2:17

  Written by Quincy Blakely

  Insomnia is a disorder of hyperarousal.

  The brain’s wake-promoting centers stay lit, buzzing and frantic, while the mechanisms meant to pull you under simply fail. Thought after thought stacks on itself—anxiety, restlessness, a heart that won’t slow. Sleep becomes impossible. Stress, bad habits, something deeper—it doesn’t really matter. The result is the same.

  January 22nd, 2026

  2:16:57 a.m.

  CHAPTER 1: Tick

  “The baby-blue glow of my LED lights hovers above me.

  It doesn’t bother me. I already know I won’t sleep.”

  Tick.

  2:16:58 a.m.

  “Mixed with the fluorescent blue of my phone screen—

  Tick.

  2:16:59 a.m.

  —it’s oddly comforting. Familiar. Something I’ve learned to accept on nights like this.”

  Tick.

  2:17 a.m.

  Then it happens.

  A shrill, unbearable sound floods my head, like a fingernail scraping endlessly against a chalkboard—except it’s inside my ears, replacing them entirely.

  Insufferable.

  I try to scream.

  I can’t.

  No mouth. No vocal cords. Nothing to open.

  I sit up, panic surging, and swing my legs off the bed—but the floor glitches beneath me, vanishing and reappearing, tilting and shifting like a corrupted file. Then everything goes dark. The LED lights are gone.

  A sharp pain rips through my arm and skull. My vision fuzzes, stuttering like a buffering video. My arm doesn’t feel real anymore.

  A wall of my room disappears.

  Darkness is replaced with a violent red.

  The sky flashes—red, normal, purple, yellow—each color bleeding into the next. A nearby building collapses into our house, and then everything disappears.

  And for one final moment, before I wake up, I see the world folding in on itself—cracking, collapsing, caving inward.

  But now I’m awake, and it’s 5:32 a.m.

  January 23rd, 2026

  As usual, exhaustion hits at the worst possible time. I’m painfully tired—yet I know I won’t sleep. Even if I try. So I don’t.

  Last night felt like a bad acid trip. At least, how I imagine one would feel.

  I stare out the window. The sky is pitch black, almost starless. I lift my hand to my face, touching my lips—just to be sure they’re still there. They are. My hand is solid. The wall hasn’t disappeared.

  Everything is normal.

  Maybe the whole thing was just a sign of my growing insanity. I probably haven’t slept more than an hour or two a night in weeks. Even then, it comes in fragments—five minutes asleep, twenty awake, five more, over and over.

  I get on with my day.

  I leave my room and head to the bathroom. I strip down and step into the shower, letting the cold water shock me awake. After a moment, I switch it to warm and let the heat settle into my muscles. I meant to wash my hair, but there’s no point. It’s not like anyone cares how I look.

  I finish up—teeth brushed, face washed, deodorant, moisturizer—the routine motions of pretending I’m functional. Back in my room, I pull on the same clothes as yesterday: black beanie, white t-shirt, dark baggy jeans, dusty white shoes.

  Same uniform. Same person.

  I grab my backpack and head downstairs. In the kitchen, I turn on the light and dig through the pantry, settling for cereal—something light. I used up all the good breakfast food yesterday so I wouldn’t be hungry during my tests.

  I eat at the kitchen island as the sun rises, thin beams of light slipping through the window shades. When I’m done, the clock reads 6:30 a.m. Time to catch the bus.

  I lock the front door quietly, not bothering my mom. Outside, the sky glows orange with a soft pink gradient—like something straight out of a movie. For a moment, looking up without worrying about anyone else watching me feels… freeing.

  Then reality snaps back.

  Yesterday was trash day. I forgot to take the bin out. I glance toward the front of the house—no gray trash bin. Confused, I walk to the side yard. It’s there.

  Before I can think too hard about it, a large vehicle roars past.

  The bus.

  I sprint down the sidewalk, lungs burning, legs screaming. I reach the stop just as the doors start to close, shoving my hand between them at the last second.

