There are a lot of things that scare me, so many in fact that I wonder on a regular basis if there's some sort of mental condition where you're just afraid of everything!

Some of them are fairly normal: spiders, heights, drowning.

Some are childish: the dark, monsters under the bed, boogie man in the closet.

Then there are newly discovered fears that come with living in a back-ally apartment on the scary side of town: answering the door, being home alone, coming home after dark.

Lately one of my biggest fears has been having someone come into my room and watch me while I'm sleeping. I find myself checking and rechecking the door and all the windows to make sure they're properly locked before I can finally take a running leap into bed, so as to avoid whatever sort of monsters have taken up residence under there. Only after praying repeatedly to be kept safe through the night, and then making sure my jean blanket is tucked ALL the way around me can I cautiously close my eyes and search for sleep.

And every morning I wake up again having slept soundly and uneventfully through the night. No monsters. No boogie man. And as far as I know, no one watching me... Well, almost no one.

Last night I decided to go to bed early so as to have maximum brain capacity for studying in the morning. After my general routine of checking the locks, praying, and making sure I was safely encased in the covers, I closed my eyes and waited for sleep. Apparently my body isn't used to going to bed that early, because sleep took its sweet time coming. After much too long, I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, that was interrupted periodically by muscle spasms and back pain, but at least I wasn't thinking about the creatures that had undoubtedly moved into my closet since I'd gotten dressed that morning.

Eventually I fell asleep for real and it looked as if the morning would come as uneventfully as it always does.

And then something landed on top of me. My eyes flew open to see a face looming over me. Big green eyes above a twisted smile. Scraggly hair sticking out every which way. The monster of my dreams had come for me. There was only one thing to do.

I screamed.

I have to say I was pretty impressed with myself. I NEVER scream, and to have gotten that much air together on such short notice was really something for me.

The face suddenly disappeared, and instead, there was my roommate Amy jumping back into her bed.

"I'm sorry!" she cried from under the covers. Her head emerged. "My hoodie..."

I looked down at myself, and there laying across my chest was Amy's hoodie. Apparently that was what had landed on me. I handed it back to her, and she curled up with it, not in the least disturbed by the fact that I had just screamed bloody murder because of something she had done.

It took a while, but eventually my heart rate returned to normal, my breathing evened out and sleep reclaimed me.

This morning Amy was cheerful as ever as she got up and dressed for school. I watched her for a few minutes and her behavior showed no signs of her remembering our little exchange in the middle of the night.

"Do you remember me screaming in the middle of the night?" I finally asked.

"You were screaming? Did you have a nightmare??"

"No, I was screaming at YOU!"

I told her about how she'd thrown her hoodie at me and then stood over me with her face right next to me. Her reaction surprised me. The more I told her the harder she laughed until I started to worry about whether or not she could breathe. In the midst of her laughter were two words: "I'm Sorry!!!" Apparently she'd dreamed that someone asked to borrow her hoodie, so she'd taken it off and given it to them. She wasn't sure why she'd been standing over me...

In the end I was able to laugh about it too... it definitely makes for a good story, being attacked by my roommate and her hoodie at two in the morning. But good story or not, I wouldn't complain one bit if nothing like that ever happens to me again!