Awake but Asleep
-Yuri’s POV-
Sleep Paralysis.
The room was suffocatingly still, the silence pressing in from all sides—a thick, unnatural quiet that felt like an invisible weight pinning her down. Yuri Williams was familiar with the concept of sleep paralysis; she’d read about it and heard others talk about it, but no amount of knowledge prepared her for the bone-deep terror of actually experiencing it. She lay frozen in bed, unable to move, unable even to open her eyes. Her mind was awake, but her body was trapped in an unyielding stillness. An unseen pressure bore down on her chest, suffocating her with every shallow breath she managed to pull in. She was stuck between two worlds—the waking and the dreaming—suspended in a place where neither felt real, yet both were terrifyingly all-consuming.
Her chest tightened, and a shiver ran down her spine, the sensation of utter helplessness gnawing at her. The longer she lay there, the more the fear twisted inside her. Her mind raced with thoughts she couldn’t act on, her fingers curling in frustration against the invisible chains that bound her.This isn’t real, she tried to convince herself, but the panic was relentless. *This will pass. It has to.*
The minutes stretched into an eternity, an endless expanse of time where the world outside seemed to mock her inability to move, to fight back. Then, after what felt like hours, her eyelids fluttered open. At first, the room was a blur—dark and distorted—but the dim light from the lamp she had left on greeted her like a faint, fragile reassurance. *Is it over?* she wondered, her heart still racing. Had she survived her first sleep paralysis?
Maybe.
Before she could even process the relief, something pulled at her, twisting the air around her. A sudden, violent rush of dizziness crashed into her vision. The world spun as if gravity had turned against her, her stomach flipping in a nauseating freefall.Am I dying? The thought barely formed before it was swept away by an overwhelming sense of darkness, dragging her under. Her body went limp, and consciousness slipped away like sand through her fingers, the unknown pulling her deeper into oblivion.
*BLANK*
I gasped, my lungs burning as I drew in a desperate, deep breath. I shot upright, disoriented and panicked, my body trembling as if I had just escaped a near-death experience. But where was I? The room around me was completely unfamiliar, and the heavy feeling of drowning lingered like a shadow, haunting my every move.
“Where am I?” I whispered, my voice hoarse and frantic. The question seemed to echo through the strange space, but the silence offered no answers. I took a slow, shaky breath, trying to steady myself as I looked around.
The room was aggressively pink. Everything was pink; the bed, the furniture, even the light curtains hanging delicately by the window. The excessive pinkness made my stomach churn with unease, and my heart skipped a beat in confusion. I felt as if I were standing in someone else’s dream, surrounded by objects that should be familiar but felt completely foreign. The sight of a pink laptop on a matching pink desk did nothing to ease my confusion. Every inch of the room made me feel more out of place.
What is this.. where am I? My thoughts spiraled as I stumbled off the bed, my legs unsteady, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I fumbled around for the light switch, desperate to bring some clarity into the chaos. When the light finally flicked on, the room came into focus—yet, nothing made sense.
I took a hesitant step toward the center of the room, my eyes drawn to the full-length mirror on the opposite wall. And that was when my world tilted further out of balance.
The girl staring back at me was not me, at least, not in any way I recognized. I saw blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a petite frame that seemed too small. The reflection was someone else entirely. This was the face of a teenager, a girl I couldn’t recognize. The disconnect between the girl in the mirror and me felt like an insurmountable divide that left me gasping for understanding.
“Who am I?” I whispered, the question barely escaping my lips as my trembling fingers brushed against my unfamiliar cheek.
My gaze shifted to the clock on the wall. 10:30 PM. Time, it seemed, was still in its place, but everything else had slipped into chaos. I should leave, find a way out, but my body felt frozen, as though some invisible force had tethered me to the room.
Then, a voice called from the hallway, sharp and demanding.
“Yuri, you have school tomorrow! Turn off the lights and go to sleep!”
I froze.
Yuri? Was that my name? Who was calling me? *Yuri*—could that be who I was? And who was that woman?
