Step to the Stars

Waking Nightmare! He awoke, stretched and scratched the top of his head with his right hand. It hurt, must have a pimple there or something. Only a few seconds later his forehead tingled, and he brushed at it with his left hand. It came away smothered in blood. What the hell! Got to get a towel or handkerchief or something. He reached forward with his right hand to throw back the bedclothes and froze. It was not his hand. It was not even human blood. The hand was brown, thin and scaly. A membrane stretched from the palm upwards to the top knuckles of the fingers, holding them together. Long curved nails grew from the tops of the fingers and one of them was bloody.