  “Come on, kid,” the bus driver mutters, tired eyes and a faint scowl. “You’re a sophomore now. Get it together.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I apologize quickly, head down, and shuffle onto the bus.

  It’s loud. Too loud.

  I already know what I’ll see—groups laughing, friends leaning into each other, people pretending they belong somewhere. It doesn’t surprise me anymore. People desperate to connect, to be liked, to be something. They twist themselves into versions they think others will accept, just to get burned later.

  Then there are the naturally social ones—maybe worse. Wasting their time in toxic friend groups, or acting kind but truly being a terrible person in all honesty, and hurting people around them, all while acting like they’re the top of the food chain. Everyone shows their true colors eventually. Some just do it sooner.

  I slide into a seat near the middle, pull my earbuds out, and shut the world up. I’ll ignore them, but if I had the ability to do something about it, I would.

  The bus lurches forward with a hiss, and I let my forehead rest against the cold glass of the window. The world outside blurs into streaks of color—houses, trees, street signs—all passing too fast to register as real places. Just scenery. Background noise.

  I keep my volume high. It only worsens my headache, but I come to terms with it because silence feels worse. Silence leaves room for thinking, and thinking never goes anywhere good.

  By the time the school comes into view, my stomach feels hollow. Not hungry. Empty in a different way.

  The bus pulls in at 7:18 a.m.

  I step off with everyone else, blending into the stream of bodies funneling toward the entrance. The building looms overhead, concrete and glass and banners advertising clubs I’ll never join. The automatic doors slide open, releasing a wave of sound—lockers slamming, voices overlapping, laughter bouncing off tile walls.

  Too much for this early.

  I lower my head and walk.

  That’s all I do today. Walk. Move. Exist just enough not to get noticed.

  First period passes in fragments. The teacher’s voice blends into the hum of the lights above, words losing meaning as soon as they leave his mouth. I take notes without reading them, my hand moving on autopilot. The kid next to me taps his foot nonstop. I wonder if he knows he’s doing it. I wonder if he ever feels like tearing himself apart just to make it stop.

  Second period. Math. I walk in, sit, and I put my head down on the desk, despite knowing that I won’t sleep, I keep my head down, not even feeling the energy to pick it back up. I keep my head down.

  The desk is cool against my forehead, smooth and unmarked except for faint scratches carved in by people who cared enough to leave proof they were here. My arms are crossed beneath me, backpack still hooked around one shoulder like I might get up any second and leave. I don’t. The classroom smells like dry erase markers and stale air. Someone coughs. A chair scrapes. The clock ticks above the whiteboard—slow, deliberate, too loud.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  “Alright, settle down,” the teacher says. “Today we’re starting with the unit test,” she continues, shuffling papers at her desk. The sound makes my stomach tighten. “You’ve had all week to prepare, so no excuses.”

  My eyes open.

  Just a little.

  That’s wrong.

  I lift my head an inch, just enough to see the whiteboard. Written in neat blue marker, underlined twice, are the words:

  UNIT 5 Test

  My heart stutters.

  That doesn’t make sense.

  We already did this. Yesterday. I remember the questions—one about the properties of a circle, another with a trick equation meant to waste time. I remember finishing early and staring at the clock, watching the seconds crawl by.

  I remember turning it in.

  A few groans ripple through the room. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” someone mutters.

  From the back of the classroom, a voice cuts through the noise. “Wait—didn’t we already have this test?”

  I freeze.

  The teacher looks up, amused. “What was that?” The guy repeats himself, louder this time. “Didn’t we take this test yesterday?” A few students glance around, confused. Someone laughs like it’s a joke. The teacher chuckles too. “Sounds like someone didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

  Light laughter fills the room.

  My pulse pounds in my ears.

  I shouldn’t say anything. I know that. Drawing attention to myself never ends well. But the words are already pushing up, scraping at my throat.

