. I've always had that at a young age. Even when I'm not sleeping alone, it would attack me.

I remember when I shared a room with my sister. We would both be at the end of each side of the bed. Night crept upon us and our eyes were shut, however I was going in and out of sleep. My eyes caught glimpses of blurry lights outside my window, my body was heavy and all of a sudden, I felt my sister shift in her sleep. She moved up behind my back, her head up against my own... and she started giggling, shaking my own body as she convulsed. I was too tired to do anything at first, but the giggles went on for about a minute. I thought it was really strange so I used all my strength in turning my head around.

No one was there.

Fear spiked up inside of me and I pushed my back against the wall, shaking as I realised that my sister was still asleep at the other end of the bed, her back towards me. She couldn't have moved that fast as I turned around, could she? I picked up my phone turned on the flashlight, eyes quickly scanning my surroundings, hands shaking uncontrollably. I glanced at the time - 3.00am - heart was beating out of my chest, my fingers tapped the screen rapidly, hoping for something to distract me. Then a sweet melody made its way towards my ears.

My hands relaxed, my breathing slowed, my body stops trembling. I breathed a sigh of relief, but the thought of what happened just then kept me up all night. I was too afraid to sleep.

It was this incident that gave me a phobia of 3AM. Even as I write this down, I would look behind me every now and then, my fears creeping up on me. I would sleep later than 11PM to avoid waking up early. It has succeeded for a while until I reached 18. I'd wake up randomly during the night, feeling frightened, feeling like someone is in the room with me and I do the same thing - pick up my phone, turn the flashlight on and check the time.

I did have a strange period of time when I would have what people call "a False Awakening". It is when I wake up from a dream in a dream and sometimes when I have that, I would wake up to 3AM. The most notable dream I had was waking up to the sole of my feet being tickled. I gently opened my eyes and see my feet, slowly being lifted, and watched petrified as my feet is dragged across the bed by nothing. I was screaming at my partner to wake up and that "the Grim Reaper is here!". I don't know why I thought it was the Grim Reaper, but in that dream I felt sure that it was. Eventually, I woke up to the real world and told my partner what happened. He reassured me that it was just a dream and I told him that I bet the time is around 3. He checked and his jaw dropped.

So why 3AM? Being intrigued with why I stir up during this time, I sat myself in front of my laptop and got straight to work. Between 3AM and 4AM, it is said that the barrier between our world and the underworld becomes thinner, meaning that entities from the underworld such as demons and ghosts and possibly angels can cross over to ours. It is the opposite of the time that Christ sacrificed himself - 3PM, a mock I assume-and is at his weakest to protect our realm therefore the trespass is enabled. They call this the 'witch hour'.

I've always been a bit skeptical of ethereal beings so I looked into it in a more logical manner. In Chinese medicine, waking up at 3AM is correlated to your health. It is said that waking up in these times means I'm dealing with a lot of stress or have unresolved anger which is quite a norm to everyone anyway. It can be due to a bad liver or an unhealthy diet. This is soundly, considering that there are reasonable correlations, yet there is very little scientific evidence to back this up.

I am stuck with the unknown and who knows how long this is going to last for me. In the end, I would have to wake up in the same room, and stare into the dark corners, searching for eyes staring back at me.