Welcome to The Pilot Program 2020 for the month of April.
If you don’t know how The Pilot Program Works, it’s quite simple. You read, like, comment and share the short story you like and thus casting your vote on which short story you want me to turn into a 52 long short story series for the next year. And this month we have a twisted short story about what lies beyond sleep. Enjoy.
If I sleep now, I’ll lose everything I have. That was my first thought every morning I woke up in this world after surviving another night. I can’t remember the last time I was glad to fall asleep without any worry of what might wait for me on the other side. I can still feel the eyes of that creature on the back of my neck, ugh, maybe I need another cup of coffee. Three days, fourteen hours and roughly twenty two minutes, I need to do better. I have to figure out a way to prolong the waking hours without hurting myself. If the record from what I gathered was somewhere around eleven days of not sleeping, I should be able to at least push four days without any sleep. But with only sleeping for five hours, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. I don’t want to leave…
The warm coffee in my hands brings a nice soothing smell, as the thoughts that I will need to go back to work creep behind me. Looking around, I notice that the drugs are almost all gone. I’ll need to go and get some more, if I want to survive another week here. Pants, shirt, jacket, boots, wallet, phones and then house keys in my hand as I set foot outside the house I grew up in. The sun is blinding today, but the most irritating thing is the overwhelming noise everyone makes in the first hours of every single day. With people screaming as they don’t know where they are, who they are with. Hey, neighbor, says a voice from my right. I turn I see a new face I don’t recognize. Hey, new neighbor. He starts to laugh nervously. Listen, since you seem to be a bright young man, can you help me? Already knowing what he is going to ask I simply give up and nod.
Where do I work? He asked with a puzzled expression. What’s my name here? He asked with the same expression. Do you know me? He asked exasperated. The fucker left me nothing to go off. No ID, no journal, no nothing. Please. He says as others get into the street looking around, trying to find some information on who they are. Since they too, had the same fate, losing their fights and getting forced to now live here by some assholes that couldn’t handle it anymore. I don’t know, sorry. He rarely left home, so I didn’t interact with him. Hearing this the man goes into a panic and runs back towards his house. I can’t afford to make him my enemy, I can’t afford to waste any energy on anyone. I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to sleep. I want to live in this world, not another, I’ve seen much worse. So when I fall from exhaustion, from whichever parallel earth or dimension a new me comes to fight me and take my place, I’ll beat him, like I beat the one from last night.
Hope you enjoy this free short story. Don’t forget, if you liked it, leave a like down below, comment, share it, and it might just turn into the short story of 2021.
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