Sunday Short: Spiritwalker - The Body Sleeps

The first time it happened, she thought she was dreaming.

One moment, she was asleep—heavy, deep, the kind of sleep where the world fades into nothing. The next, she was standing beside her bed, staring at herself.

Her body lay there, chest rising and falling slowly. Peaceful. Vulnerable. Empty.

She screamed.

Nothing came out.

That was when she realized she wasn’t breathing.

Panic sent her stumbling backward—straight through her bedroom wall. The plaster didn’t crack. The air didn’t resist. She simply passed through, spilling into the hallway like smoke.

It took weeks to understand what she was.

She wasn’t dead. Her body still lived. But whenever she slept—really slept—or whenever she was completely still, her spirit slipped free like it had never belonged inside her in the first place.

She learned the rules quickly.

She couldn’t spiritwalk while awake or moving. Naps worked. Deep meditation worked. Exhaustion worked best. The moment her body went slack, her spirit was free.

And free meant powerful.

She drifted through locked doors, hovered above rooftops, sank into the earth and rose again miles away. She learned she could touch things—lightly at first. A flickering bulb. A creaking door. With practice, she could push harder.

Possession came next.

Not people—never people—but objects. Dolls. Mirrors. Televisions. Once, for a laugh, she possessed a traffic light and trapped an entire intersection in chaos for five minutes before letting go.

She should’ve been afraid.

Instead, she was exhilarated.

For the first time in her life, she had control.

She used it for fun at first. Exploring places she’d never dared go. Standing unseen in rooms where secrets were whispered. Laughing silently as the world moved through her.

Then she used it for revenge.

Her bullies never knew why their lockers slammed shut on fingers, why whispers followed them when they were alone, why their reflections smiled when they didn’t. One girl quit school after waking every night to find her bedroom rearranged, furniture spelling LEAVE ME ALONE across the floor.

No one ever suspected her.

She always woke up in bed, safe, warm, human again.

Until one night, she didn’t.

She slipped out of her body like usual, the familiar weightlessness settling over her. She drifted toward the window, planning nothing more than a lazy flight across the city.

But something felt… wrong.

Her room was colder than it should’ve been. The hum of the air felt hollow. She turned back toward the bed.

It was empty.

The sheets were twisted, pulled back violently, as if someone had risen in a hurry—or been dragged away. Her pillow lay on the floor. Her phone was gone. The window was open.

Her body was not there.

Panic unlike anything she’d ever felt tore through her. She rushed through the house, phasing through walls, screaming soundlessly. No parents. No lights. No sign she had ever been there at all.

Outside, tire marks scarred the gravel driveway.

A van idled at the edge of her awareness—already gone, already too far.

She followed instinctively, racing through streets, through traffic, through solid ground, but distance blurred and then vanished. Whatever took her body had moved beyond something she could track.

She hovered there as dawn crept in, watching the sun rise over a world that no longer had a place for her.

Her body was gone.

And for the first time since discovering her gift, she wondered—

What happens to a spirit that has nowhere left to return?