Chapter 2She Smashed My Life in Her Sleep

Samantha sat bolt upright in the upper bunk across the room, letting out a sharp, ragged scream. "What was that? What happened?"

Down below, Paige kicked off her comforter, her voice shaking with adrenaline. "Is that an earthquake?"

Megan stood frozen over my workstation, completely unresponsive, her head tilted at an unnatural angle as if she were trapped in a soundproof glass box. Then, with terrifyingly steady hands, she swept her forearm across my desk, sending my neatly stacked portfolio binders, legal pads, and flash drives clattering to the floor.

Next, she reached out, plucked the heavy shears from the magnetic holder, and drove the blades into the shoulder seam of my interview blazer draped over the back of the chair.

Rrrrip.

One clean, vicious tug. Then another across the lapel.

She didn’t cut the air. She didn’t miss. Every stroke landed with surgical precision on the fabric.

I stayed flat on my mattress, my phone held horizontally against the edge of the wood frame, recording every single flick of her wrist through the high-definition lens.

In my previous life, this was the exact second I had leaped out of bed, hysterical, screaming at her, trying to yank my shattered laptop away from her fingers. I had grabbed her by the shoulder, demanding to know what she was doing. And the moment my fingers touched her skin, Megan had collapsed backward like an empty sack, striking her elbow on the linoleum and waking up with wide, terrified eyes, wailing that I was attacking her.

By three in the morning, Samantha and Paige had formed a protective human wall around her, whispering that I was an aggressive lunatic who had nearly given a poor, sick girl a heart attack.

This time, I didn't move. I didn't breathe a word.

I watched Megan finish shredding the silk lining of my blazer, place the scissors down neatly next to the pile of ruined cloth, and turn around. Her gait grew slow, heavy, and exaggerated again as she shuffled back toward her bunk, climbed the ladder with deliberate awkwardness, and pulled the duvet over her head.

Samantha’s voice was a tight, terrified whisper in the dark. "Did... did she just sleepwalk?"

Paige swallowed hard from across the room. "My aunt has parasomnia. You’re never supposed to wake them up. If you startle them while they’re in that state, their heart can literally stop."

I kept my back turned to the room, plugged my phone into the wall, and waited for the three-minute video clip to finish uploading to my Google Drive, my Dropbox, and an external thumb drive hidden in my mattress seam.

At 6:30 AM sharp, Megan’s alarm chimed.

She yawned, stretched her arms, and began climbing down the ladder. When her bare feet hit the floor, she turned toward the center of the room, took one look at my decimated desk, and let out an ear-piercing shriek that could have woken the entire fourth floor.

"Oh my god! Did someone break in? What happened in here?"

Samantha scrambled down her ladder, her hair a bird's nest, her eyes wide with concern. "Megan... you don't remember anything from last night?"

Megan’s knees buckled. She dropped to the floor, her hands flying to her temples, tears spilling over her eyelashes in fat, glistening tracks.

"Remember what? What are you talking about?"

"You got out of bed around midnight," Samantha said softly, crouching beside her. "You smashed Natalie’s laptop. You cut up her clothes."

"No... no, no, no!" Megan began hyperventilating, burying her face in her palms. "I didn't! I couldn't! Was it... did I have an episode? I had one when I was seven, but my doctor said I outgrew it! Did I really do this? Oh god, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry..."

Paige rushed over with a glass of water, wrapping an arm around Megan’s shuddering shoulders. "Hey, breathe. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You were unconscious. You have a medical condition."

Samantha looked up at me where I sat on the edge of my bed, her expression tense and defensive. "Natalie... look at her. She’s having a panic attack. Don't go yelling at her, okay? She literally didn't know what she was doing."

I looked down at the wreckage of my three-thousand-dollar setup, then at the shredded wool fibers dusting the floorboards. Then I looked at Megan.

"Are you completely certain you were unconscious?" I asked, my voice calm, level, and entirely devoid of inflection.

Megan looked up through her tear-soaked lashes, her lower lip trembling violently. "I swear to you, Natalie! I have no memory of it! If I had known my parasomnia was back, I never would have stayed in a communal dorm! I feel like a monster..."

"Good," I said, nodding once. "That makes things much simpler."

Megan’s sobs hitch-hiked in her throat. She blinked, thrown off by the lack of screaming, the total absence of tears on my face.

I pulled out my phone and tapped open the housing portal.

"Since we have documented proof of involuntary, violent nocturnal behavior resulting in catastrophic property damage," I said, looking directly into Megan’s wide eyes, "our residential lease agreement requires an immediate tripartite response: mandatory notification of the student’s emergency contacts, an immediate clinical polysomnography referral through the university health center, and an emergency administrative room reassignment to mitigate physical liability for the other occupants."

The suite went dead silent.

Megan’s theatrical hyperventilating stopped dead, as if someone had flipped a breaker in her brain.

Samantha’s brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation crossing her face. "Natalie, is that really necessary? She’s clearly traumatized. She broke some electronics, she didn't assault anyone—"

"A heavy ceramic mug smashed into a screen eighteen inches from my head while I was sleeping," I cut in, my voice dropping an octave, razor-sharp. "A pair of industrial shears used to shred heavy wool. You think this is an inconvenience? Paige, Samantha—what happens tomorrow night when her 'unconscious state' decides to pick up an eight-inch utility knife instead of a mug?"

Paige’s jaw tightened. She looked down at Megan, then over at the jagged edges of the shears on my desk, her protective posture instantly fraying.

Megan’s face went paper-white.

Right on cue, the suite door swung open with a sharp rattle. Advisor Rachel Evans strode into the room, a leather tote bag slung over her shoulder, her brow pinched with administrative annoyance.

"What is going on in here? I received an urgent alert from housing security before breakfast—" She stopped, her eyes taking in the glass on the floor, the shredded fabric, and Megan sobbing on the linoleum. Her gaze immediately locked onto Megan with maternal concern. "Megan? Sweetheart, what happened?"

Samantha immediately stepped forward, launching into an animated, sympathetic summary: the stress of midterms, a tragic childhood sleepwalking relapse, the uncontrollable nature of the disease.

When Evans finished listening, she turned to me, her posture rigid, her tone carrying that gentle, patronizing condescension common among administrators who prefer tidy metrics over messy truths.

"Natalie, look... I completely understand that this is deeply upsetting. You have a critical interview today, and your property is damaged. But if Megan suffers from an undiagnosed parasomnia disorder, this is a medical crisis, not an act of malice. We have to treat this as an illness."

I walked over to my desk, picked up the printed receipt for the computer’s original purchase and the standard campus repair estimate I had generated online, and held them out to Evans.

"I haven't accused her of malice, Dean Evans," I said evenly. "I’m simply requesting that the university follow its established liability protocols for severe sleep disorders. Notify her parents, mandate an overnight sleep clinic evaluation, and approve an emergency room transfer before someone gets physically hurt."

Evans’s lips pressed into a thin, tight line.

Megan suddenly lunged forward, catching the sleeve of Evans’s cardigan with trembling fingers. "Dean Evans, please... I’m terrified. Natalie is treating me like I’m a violent criminal! Does she think I’m insane?"

I let out a soft, dry laugh.

"Not insane, Megan," I said softly. "I just think it’s fascinating that your parasomnia has the targeting system of a guided missile."

Megan looked up at me, and for a fraction of a second, the teary helplessness vanished from her eyes, replaced by a flash of naked, venomous panic.