This week the Kickstarter campaign for Sleep Terrors wraps up. The horror graphic novel from publisher Legendary Comics is written by Cavan Scott and illustrated by Stephanie Son, with covers by Son and Hong Jacga, and will come in a hardcover edition available exclusively through the Kickstarter. Today The Beat is pleased to present an exclusive excerpt from the book.
Here’s how Legendary Comics describes Sleep Terrors:
Terri Shepherd can’t fall asleep . . . or rather, she shouldn’t.
Suffering from extreme narcolepsy after a hit-and-run accident, Terri is now plagued with terrible nightmares involving those who have wronged her being slaughtered horribly. But dreams can’t hurt anyone, right?
Wrong.
Terri’s nightmares are becoming reality, and an unknown force kills anyone who crosses her. Fearing for both her sanity and the safety of those she loves, Terri goes on the run. But who are the government agents that are tracking her every move and what do Terri’s nightmares-turned-reality have to do with an escaped psychiatric patient who also hides a dreadful secret?
As the murders become increasingly bizarre, Terri must find a cure before everyone around her is killed—if only she can stay awake.
“When thinking about SLEEP TERRORS, I imagined what it would be like for someone to have this power but no control over the results,” writer Cavan Scott told The Beat. “Would this be a gift or a curse? At first it would seem cathartic when she started to dream about horrible things happening to people that have crossed her (writers do it all the time in their work!) but after a while the dreams would start to become true, with terrible consequences for those at the centre of her fantasies. What would happen if the karma started to become disproportionate to the crime? Bump into her at the supermarket by accident, then you’ll die crushed by a fork-lift truck. Scold her for knocking over a coffee, and you risk being scolded to death . . . literally.”
“This is what happens to Terri,” Scott continued, “when she realises that her dreams are becoming nightmares for those closest to her. When she sleeps, a murderous being known as a Sleepwalker enacts her subconscious revenge, carving a bloody path through her neighbourhood and threatening both strangers who unwittingly cross her path and those she loves the most. As the situation spirals, Terri tries her hardest not to fall asleep. There’s only one problem; Terri suffers from narcolepsy, a condition made worse by stress and her life is about to get very stressful indeed.”
Check out the exclusive five-page excerpt from the graphic novel, as well as the Kickstarter-exclusive cover by Jacga, below. The Sleep Terrors Kickstarter campaign ends at 2PM Eastern today.
