Originally, I wanted to depict a day in the life of a person suffering from sleep paralysis- something that I myself had experienced several times when I was younger. But since their experiences are limited to night time, I decided to go another direction and portray a day in the life of a ‘sleep paralysis demon’. Of course, no one is really sure what one sees during sleep paralysis, so I decided to make it a sort of demon or creature that visits certain humans who are in turmoil or stress, and manifests into their worst fears. 

I wanted the demon to not be a malicious entity, but rather a curious passerby who observes humans as they sleep. It wonders why they react in fear when they see it, and later realizes that they see it as grotesque personifications of their fears. The demon eventually comes across a young boy who sees it take the form of his abusive father.  The demon feels sympathy and gives the father a good scare the next night. When it visits the boy again, it finds that it can communicate with a human for the first time, and for once, the boy sees its true form. The boy asks it to take him with him and an unlikely friendship is formed. It’s implied that the father killed the boy in a traumatized rage after seeing the demon, which is why he was able to talk to the demon.

 I decided to draw inspiration from various horror manga, and tried to follow the same right to left format they use. I kept the colour scheme limited to greys and blacks, partly because it all happens during the night and because manga traditionally doesn’t make use of colours. This was made as a part of my Illustration for Communication class where the assignment was to create a zine that illustrated 'a day in the life of....'