Sleepless

Back in Ancient Rome, sometime before Jesus was born, there was a myth circulating, and it went something like this: if you should be awake for the entirety of seven days and seven nights, you might see the silhouette of a dead man walking the street. And if you do... run.

They called him Insomnis -- the sleepless one -- and it is said he found a way to talk to the Gods.

Back when Insomnis was still a man, he swore he would find a way to reach the Gods and be with them always. He believed that the way to the Gods was not through worship, but through dreams, and so he trained himself to control his mind during his sleep; to control his existence inside his dreams. For seven years he explored the constraints of the night realms, finding -- probing -- the edges and limits. It is said the Gods warned him, told him that he must look no further, for there are realities that are not meant for mortals; truths that are sealed in the darkness and locked away in the void. But he did not listen to their warnings and instead was encouraged by them. He saw it as a test of faith that they had set him. He began to drug himself, ensuring the deepest of sleeps known to the Romans. His control of his dreamstate grew ever stronger, and the borders of the night realm began to weaken before him; cracks and fissures appeared that he battered his mind against until they grew into a hole he could slip through.

What he saw there is unclear in the stories, but they all agree he drifted into the Bacchanalian realm of the Gods. There, he saw a vision not meant for our kind; he saw into the eyes of Jupiter himself, and Jupiter was displeased with him. Jupiter told him that next time he slept, because of him, the lights of existence would be extinguished.

He woke in a fit, screaming and sweating blood. From that moment, he resolved never to sleep again - he never dared to shut his eyes and even ripped off his eyelids for fear of falling. But as time passed and his madness grew deeper, both his body and mind faded to a place between the realms of the Gods and the planes of the mortals, until he existed nowhere, except in the glimpses of our madness.

I mention this story because I haven't slept in eight nights now. I mention it because Insomnis whispers to me as he sits on the end of my bed, his red pupils pulsating in the darkness of his silhouette. He tells me that the stories were wrong; it wasn't the Gods that drove him insane. There was something far worse than they, that he began to see in his waking hours. The Gods of the Gods. A reality beyond reality.

He says now that I know about them, the maintenence men will come for me; that I can never sleep, or they will catch me. That existence will be snuffed like a candle, should I sleep.

He hands me the knife and tells me I cannot go back; I cannot sleep again. He stretches my eyelid out, and with a trembling hand, I raise the knife and cut.