Have you ever woken up with something thick and sticky in your mouth?
Not saliva. Saliva doesn't taste this metallic.
You run your tongue over your teeth, and a sharp, rusty taste surges up. You think it's just gum bleeding, so you rush to the bathroom to brush. The foam is white. The water you spit out is clear. The toothbrush is spotless, not a single trace of red.
But the taste remains.
You can't swallow it away. You can't spit it out.
It's like something spent the night inside you, and left its scent behind.
My name is Shen Du. I'm twenty-nine. I work as a graphic designer at a small company.
This started three months ago. At first I thought it was internal heat. Then I thought it was gum disease. I got every test I could: blood work, gastroscopy, oral CT scan. All results were normal.
But the taste of blood came back every single morning.
And it kept getting stronger.
(1)
Thursday, October 17th. Early morning.
I woke up around two a.m. Not naturally. Something disturbed me. A cat meowing downstairs, faint and intermittent. I rolled over, pulled the blanket over my head, and fell back asleep.
When my alarm went off at seven, the first thing I felt was bitterness in my mouth.
Not ordinary bitterness. Thick, rusty, coppery bitterness. I sat up, pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and the metallic stench was unmistakable.
I hurried to the bathroom, opened my mouth wide in front of the mirror, and checked carefully.
Gums were not red. Tongue looked normal. Throat showed no sign of injury.
I rinsed my mouth with strong mint mouthwash, so strong it stung my eyes.
The metallic taste was gone for about ten minutes.
Then it slowly seeped back, like water rising from under the floor, impossible to wipe away.
During breakfast, my mom called. She calls every Thursday, asking if I ate, if I stayed up late, if I met any new girls. I mumbled replies while staring at my reflection, the taste still heavy in my mouth. After hanging up, I looked at the bite marks on my toast. No blood.
I told myself it was just stress. Too much overtime. A distorted sense of taste. Maybe minor nosebleeds deep inside, unnoticeable during the day but strong in the morning.
This self-comfort lasted until the twenty-third day.
That morning, I woke up and found a dark red stain on my pillow.
Small, coin-sized, already dried and brownish. I smelled it. Nothing. But my chest tightened.
I changed the pillowcase and threw the old one in the wash. I went to work and barely spoke all day.
My colleague Xiao Zhou asked why I looked so pale. I said I didn't sleep well.
That night, I had a dream.
I was standing in my bedroom, dimly lit. Everything was where it should be.
I looked at myself lying on the bed, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, breathing slow and steady.
Then I watched my lips move, as if murmuring, but no sound came out.
Then I bit down.
Upper and lower teeth closed with a soft click.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Like chewing something.
But my mouth was empty.
In the dream, I screamed at myself to wake up, but no sound came out.
It felt like drowning, grasping at nothing.
I woke up at six to my alarm.
The taste of blood was still there.
(2)
I went to the hospital.
First, stomatology. A young female doctor with round glasses told me to open wide, checked with a small mirror, tapped each tooth gently.
"Your teeth are fine. Gums aren't inflamed. Do your gums bleed when you brush?"
"No."
"Have you eaten anything hard lately?"
"No."
She suggested gastroenterology.
The gastroenterologist, a middle-aged man, ordered a gastroscopy without expression.
The procedure was uncomfortable. A tube down my throat, like a fish on a hook.
Results: esophagus and stomach smooth, no ulcers, no bleeding.
"Maybe nasal or throat issues," he wrote. "See ENT."
The ENT doctor used an endoscope. Everything was normal. Not even tiny capillaries.
"Are you under a lot of stress?"
"Sort of."
"Sometimes stress causes subjective taste abnormalities. Take vitamin B complex and observe."
I stood in the long hospital corridor, fluorescent lights cold and blue, the air thick with disinfectant.
Something felt wrong. Deeply wrong.
At home, I searched online for hours.
Keywords: bad taste in mouth, blood taste when waking up, dreaming of chewing.
