C*ack

‘…o.’ The same voice, at the same time every night, rouses me from sleep. It’s that hazy boundary where my drowsy consciousness drifts against the sharp edge of an insomnia-laden subconscious. ‘…ont.’ I don’t know. Whose voice is it? Who is he? Whether it’s a hallucination, a memory, or a nightmare—he wakes me every night at the same time. ‘Don’t fall asleep!’ …! At his command, I wake, drenched in cold sweat, struggling to peel back my hair clinging to my face like wet seaweed. The time is 12:03 a.m., exactly 180 seconds past midnight. In the dense darkness, where it’s impossible to tell whether my eyes are open or shut, the only thing I can do is count the sound of the ticking second hand. One, two, three… up until the 3,599th, and then the 3,600th second. Then, a soft, fading sound. A subtle click, followed by the sense of something receding. The sound of the hallucination ending, or perhaps the sound signifying its end. At last, I feel a faint relief, leaning my bare, sweat-chilled body back against the damp sheets. “…Can I sleep now?” I asked, but there was no answer. The lingering, chilling fear from that voice, and the confusion it draped over me like a shadow, finally began to mutate into something like sleep in the early hours of dawn. In the faint blue light, my eyelids slowly sank shut. I was fifteen, around that time. When my foster father was mu*dered, and my mother began to be devoured by schizophrenia. That’s when my insomnia started. Whether it was a hallucination, subconsciousness, or a nightmare, something would always wake me around midnight.