  “We did,” I say. My voice comes out hoarse, barely loud enough to register—but it’s enough.

  The room quiets.

  The teacher turns toward me. “Excuse me?” I sit up fully now, spine stiff, hands flat on the desk. “We took it yesterday. This test. You handed it out second period.”

  There’s a pause.

  Then she smiles. Not unkindly. The kind of smile adults use when they’ve already decided you’re wrong. “Okay,” she says gently, “I think you and him”—she gestures vaguely toward the back— “are both just a little out of it today.”

  A few people snicker.

  “I promise,” she continues, “we didn’t have this test yesterday. Now, let’s focus.”

  She starts handing papers down the rows. I stare at my desk. My brain feels stuffed with cotton, thoughts dull and slow, bumping into each other without connecting. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I imagined it. Lack of sleep does that—blurs days together, makes memories unreliable.

  I tell myself that. Over and over.

  The test lands in front of me with a soft slap. I don’t look at it for a full minute. When I finally do, my stomach sinks. Same questions. Same order. Same stupid trick problem on page two. My hands shake as I pick up my pencil. I finish it easily. Too easily. Muscle memory takes over, answers spilling out without thought. When I turn it in, the teacher doesn’t react. Doesn’t look at me any differently. That should make me feel better.

  It doesn’t.

  The rest of the morning passes in a haze. Third period. Fourth. Teachers talk. Slides click by. Pens move. Bells ring. I exist in the margins, half-present, drifting between moments like I’m not fully anchored to my body. At lunch, I make the mistake of sitting down. I should’ve known better. I should’ve hid in the restroom and scrolled on my phone. I’m picking at nothing, earbuds in but no music playing, when a shadow falls across the table. My shoulders tense.

  “Hey,” the guy says.

  I look up reluctantly. He’s that guy from math class. He’s pretty normal-looking. Brown hair, average build, nothing that stands out. But he smiles like we’re already friends. “That was weird, right?” he says, nodding toward the cafeteria ceiling like it’s bugged with microphones. “The test thing.”

  I don’t answer.

  He sits anyway.

  “I swear we took it yesterday,” he continues, lowering his voice. “I remember because I bombed the last question.”

  My chest tightens.

  “Maybe we’re just tired,” I say flatly.

  “Yeah, but—” He leans forward. “You remembered it too. Exactly.”

  That’s enough. I stand up, feeling too uncomfortable, for no plausible reason.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

  He blinks, startled. “Whoa—okay. I was just—”

  I grab my backpack and move. Farther down the cafeteria. Different table. Different angle. Somewhere I can see exits. When I sit back down, my hands are cold. I don’t look back.

  The afternoon crawls. But somewhere along the way, I realize why I ran away. It’s because I knew in the end I wouldn’t have gotten anything out of interacting with him, which goes for anyone. But in a way, it felt like I made the wrong choice.

  Classes blur together into one long stretch of fluorescent lighting and ticking clocks. I keep my head down, answer questions when called on, walk when the bell tells me to walk. No more glitches. No more tests repeating themselves.

  Just normal.

  Painfully normal.

  At 3:05 p.m., the final bell rings. The sound is sharp, final—like a guillotine dropping. I file out with everyone else, backpack heavy on my shoulders, footsteps echoing too loudly in the hall, head down to the floor. Outside, the air feels different. Cooler. Realer. I walk home alone.

  The sky is beautiful. Orange melting into pink, pink fading into purple. Clouds stretched thin like brushstrokes across a canvas. It looks fake. Like something rendered for effect. I tilt my head back, unconsciously letting out a sigh of relief as I look up, staring up to the sky as I walk.

  That’s when my foot catches air.

  I stumble forward, heart lurching, barely stopping myself from falling. I look down. A hole in the sidewalk. Deep. Dark. Easy to miss if you weren’t looking. I step around it and keep going. By the time I reach my house, something aches at the base of my neck. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake it off.

  “My neck hurts.”