In the early morning hours of a Tuesday in 2016, a woman who will call Sarah woke abruptly

inside of a room on the 12th floor of the Luxor Hotel and Casino.

She had fallen asleep without difficulty earlier that night, exhausted after spending hours moving

through the noise and spectacle of the Las Vegas Strip.

Outside the darkened windows of the pyramid-shaped hotel, the city continued glowing

against the desert sky.

But inside her room, everything was silent.

At first, Sarah believed that she had simply experienced an unusually

vivid nightmare. In the dream, she found herself standing alone in one of the luxers

famously slanted hallways, the long angular corridor stretching unnaturally into the distance

beneath dim lighting. At the far end stood a woman with bright

blonde hair, perfectly still, staring toward her without speaking. Sarah tried to move, but the

atmosphere around her felt dense and heavy, as though the hallway itself was resisting her.

Then the figure began moving closer. Now, as the woman approached,

Sarah felt pressure building in her chest until it became difficult to breathe. The blonde figure

stopped directly over her, but before Sarah could see the woman's face, the sensation changed

from dreamlike unease into something painfully physical.

Her eye snapped open.

She was awake, lying in the bed inside of her hotel room, yet the pressure had not disappeared.

Something invisible seemed to be forcing her down onto the mattress while cold hands tightened

around her throat.

She struggled for air, panicking as she tried to move her arms

...