I feel so tired. So scared and sick. My brain is shot from the caffeine and the Adderall, but I still know the despair. I can’t lose consciousness. I mustn’t.

  I’ve always had nightmares. Some come and go, but one has been a constant as long as I remember. I am in a deep, dark, throbbing place. My body is soft and painful, bloated, maggot like. Around me writhe a million others. I writhe with them, engaged in a perpetual act of misery vital yet unclear to me. I can’t stop. We never stop. Aeons pass and every instant is suffering, every instant frenzied, aching, unknowable purpose. And I wake screaming.

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  These last few weeks the dreams have become more and more frequent. More intense. I struggle to leave. My wakefulness has begun to feel like a brief escape, something to cling to. I sought the advice of others and confused them. Someone mentioned lucid dreaming, and so I searched it out. It sounded good, a gift of control. I hoped it would be my salvation. Alas.

  I read about it, learnt it, tried to practice it. I performed reality checks and prepared a mental trigger. But each night I still writhed with the other maggots, my actions involuntary, my mind sick, the trigger unseen.

  Then three days ago as I lay in bed I checked reality and floated off the mattress.