Most results were useless. Some were sensational posts: "I Woke Up Eating Something in the Middle of the Night."
Comments all said: see a doctor.
I heated milk, stood on the balcony. Streetlights were yellow. A tree had lost half its leaves.
Everything looked normal.
I told myself it was over. Doctors said I was fine. Tests were fine. It was just my mind.
That night, I finished milk, brushed my teeth, lay in bed.
Quiet. Only the sound of water in the radiator.
Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a sound.
Very faint.
Like a bone snapping.
Not from outside the room.
Inside the room.
Close.
So close it felt like inside my head.
I jolted awake. The room was pitch black.
I reached for the bedside lamp. Click. Nothing. Click again. Still nothing.
My heart raced. I grabbed my phone, lit up the screen.
The lamp switch was definitely on.
Then I noticed the small indicator light next to the main light switch was off.
The power had tripped.
I flipped the main breaker back on. All lights blazed at once.
The corridor at the end of the hall was dark, like an open mouth.
I slept with all the lights on that night.
(3)
The next day was Saturday.
When I woke up, I checked the pillow first.
Clean. No stains.
I relaxed. Just an old building power trip. Just hypnagogic hallucinations.
Then I remembered the camera I'd asked my friend Lao Zhao about.
He replied he could get one 300 yuan cheaper than Jingdong.
I paid immediately.
It arrived Monday afternoon.
I installed it in the corner of my bedroom, pointing straight at the bed. Night vision. SD card.
I adjusted the angle to cover the entire bed.
That night I slept early.
Before closing my eyes, I checked the red recording light.
Tomorrow, I'll have the answer.
The alarm went off at seven.
I didn't check my mouth first. I looked at the camera.
Light was green. Recording saved.
I took out the SD card and plugged it into my computer.
The familiar metallic taste rose in my mouth as I waited for it to boot.
I opened the video.
Black-and-white night vision.
From 22:47 to 00:30, I lay still, occasional turns. Normal.
I fast-forwarded. At 00:47, I turned toward the wall.
Still normal.
I slowed to 1x speed, dragged to around 02:00.
And then I saw it.
At 2:12 a.m., I sat up.
Not slowly.
Abruptly.
Like someone yanked me upward from behind.
So fast the image blurred.
I sat straight, head slightly lowered, like a statue.
After ten seconds, my head slowly rotated.
Not left or right.
In a full circle, downward, upward, left, right.
Like a slow-motion doll.
Two or three circles.
Then I opened my mouth.
Wide.
Unnaturally wide.
Jaw dropped like dislocated.
All teeth exposed.
Then I began to chew.
Jaws clamped rapidly.
Like eating something.
But my hands rested at my sides. Nothing was near my mouth.
Just empty chewing. Cheeks bulging in and out.
I stared at the screen, motionless.
Three minutes of chewing.
Then swallowing.
Adam's apple moving up and down.
Again and again.
Then ten minutes of stillness.
Mouth open, eyes empty.
At 2:26 a.m., my right hand moved.
Slowly lifted from under the covers, fingers spread, paused, then snapped shut violently.
Like grabbing something solid.
Muscles tensed. Arm trembled.
Held for thirty seconds.
Fingers slowly released.
Then I started scratching my left hand.
Not gently.
Digging nails into skin, dragging hard, leaving long marks.
On screen, no blood.
In reality, my hand was unharmed.
At 2:34 a.m., I lay back down.
Not gently.
Stiff, like being laid down by force.
Head hit the pillow and bounced.
Then no more movement.
I replayed that segment five times.
Every time, the same.
I went to the mirror.
Pale face, chapped lips, dark circles.
Left hand smooth, no scratches.
I tasted my mouth.
The blood taste was still there.
(4)
I took a Tuesday off work.
I sent the video to Doctor Lin, a friend in neurology.
He called, serious, saying it looked like a sleep disorder.
REM behavior disorder. Night terrors. Suggested a sleep study.
"Any violent dreams?"
I didn't remember. Just tired.