Uncertainty gnawed at me as I quickly flipped off the switch, my mind scrambling to make sense of it all. The stillness of the room pressed down on me, and I found solace in the weak glow of a small torch on the bedside table. But even that couldn’t chase away the sense of wrongness in my soul.
Then, something else caught my eye. A smaller mirror, placed on the dresser.
The girl in the reflection seemed to stare back at me, her expression both familiar and foreign, lost in the maze of a life I couldn’t remember. I felt like an imposter in my own skin, a stranger who had stumbled into someone else’s existence. How could this be?
A voice inside me urged me to find the woman from the hallway, to demand answers. But another voice, quieter, more insistent, whispered, No.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain, I obeyed. I wasn’t ready for confrontations yet.
“Maybe the pictures will help,” I muttered under my breath, trying to ignore the rising panic as I rifled through the pink drawers, hoping for some scrap of clarity. I found a journal, tucked beneath a stack of ordinary books, its presence almost palpable. With trembling hands, I pulled it out. “Yuri’s Journal” was written on the cover in a delicate, flowing script.
My heart raced as I curled into the blankets, torchlight casting long shadows across the pages. I hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was wrong to read this private piece of someone else’s life. But something pulled at me, something that told me it was important. This was my life, wasn’t it?
The journal was filled with dates and entries that chronicled a life I didn’t remember living. My eyes skipped over the pages, but when I reached the last one, the words punched me in the gut.
Dear Diary,
Today was rough. Jason kissed Penelope right in front of me. Two weeks. That’s all it’s been since we ended things, and he’s already moved on. I really thought we had something real like we were meant to last. Even now, I can’t pretend I don’t still care. Part of me probably always will.
But holding on is only hurting me. Jason became a distraction I kept choosing, even when I shouldn’t have. I gave him so much of myself, maybe more than I should’ve, and now I feel... empty.
I want to stand on my own again, even if I’m still hurting beneath the surface.. What should I do? I wish you could talk back... but you’re just a book.
Anyways, I won’t give up. I’ll stay strong. I promise.
The one and only
Yuri Williams
I stared at the page, the words burning into my mind. The pain was raw, familiar in its intensity, but they felt like the words of a stranger. I hadn’t written this, had I? The memories weren’t mine.
My gaze flicked to the next page, but nothing made sense. The life described in these entries felt as distant as a dream I couldn’t recall.
“How can I have lived this, written this, and not remember any of it?” I whispered, my voice cracking in the eerie silence of the room.
Confusion flooded me as I grabbed a pen and copied the first line of the journal onto a piece of paper. The handwriting was completely different from mine. My heart sank.
There was only one logical conclusion left. Maybe I had a twin? The thought flickered through my mind, but I dismissed it just as quickly. It made no sense.
My thoughts became a blur, and I was left with the terrifying feeling of having never lived before—of being someone new, someone entirely different.
I shoved the journal back into its hiding place, crawling into the pink bed. I closed my eyes, trying to calm the storm in my mind. Maybe tomorrow, I thought. Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember everything.
With that fragile hope, I drifted into sleep once more, unaware that nothing I remembered or thought I knew... was real.
Little did I know, I wasn’t the girl I thought I was. I wasn’t Yuri Williams at all.
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Author’s Note
Hello Readers, I hope you liked the first chapter of this story. I will explain the*BLANK*part in the story now so that you will understand. I use*BLANK*for the switch. Since there are two people living in one body, Yuri is the first girl and “I” is used for her alter. I hope you like the concept, if you do, don’t forget to vote and comment. Your feedback is very much appreciated :)
Disclaimer!
This is a work of fiction. While the story touches on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), not all aspects of the disorder are fully represented, hence the portrayal is not entirely accurate(there is a reason for this). I’ve received helpful feedback from readers who experience DID firsthand, which has been an incredible learning opportunity for me. I want to be respectful and make it clear that my intention is never to offend, but to explore the themes of identity and duality in a creative way. I encourage readers to approach the story with an open mind and read until the end to grasp the full essence of Same but Different.
