The Sleep Study Paid $10,000. They Never Told Us We Wouldn’t Dream Alone.

The Ad That Changed Everything

When the flyer appeared on my dorm bulletin board—"Earn $10,000 in 7 Nights. Healthy Volunteers Needed for Sleep Research"—I laughed. Who wouldn’t? As a broke med student drowning in loans, it sounded like a scam.

But the fine print checked out: Blackwood Biomedical, a prestigious research firm, was paying people to sleep. All I had to do was let them monitor my brainwaves. No drugs. No invasive procedures. Just… sleep.

I signed up that afternoon.

Biggest mistake of my life.

Night One: The Whisper in the Static

The facility was sleek and sterile, like a high-end hotel crossed with a lab. My room had a queen-sized bed, EEG wires, and a night-vision camera in the corner.

Dr. Voss, the lead researcher, smiled as he adjusted the electrodes on my temples. "You might experience unusually vivid dreams. That’s normal."

I fell asleep to the hum of machines.

Then, at 3:17 AM, I woke to a voice.

Not in the room—in my head. A wet, guttural whisper threading through my thoughts:

"You’re finally here."

I jerked upright, heart slamming against my ribs. The monitors blared alarms.

Dr. Voss rushed in. "Night terror. Common in new environments."

But I knew what I’d heard.

Night Three: The Shared Dream

By the third night, I dreaded closing my eyes. The whispers grew clearer, more insistent.

Then, I dreamed of her.

A woman in a white hospital gown, standing at the foot of my bed. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out—just that same subvocal hiss from the first night.

I woke screaming.

This time, the researchers didn’t dismiss it. They exchanged glances. Adjusted my dosage.

And that’s when I noticed: The other volunteers.

Pale. Twitching in their sleep. One guy clawed at his IV stand, muttering, "She’s in the walls."

Night Five: The Truth in the Files

I hacked into the facility’s records.

Turns out, Blackwood wasn’t studying sleep.

They were studying something else.

Decades of experiments. Test subjects reporting the same nightmare: a woman with hollow eyes, reaching through their dreams. Some woke with scratches. Others never woke at all.

The $10,000 wasn’t payment.

It was hush money.

Night Seven: No Way Out

I tried to quit. Dr. Voss blocked the door. "You signed a contract. Seven nights. No exceptions."

That night, the dream changed.

The woman wasn’t at my bed anymore.

She was inside me.

I felt her fingers in my mind, peeling back memories like old wallpaper. Her voice slithered through my synapses:

"They thought they could trap us here. But dreams don’t stay in one place."

Epilogue: Still Getting Paid

I left Blackwood with my check.

The whispers didn’t stop.

Now, when I close my eyes, I see the others—past volunteers, their faces stretched in silent screams, trapped in a shared nightmare.

And the woman?

She’s learning.

Last night, I woke to find my hand writing words I don’t remember thinking:

"Ten thousand more. Bring them to me."

Want it darker? I can add body horror (e.g., waking up with teeth under their skin). Or a sadder ending where the protagonist becomes the next recruiter. Let me know! 👁️