Mio Amore (Caius Volturi)

Bella

The car was quiet as Ximena tried to catch up on some sleep, she had stayed up scrolling through TikTok and Instagram after going through another episode of sleep paralysis and couldn't handle another hallucination nearly killing her. She knew logically the hallucination couldn't kill her, but his talons and creepy eyes didn't make it any less comforting.

"Son of a dick sucking bitch," Ximena cursed angrily as another scam call came through despite doing her best to block all the numbers that came through. Smiling mischievously she answered the call and pressed one when prompted to so she could speak to a representative.

"Oh no! They took my social security?" Ximena asked in fake shock with a blatantly fake Mexican accent and returned Zain's grin as he knew where she was going.

"Yes ma'am, but I can help you investigate who stole it and bring them to justice. I just need to open a new case file so we can begin the process." The scammer lied through his teeth in a surprising eloquent manner.

"Oh thank you señor! Thank you!"

"Okay what is your name, ma'am?"

"Well I'll spell it out for you. Um, S, um, como se dice la letra U, oh! U, um C and um K."She said faking her lack of knowledge for the English language. "As in suck my dick and stop calling!" Ximena said in her normal voice and crackled unattractively when he hung up angrily.

"My mom answered a scam call yesterday and she put a pot over the phone and started bagging on it with a wooden spoon. I'm pretty sure he went deaf after that."

"Serves them right, assholes taking advantage of the people who believe in them." Ximena said as she laid her head back on the car window.

"Yeah," Zain's voice trailed as he noticed her apparent drowsiness. "Again?" He asked knowing the reason why she probably got zero amount of sleep.

"Yeah, it was on top of me this time. I could hear it's footsteps and then it climbed on top of me and I couldn't breath." Ximena shut her eyes and shook her head as she tried to get rid of the hallucination from her mind. Her family had been scared countless times, waking up to the youngest screaming bloody murder only to find her screaming at the corner of her bedroom with nothing there. At first their concern was that their house was haunted, as most people imagine. But when they noticed she was the only one seeing things, they took her to a child psychologist and she was diagnosed with sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is when your body paralysis itself, as it normally does when you are in a stage of sleep called REM sleep where you have vivid dreams, as a way to protect yourself from acting out your dreams and harming yourself or others. But when you come to, the paralysis should wear off, only it doesn't for those that have sleep paralysis. In most cases it ends there, you wake up paralyzed but it eventually goes away as your brain realizes what's wrong. But not Ximena, she was part of the unlucky few that begin hallucinating. The general hallucinations are similar in that it is a black creature that slowly makes it's way to you as you lay there entirely defenseless. The whole ordeal is terrifying to imagine, but to live it is horrific, enough to drive people mad.

Zain sighed not knowing what he could say to make her feel better but simply squeezed her hand as a form of comfort and she squeezed back knowing they all did the best they could to help her.

"Did you hear that someone tried to fight dad in his office the other day?" Zain asked changing the conversation.

"No, what happened?" Ximena sitting up concerned for her dad.

"Some guy came in screaming saying that he had gotten jumped and dad's bodyguard had done nothing to save him. The man died protecting this dumb-ass bitch and he wanted him to do something about it after he died. The fuck was he gonna do, go all Casper the Ghost on him?" Zain remarked sarcastically making Ximena smile gently. Ximena's dad, Martin, was the founder and owner of Katonda Security, a company that trained and supplied personal bodyguards to famous people that needed protection. It was named after the African God of Ganda of East Africa, the God of Protection and help when things are going against you.