Okay, this is day two of my vacation and it's dark. I probably should have chosen some

warm and sunny destination like Hawaii, but my biggest concern is sleep. So here I am in

my friend's cabin out on the Olympic Peninsula. I'm 15 minutes from the Pacific Ocean. I've

just missed the last of the winter storms which would have been amazing. It's snow almost

one in the morning. I went to bed early around nine because it's so dark here. My phone

gets zero service and I promise Nick that I'd send him my sleep notes. So every few days I'm going

to have to drive the 15 minutes back to the gas station to get a signal. There are a few board games

here which doesn't do me any good. There's nothing to do here but read. I'm working through the

Master in Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It's been sitting untouched on my shelf for almost a decade.

I wish I'd known it was about the devil visiting Moscow. Probably not the best choice given my circumstances.

Actually, this cabin was probably not the best retreat given the nightmares I've been having.

But it's free and my friend wasn't using it this month and she knew I needed a place to go where there'd

be no noise at all. The thing is there are noises here. You think the forest is silent at night or

at least I did. But it all comes alive at night. As if everything here is on a kind of

nocturnal clock with the moon signaling the start of a new day.

Earlier this evening I could hear the slow crunch of twigs outside the kitchen window is something

passed by. I'm guessing it was either a raccoon or skunk. And there's something else out there.

Something that regularly scampers across the roof. I mean I think it's a squirrel or mouse but

I'm not sure. There's no way I'm going to check.

I think I fell asleep for about 45 minutes and I'm not sure but I think I might have had a brief

moment of sleep paralysis. I woke up and I couldn't move. There were sounds all around me. It sounded

like metallic breathing. It took a minute for me to realize it was the sound of my own breath

...