He felt her nightballs quicken as she did her nightly ritual of putting the kids to bed, brushing her teeth, setting up the camera in her bedroom, and turning off the lights. On reviewing the footage, she couldn’t believe what she had slept through. Was it so close to her face? Would it really happen that night?
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Melanie Darnell is a vegan fitness guru and mother of three. She is also a blogger with 100,000 followers. She juggles looking after her kids and keeping a strict routine, working out, and staying healthy. But in reality, many people don’t know what was actually going on, and no one would have believed her anyway. No one would have ever thought that Melanie was actually going through awful bouts of fatigue.
It all started 10 months ago when strange noises started emanating from her house. She thought it was just the trees and the wind on the old wooden house creaking. But when it happened no matter the weather, she had to stop lying to herself. To make matters even worse, Melanie always woke up completely and utterly exhausted, like something was interfering with her sleep. The noises had only gotten louder and louder. These days, it sounded like they were right outside her bedroom door. Her husband was away on a business trip, so it was only her and the kids.
Her husband said, “Set up a night vision camera and see what’s going on. If you’re not sleepwalking, then something really strange must be happening to you.” His advice only scared her more. All the classic horror movies Melanie watched when she was younger popped to mind. Would Freddy Krueger be visiting her in the night? She shuddered at the thought, but she still set up the camera.
Melanie had recently been sleeping on the couch. She didn’t like her dark room and how alone it felt to be in, but that didn’t help her either. She felt just as tired as she had when she slept in her room. An awake memory entered her mind that unsettled her. It was almost as if it was a dream, but Melanie swore she woke up at one point in time to the sensation of breathing on her face before she fell back asleep. But that moment would prove crucial for what was ahead.
She hurried to the nearest electronic store to get a video camera. She had to get it before it got dark; she didn’t want to spend one more night without knowing what was going on. She set the camera up in her bedroom, and her heart raced as she put her children to sleep. She didn’t know what to expect when she woke the next morning. She still had to get through one more night of horrible sleep before finding out the truth, but she had no idea how shocking the truth would prove to be.
She got the video camera ready, and the next morning, she nervously made coffee. She was now ready to find out what was happening at night. Her hand was a little shaky as she pressed play. The footage rolled, and she saw herself leaving her room to put her kids to bed. Then, quiet. Melanie watched herself lay in bed, shuffling quietly until she finally fell asleep. At first, everything seemed peaceful. She pressed the fast-forward button, desperately hoping that she didn’t have a sleepwalking problem and that no one appeared that shouldn’t have been there.
But that’s exactly what happened. Melanie jumped and hit pause in shock. She hit the rewind button and played it again. Her eyes popped as she took in the image of a small figure pushing open her door and crawling up on her bed. She watched herself sleep in complete ignorance. Then, from the corner of her eye, two more shadows appeared through the door and peered over her. One got so close to her face that her jaw dropped, wondering how she possibly slept through this.
What happened? The footage showed Melanie heavily asleep as her bed slowly but surely started to turn into a party. After putting her kids to bed a couple of times, at 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM, they reappeared at 2 in the morning. Melanie was too tired to wake up with the commotion but still became disturbed and drowsy, tossing and turning with the noise. Then Melanie saw something that explained the breathing. Between the chaos of her children entering her room, her dog followed. He jumped up on the bed, licked, and smelled her face as he hovered over her.
The most remarkable thing about this was Melanie’s reaction. Although she seemed to be asleep and couldn’t remember anything, she was displaying actions of consciousness. She would cuddle her toddler and move her hair away whenever he tried to pull on it. She seemed to be half awake and half sleeping. It explained everything. She was so taken aback by the footage that she decided to share it on her platform.
“Parenting doesn’t end when the sun goes down,” she shared. “During these moments, let’s all think of the other parents that are up with their babies at the very same middle-of-the-night moments and take comfort in the thought of each of us cradling our babies in the dark of our homes together in a shared experience.”
Melanie hoped to spread the message that motherhood is hard, and it never stops. She also wanted everyone to see the aspects of motherhood that hardly ever get talked about. It’s not easy, and moms often get criticized heavily, yet no one knows what they’re dealing with in their daily life. Even still, Melanie wouldn’t change it for the world.
