While you were sleeping

It probably all started with cockroaches. When Max and his girlfriend moved into this rented apartment, these creatures were simply swarming everywhere: on the walls, in the cracks of the floor, falling from the ceiling at night... Max repeatedly caught disgusting cockroaches crawling out from under his clothes while sitting in class and hastily brushed them away before his classmates noticed them. However, he had long since stopped attending classes. An incredible incident had robbed him of sleep, peace, and perhaps even sanity.

One night, he was awakened by the tickling of something fuzzy and disgusting on his cheek. Shuddering with disgust, he brushed the filth off—he assumed it was a huge cockroach. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the abomination land on his friend Nina's cheek and dart above her upper lip. Max flicked the nightlight button and froze in horror as he saw a thin, hairy, multi-legged worm quickly disappear into his girlfriend's nose. Max shook Nina by the shoulders, but she refused to wake up. Her eyes were glazed over when she opened them, and her pulse was barely detectable.

Max began to understand why his girlfriend had been acting so strangely for the past week: complaining of headaches and malaise, sleeping and eating almost constantly, tormented by ravenous hunger. Finally, Nina opened her eyes, confused, furious at Max for waking her, who, in turn, hadn't dared tell her of his horrific discovery.

From that moment on, Max never left his girlfriend's side, never closing his eyes, waiting for the vile creature. The next night, he waited: with disgust, he saw, in the dim light of a nightlight, a vile, slippery, hairy tentacle crawl out of Nina's nose and slither down her cheek. Max shuddered in disgust when he saw how long the creature was—the end of the worm had already slid to the floor, its tail still inside Nina's head. Finding a dry, crushed cockroach, the worm sank its tiny, toothy mouth into it and began slowly crawling back in. Max couldn't suppress a scream and abruptly turned on the light—with a hiss, the worm hastily disappeared into his girlfriend's skull. And Nina didn't even wake up...

The next night, Max waited for the creature, his purpose clearly in mind. The worm was blind, Max concluded, watching the creature crawl around the previous night, groping and guessing. A crude but effective plan was hatched: his hand clutched a kitchen knife, ready to cut open the vile parasite that had decided to crawl out for its nightly hunt. His head was pounding from lack of sleep, his eyes were closing, and his hands were trembling slightly. As soon as the worm's head emerged from Nina's nose, he slashed with the knife, but the blade only cut her cheek. Blood spurted, and Nina's piercing scream deafened Max. Still half-awake, Nina jumped up in bed, clutching her face, and under her fingers, the vile worm, hissing and writhing, burrowed back into her skull. Max caught a glimpse of the worm greedily sucking the gushing blood from the wound on her cheek.

 Nina lay on the bed, her hands and feet bound and her cheek taped, once again fast asleep. Having woken up the previous night with a cut cheek, Nina had tried to escape, calling her boyfriend a maniac, crying and screaming. But Max was stronger; he managed to tie her up and immobilize her. And so he sat guard again, waiting for the unknown beast, clutching a pair of scissors. Max's eyes weren't just closing from lack of sleep anymore, they were glassy.

That night, the creature reappeared, nibbled briefly at the crusted blood on the girl's cheek, and slid down—to the pillow and the floor. There was no more waiting—the cold steel of the scissors flashed, and the worm's body was sliced open with one precise stroke.

Dropping the scissors, Max jumped back, watching in horror as his girlfriend's head transformed into a huge ball of frantically writhing worms. Vile creatures crawled out of both nostrils, ears, slipped out from under Nina's eyelids, from her mouth...

With the first rays of dawn, Max's strength deserted him, and he slowly began to drift off, still clutching the bloody scissors. His girlfriend's nearly headless body lay in his lap, covered in clots of mucus and shreds of hairy tentacles. All night, Max frantically stabbed the scissors into her skull, trying to destroy the hellish creature. And now he fell into a heavy oblivion, into an absolute, dreamless void. And, of course, he was unaware that, while he was peacefully sleeping, a worm-like creature had crawled out of his nostril and was slithering down his cheek.