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Most family, friends, or chatty hookups of mine often asked how I did it. They asked how I could be brave enough to go to haunted places, often staying in them willingly overnight, or if there had ever been a particular case where I felt more scared than a virgin in a motel room on prom night. Truth was, I did get scared. I got mighty scared, sometimes on accident.

One paranormal encounter which spooked me silly (surprisingly) didn't involve my early years as a newbie paranormal investigator after I formed the Paranormal Hunters Society with Laurie and the others. Actually, it involved one of my more regular encounters. One of the mind's more terrifying, disturbing, uncontrollable events lived through by roughly ten to fifty percent of all mammals at some point in their lives, while I experienced it on an almost nightly basis. I liked calling it 'the toxic relationship of dreaming': sleep paralysis.

Imagine a jackrabbit like myself, and growing up with vivid, freaky-ass dreams. Ever since I could remember, unless I had another fur sleeping in the same room as me, my sleeping nights were spent seeing shadowy men and indescribable horrors bathed in silhouettes as they watched and sometimes talked to me as I lay motionless in bed. One minute, a creaking door overshadowed my hearing, the next I spotted a hunched madman writing something frantically onto his skin with a butcher knife. Then, he'd spot me, circle my tiny bed, and make indecipherable words until I finally found the strength to flail around until my siblings or parents came rushing into my bedroom.

Another evening around early high school, I didn't make it to midnight. My dream turned dark rather quickly when a top-hatted being knelt under my opened bedroom door. Then, its eyes glowed ruby-red hellfire. It did nothing but glare at me, waiting for me to speak. To move, even. I did though at some point, which led it to emitting a devilish roar. Next thing I knew, I woke up with soiled pajamas.

Nights like these never went away, even as I got older. Prescription medicine and therapy only went so far to help most of the time, but I fortunately found that sex with either gender or a few swigs of alcohol helped suppress the dreams. The moment I fell asleep either after a satisfying afterglow or from the warm hum of emptied beer cans, they stopped. I slept like a baby lying on soft clouds. Among my regular hookups were with Laurie, a mountain lioness my age who understood my dreams, but insisted we remained friends-with-benefits all throughout high school. I felt the same way, but it was a shame. It would've made my conservative grandparents at least a little happy.

Years passed. The dreams lessened. I got teased for still sharing a room with my older brothers until I left for college at Utah State. My parents worried, even going so far as to call me daily before I went into classes, but I tried hiding it as much as I could. When the pills didn't do their job, I managed to suppress the nightmarish episodes by drinking, partying, sleeping around with girls and guys, and for the most part it did just fine. Yet one guy certainly stood out among the rest of those I dated: a male calico named Zack Leander, who I met while attending Introduction to Psychology.

We became friends fast. I fell in love with his dry humor, his handsome features, his obsession with film noir, and our love for mysteries. He fell for me too, but we didn't make a move until the following semester, which culminated into our first time one perfect evening that cemented our relationship as boyfriends.

For a while, the sleep paralysis stopped too. I felt on top of the world.

Like an idiot though, the past me took it all for granted. I still partied, still drank heavily, then woke up one morning to discover I'd slept with a random wolf. I didn't think much of it until Zack stormed into my dormitory one month later and demanded that I explain why his doctor diagnosed him with having syphilis. We had a massive falling out afterward, primarily about my aimless direction in life, my unfaithfulness, and the fact Zack needed to explain to his religious parents why their insurance paid for penicillin.

After getting one myself, things went downhill. I fell off the deep end once Zack broke up with me (we kept in contact through MuzzleScroll, albeit we rarely talked), drinking and sleeping around as my grades plummeted, which then went culminating into a sleep paralysis episode unlike anything I ever had before.

Memories were scarce of the horrifying episode, but the results were clear to see. It left me sobbing, quaking, sweating heavily in bed for days, to the point my roommate didn't hesitate in calling an ambulance when it got worse. Safe to say, I was officially done with college. Mom and Dad personally paid off my college debt and drove me home, telling me they'd support whatever I wanted to do with my life on the condition I didn't hide things from them anymore.

Eventually, after half a year of searching, we finally found the right psychologist, the right therapist, and the right medication to help me sleep better. While the medicine did work wonders, as far as they were concerned, my paralysis episodes were the result of certain emotions being suppressed and a chemical imbalance or two.

The ordeal left me wondering what to do with my life. College had been a bust, joining my parents' successful carpentry company didn't seem appealing, and I didn't know what to do with my life. However, that all changed when I thought back to Zack and our friendly debates about whether the paranormal existed or not. I thought so. Thus, after getting a part-time position at my folk's company in Nueva Fe and saving up some cash, as well as some help from Laurie (following a long-time-no-see shag) and an old family friend named Edgar, I slowly opened the Paranormal Hunters Society.

I'd long suppressed the details of that horrible episode from college. I only remembered the cosmic fear, the helplessness, loneliness, sheer terror, and incomprehensible horror of whatever tormented me throughout. However, something changed within me afterward. I learned there were more emotions than fear that are experienced when facing the unknown. Curiosity being the best prime example.

Sure, the intense fear could overshadow the others, but me, Laurie, Sam, Dean, and Edgar didn't create the Society in order to just feel fear. We regularly went out to learn. If one lesson from my college courses ever stuck with me, it was in Prehistoric History. In eons past, mammals dwelled in caves at night until they learned to forge torches. Nomads stuck to shorelines until they learned how to build bridges or build boats. When a solar or lunar eclipse occurred, many considered it the end of the world. Some fought to learn the truth though. They hunted for it.

That was why I had the Paranormal Hunters Society be, "We Hunt for the Haunt!"