Nocturnal Awakenings

The disturbances began on the third night. Esperanza woke with a start, a strong metallic taste coating her mouth. She stumbled toward the bathroom and switched on the light, expecting to see blood. But her mouth was clean, her teeth spotless. Only that warm, coppery tang lingered, heavy enough to make her stomach churn.

She rinsed again and again, drank several glasses of water, but nothing worked. The taste clung stubbornly, accompanied by a strange sensation, as if she had taken part in something forbidden while she slept. As she turned back toward her bed, she noticed her bare feet, smeared with a thin layer of damp earth.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered, staring at her dirty toes.

She was certain she hadn’t left her room. The window was closed and locked from the inside, so was the door. Yet that soil clung to her skin like proof of a nocturnal walk she couldn’t remember taking.

At breakfast the next morning, her parents watched her with a quiet, focused attention that made her uneasy. Luz avoided her gaze, nibbling at her rice without appetite.

“Did you sleep badly, m’hija ?” her mother asked, her tone light but strained.

“Just a little stress,” Esperanza replied, unwilling to admit how unsettling her symptoms were. “I’m used to Tokyo’s constant noise. Out here, the silence of nature makes me… anxious.”

Her parents exchanged another one of those glances heavy with meaning. Esperanza was growing tired of their unspoken words, of this oppressive atmosphere hanging over the house since her return.

Over the next few days, the pattern repeated. She woke with the taste of blood in her mouth, soil under her nails, and sometimes — more troubling still — blurry images, too vivid to be dreams, yet too strange to be memories. A creature with glowing red eyes haunted her nights, a beast straight from abuela Rosa’s stories. A thing driven by instincts she didn’t recognize, following scents she understood with disturbing, animal precision. She saw it stalk something, her heart pounding with predatory excitement. El Chupacabra, her grandmother’s voice whispered in her mind.

In those dreams, Esperanza wasn’t fleeing from the creature. She was the creature.

Each time she woke with a jolt, heart racing, the sensation of having left something important behind, just out of reach.

Meanwhile, her parents seemed increasingly on edge. They offered suggestions, gentle but insistent. Wouldn’t it be good to see a doctor ? Was she truly feeling well ? Had she noticed that her behavior was… different ?

“Different how ?” she finally asked her mother.

“More… intense. When the neighbors’ cat comes into the yard, the way you watch it… it’s like a predator studying its prey.”

Esperanza had laughed.
“Mamá, I study veterinary medicine. I watch animals out of habit, like you and Dad.”

She couldn’t allow herself to think she might be sick, especially not sick in her mind.

After another night broken by strange dreams, she slipped out for a walk before dawn. Near the small park by the elementary school, she heard plaintive meowing. A stray cat lay near a bush, likely hit by a car. One hind leg was twisted unnaturally, and blood seeped slowly from a wound along its flank.

Esperanza dropped to her knees instinctively. Her hands moved with practiced precision, trained by years of study. But when her eyes met the blood beading on the tabby’s fur, something in her changed. Her vision sharpened unnaturally. The metallic scent hit her like a wave, dizzying, intoxicating.

Without thinking, she leaned closer to the wound. A raw, primal impulse rose in her chest, overpowering. An irrepressible desire to… taste.

The thought horrified and fascinated her in equal measure. She jerked back violently, breath ragged, appalled by her own instincts. What was happening to her ? Why did the smell of animal blood stir sensations she dared not name ? She was supposed to heal, not…

For a fleeting second, she wondered if the urge truly belonged to her — or if it came from something else, a presence lurking just behind her thoughts, whispering in her voice.

She carried the cat to her parents’ clinic in a hurry. Watching them work, precise and efficient as always, she fought to keep her own focus. Every drop of blood spilled demanded all her willpower not to get closer, not to give in to a pull that terrified her.

“You did well bringing it to us,” Maria said as she sutured the wound. “You’ve always had a knack for finding the injured ones.”

Esperanza said nothing. Her gaze was fixed on the small vial of blood they had drawn for testing, and she battled a fascination so dark it made her skin crawl.

That night, sleep dragged her under like a riptide. The dream came stronger, irresistible. She moved through darkness on silent feet, driven by alien urges. On the hillsides, she followed a trail — hot, metallic, irresistible.

Her prey was the same cat she had saved earlier that day. But in this dream, she didn’t save it. She drained it dry, every motion precise, surgical, and a deep, perverse satisfaction filled her chest, unsettlingly close to pleasure.

She woke screaming. The taste of blood was so strong on her tongue she thought she might vomit.

Luz appeared in the doorway within seconds, as though she had been standing guard just outside.
“A nightmare ?” she asked, though her tone suggested she already knew.

“Luz…” Esperanza sat trembling in bed. “When I was little… did I ever act strange ? Did I do… weird things ?”

Her sister hesitated for just a fraction of a second, but Esperanza caught it.

“Like all children,” Luz said finally. “Nothing serious. Try to get some sleep.”

She reached the door, then paused, her voice lower, urgent.
“One thing, Esperanza. Listen to Mom and Dad. Please, accept their help. Before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what ?”

But Luz was already gone, leaving the question echoing in the dim room.

Esperanza noticed her sister didn’t turn off the hallway light, and she left the door slightly open, as though she wanted to keep watch on the room.

That realization chilled Esperanza more than any nightmare could. Why did Luz feel the need to watch over her ?
And above all — what exactly was she afraid of ?

Esperanza forced herself to breathe slowly, repeating silently that she had done nothing wrong, that she never would. Yet in her throat, the phantom taste of blood lingered — persistent, clinging like a promise she didn’t understand.