Eyes Open

Troy DeLage watched the television set with glazed over eyes. The screen flickered pointlessly in front of him, the presenter’s voices fading into a dull drone in the back of Troy’s mind.

He hadn’t slept in five days.

Troy dragged himself into a sitting position, running a tired hand through his messy hair and feeling close to tears. It was ridiculous now – he had gone without sleeping before, but now his insomnia was getting worse and he was starting to worry. Never before had he gone this long before, and he could tell that it was having serious effects upon his health.

He moved his dry, itchy eyes over to face the television again. The presenter was narrating a dramatic clip about a police chase on some clip show, and Troy couldn’t care less. He just wanted background noise – something to remind him that he wasn’t alone on the planet. Sometimes, when the world was this still, he could believe that he was the only person left alive. It was a lonely thought, and he hated it. It made him jumpy – he could convince himself so realistically that he wondered what it was when he heard a strange noise.

Random words buzzed out to Troy’s tired ears, random, dramatic words handpicked to make an event seem larger than it was.

"The suspect was chased from ...turned left into ... residential streets, going at ... look behind you. Behind you."

Troy jumped and did a double-take.

"What the –" he asked himself, suddenly feeling scarily awake. He leaned in closer to the TV, hearing the presenter repeating it over and over again.

"Behind you ... behind you ... behind you ..."

His heart thudding madly, Troy pinned his ears closed with his index finger, squeezing his eyes shut so hard that he could hear a strange buzzing noise in the back of his brain. When he finally relaxed and moved his fingers away, the presenter was no longer repeating the earlier statement.

"The suspect was apprehended shortly after fleeing the vehicle," she was saying instead.

"No way," Troy muttered, as he got shakily to his feet. Through his alarm, he could feel a familiar emotion surging through him at the thought of his condition. Anger.

He stumbled, almost drunkenly, to the kitchen, flicking the kettle on in a hope to get some caffeine into his system. Anything to try and combat this intense tiredness was worth a try in Troy’s books, and he must have drank his weight in coffee these last few nights. It gave him a buzz for a short while, but that was all he needed to see him through the next hour, until he could make his opinions heard.

"I don’t know who the fuck he thinks he is," Troy muttered to himself, as he reached into the cupboard below the counter where the kettle sat and pulled out yet another mug. Soon, he knew, it would simply join the other twenty or so he hadn’t bothered to wash up these last few days. "Can he not see I’m serious about this problem?"

He slammed the mug down on the counter and emptied a healthy dose of coffee into it, adding milk and sugar and then impatiently waiting for the kettle to boil. To pass the time, he continued to rant to himself.

"Just because he’s seen a couple of mild cases he thinks that mine’s the same, does he? Can he not comprehend that I might be different? That cases can be more severe? Obviously not."

The kettle boiled with a click that Troy was too used to for his liking. He picked it up and poured the water, watching the coffee beans grow smaller and eventually disappear.

"A bit like my attention span," Troy muttered wryly, before replacing the kettle where he had lifted it from and putting a little cold into his coffee. He needed the energy boost fast if he wanted to do what he wanted to do today. He meant business – he was tired of being messed around and told that his insomnia would simply wear off if he left it. He was becoming genuinely afraid for his health – much longer and he’d surely collapse dead of sleep deprivation.

The scene on the clip show on television had changed to one of the classics – mountain bikers doing stunts off of small cliffs, falling, and getting injured. Once more, the presenter was making the incident sound like the closest shave ever caught on camera.

"Little did Jim know that this bike stunt would nearly be his last."

Troy scoffed as the bike’s frame snapped on impact, sending the mountain biker into a heap on the floor.

"Happened to me more times than I could count as a kid," he muttered, picking up the remote with his spare hand, planning to take another overly-optimistic flick through all the channels. He could never understand it – there was so many, yet when was anything decent on?

Just as Troy was about to hit the button to bring up the menus, something on the screen caught his eye. Dominating the camera shot was, of course, the injured biker and his concerned friends, one of whom was shouting for n ambulance, to other of whom seems to be splinting Jim’s arm, which, judging by its floppy quality, was badly broken. However, Troy’s eyes weren’t drawn to this uncomfortable injury – instead, he was squinting, focusing on a spot behind the group of men, where, in between two heavily branched-out trees, stood another man. Instantly, Troy knew that something was wrong. The man was too still, too tall, and on top of that, he was wearing a crisp black business suit in the middle of the forest. Troy moved over a little closer, unaware that his coffee was now perched in an incredibly precarious position, and looked again at the tall man.