"Any injuries while sleeping?"
"No."
"Fell out of bed?"
"No."
He told me to clear my room, move furniture away, lock windows.
But as I sat on the sofa, I realized something.
The camera only showed me.
It didn't show what I was eating.
I replayed frame by frame.
Nothing around my mouth.
Empty air. Clean pillow. Clean blanket.
What was I chewing?
And at 2:26, what did I grab?
The motion was too precise, too forceful for a dream.
I noticed a tiny shadow in my palm at the moment I closed my fingers.
Fingernail-sized. Fleeting.
Unidentifiable.
I left to buy vegetables.
On the way back, wind blew from the stairwell, carrying a faint stench.
Rotten. Damp. Sticky.
I frowned and went upstairs.
(5)
The sleep clinic was hard to book. I waited three days.
Doctor Fang, a sharp-speaking woman in her forties, asked detailed questions.
I told her about the video.
She said I needed a polysomnography test — sleep in the hospital overnight with electrodes.
I agreed.
That afternoon, I had blood drawn.
The nurse filled three tubes.
The blood was darker than normal.
Almost blackish red, like old clotted blood.
On the way home, I stopped at a red light.
A little girl in school uniform stood by the road, eating a sausage.
She glanced at me.
In that instant, every hair on my body stood up.
Nothing was wrong with her look.
But everything felt wrong.
Like the world had shifted slightly, just out of place.
(6)
Wednesday night, I arrived at the sleep lab.
Electrodes glued all over my head, face, chest, legs.
Like a marionette.
I don't remember falling asleep.
But I woke once.
A voice, very close, whispering in my ear.
Words unclear. Only breath brushing my skin.
I couldn't open my eyes. Couldn't move.
Sleep paralysis.
Lasted about ten seconds.
I jolted upright.
3:12 a.m.
The next morning, the technician removed the electrodes with a strange expression.
"Your brainwaves between 2 and 3 a.m. are unusual. I've never seen anything like it in seven years. Not REM, not NREM. Some transition state… but not normal."
Doctor Fang reviewed the report: Atypical Sleep Architecture Disturbance.
She looked at me differently.
"As a person, not a doctor — I suggest you check the history of your apartment."
My blood ran cold.
(7)
I asked Lao Zhao's realtor friend to look up my unit.
The PDF showed normal ownership changes.
Until the last line.
Note: August 2018. One unnatural death under Liu's ownership.
Unnatural death.
I searched old news.
A female victim, fell from the building at 3:42 a.m.
August 19, 2018.
She was 29.
I'm 29.
She lived in my unit.
(8)
That evening, I stood by my bedroom window.
I saw a handprint on the inside of the glass.
Smaller than mine. Slender fingers. A faint line across the palm.
I live on the fourth floor.
No balcony. No platform. No way to stand outside.
I closed the curtains tight.
That night, I slept with all lights on.
But I still heard it.
A woman's voice, right next to my pillow.
Soft, clear.
"You're here to keep me company."
I jolted awake.
Lights still on. No one there.
But my mouth was full of thick, sticky blood.
I spat into the sink.
The water was red.
I looked in the mirror.
Behind me, a blurry figure.
A woman.
Her hand reached out from the mirror.
The same handprint.
I spun around.
Nothing.
When I lay back in bed, I heard a voice come from my own throat.
Not mine.
A woman's voice.
"Thank you."
Then:
"It's done."
(Ending)
When I woke up, the alarm was ringing.
Sunlight through the window.
I tasted my mouth.
No blood.
No rust.
No stench.
Just normal, clean morning breath.
I got dressed, ready for work.
By the shoe cabinet, I saw a small note.
I didn't put it there.
The handwriting was delicate, neat, like a girl's.
It said:
"Close the window tightly. The wind downstairs is strong."
I stood there, one shoe on, the other off.
The world outside was noisy and normal.
Breakfast steam. Commuters. Birds.
But my fourth-floor window, from that morning onward, stayed tightly closed.