He blinked furiously for several long, seemingly endless seconds, wondering if he was imagining things again. However, the man stayed there, facing the screen – and it was then that Troy’s stomach flipped over as he realized the strange man appeared to have no features whatsoever. Almost as soon as this realization hit him, the man vanished, and all Troy was left with was an incredibly uneasy feeling.

After a few minutes, Troy finally realized his coffee was about to spill everywhere, and righted it as he lifted the mug to his lips and took a sip of the cooling coffee. His heart was thudding, and he wasn’t sure why. He was pretty sure it had been his imagination, but he could never be sure what was fact and what was fiction these days. He was on edge now – everything was pointing to the fact he had fallen asleep without realizing and was now dreaming. This had happened before, and some of the things Troy had seen were forever burned into his memory. Night terrors were not an adequate way to describe them. A living Hell, however, was.

When he had finished his coffee, Troy looked at the clock that was resting on his mantelpiece. It showed that it was just past quarter to seven in the morning, which was time for him to head to his destination. He knew he was far too tired to drive, and so he would have to make do with walking. Even though this would require more energy than he knew he had, he knew he was in no fit state to drive.

Troy pulled himself up the stairs, muttering to himself that it seemed that there were more of them every single time he went up them. He hated being irritable – it wasn’t in his nature at all – but when he hadn’t slept in so long it was only natural for him to have a pretty short fuse. Turning right at the top of the stairs, he made his way to the bathroom, where he ran to cold tap until the water was ice cold, gathered a handful, and splashed it over hi face. The shock made his skin tingle, and rendered him capable enough to try and tame his dark brown hair and get rid of some of the stubble that had accumulated across his chin over the last few nights. There was nothing that could be done for the bags under his eyes and his lethargic attitude, however, and so it was with these that he walked out of the house, after shoving his feet into his trusty bettered Converse.

The morning air was crisp and cold, reminded everyone who happened to be outside that winter was well and truly here. Troy’s breath clouded in front of his face and he had begun to shiver, but it was a relief to him in the way that it was waking him up and allowing him to make more conscious thoughts, rather than the groggy, half-formed ones that had occupied his mind for the last three days. He found his mind drifting back to that reality show and all of the glitches he seemed to have picked up. He had done a few reality checks on himself, such as trying to breathe through his nose when pinching it shut, and they had told him he was actually awake. Troy could breathe through his nose when he was holding it shut in his dreams – it was his main test to work out if he were awake or not. He still felt wobbly on his feet and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, but at least he could be safe in the knowledge that no horrific beast was going to leap out at him from around the next corner and rip him apart. It didn’t matter how often that happened to him – it was still always just as terrifying as the last time.

The traffic grew more congested as Troy headed into the middle of the small town in which he lived. It was a strange place to live – the town had been founded hundreds of years ago and so the old, original buildings still stood, but business had boomed over the last few generations and so large tower blocks and skyscrapers also sprung up here and there, with the old wooden building nestling in between them, housing electronics stores and internet cafes. It was certainly a strange site to behold. The town was surrounded on three sides by dense forest and country side, and on the last side by a large hill.

It was this hill that was looming up in front of him as Troy walked groggily down the street, getting in the way of many a rushed businessman.

"At least you got some damn sleep last night," Troy muttered, after the rude comments had started getting a little annoying. He assumed that they just thought he was drunk, from the way he was staggering and slurring.

He got the feeling that the receptionist in the medical centre also thought he was drunk as well, judging by the way she wrinkled her nose at him as he propped himself up against the desk.

"Can I ... help you?" she asked, looking at him with clear disdain. Troy felt his temper bubbling.

"Yeah, you can," he replied shortly. "And no, I’m not drunk. I just haven’t slept in five damn days because Dr. Friscoe doesn’t want to prescribe me any damn sleeping pills. So with all due respect, as this is rather an emergency, I would like to see him."

"Well, that all depends on if he has any slots open this morning," the receptionist replied coolly, as she brought the appointment screen up on her computer. Troy got the feeling that she was going to conveniently find that Dr. Friscoe was all booked up for the day, judging by the way she was glaring at him, but Troy was too smart for that, and made sure she could see him looking at the screen also.

"There’s one in fifteen minutes," she muttered reluctantly, after a few minutes of scanning. "Take a seat in the waiting room."

"Much obliged," Troy replied, in an over-the-top, sweet voice. He turned and went through to the waiting room, sitting down gratefully in a relatively comfy seat. He was just trying to decide what depressing medical leaflet he should read today when he saw the abnormally tall man in a suit outside the window.