The Man who Couldn't Sleep

Thomas Wong had not slept properly in forty-three days.

He knew because he had started keeping track.

At first, the sleeplessness had been an inconvenience. A few restless nights, some sweating, and the occasional sensation that someone was whispering from the other side of his bedroom wall. He blamed stress. Then came the nightmares, followed by the headaches, followed by the peculiar sensation that his body was no longer entirely his own.

Now, sleep was something he feared.

He sat on the edge of his bed in the psychiatric institution, staring at his hands. They were trembling again. The skin beneath his fingernails had turned an unpleasant shade of gray, and the veins along his wrists appeared darker than they should have been.

He had been clean for eleven days.

Eleven days without blood.

Eleven days without moving a single object with his mind.

Eleven days without hearing the voice.

He considered that progress.

Across the room, a small digital clock displayed 3:17 a.m. The fluorescent light above his door hummed softly. Somewhere down the corridor, a patient laughed, then began crying.

Thomas closed his eyes.

Immediately, he saw the ocean.

It was always the ocean.

An endless expanse of black water beneath a sky without stars. There were no waves, no wind, no horizon. Just darkness stretching in every direction, interrupted occasionally by enormous shapes moving beneath the surface.

The first time he had seen it, he had believed it was a dream.

The second time, he had understood that something was showing him a memory.

Now he knew better.

It was a place.

And something lived there.

Thomas opened his eyes.

"I can't sleep," he whispered.

The room remained silent.

For a moment, he allowed himself to believe that was all there was.

Then the clock stopped.

Its red numbers flickered.

3:17.

3:17.

3:17.

A whisper moved through his skull.

You are tired.

Thomas gripped the edge of his mattress.

"No."

You have suffered enough.

"Leave me alone."

I gave you strength.

Thomas looked at his hands.

"You took everything."

The voice did not respond.

It didn't need to.

Thomas had learned that the thing he had prayed to did not understand arguments. It did not understand anger, grief, or forgiveness. It understood only existence, and the strange little arrangements of matter that briefly made human beings believe they were important.

It had given him the ability to move the world.

And he had used that ability to destroy his own.

Before the hospital, before the blood, before the darkness, Thomas had been an ordinary man.

He remembered that now.

He remembered complaining about traffic. He remembered forgetting anniversaries and burning toast. He remembered Eleanor laughing at him because he insisted on assembling furniture without reading the instructions.

He remembered the little things.

Those memories hurt more than the nightmares.

Eleanor had left him six months earlier. He hadn't seen her since her final visit to the institution.

He remembered the last thing she had said.

"You're still in there, Thomas. I just don't know how to reach you anymore."

He had wanted to tell her that he was frightened.

He had wanted to tell her that he could still remember their wedding, the little apartment they rented when they were first married, and the night they spent driving through a thunderstorm because neither of them wanted to go home after an argument.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

Instead, he had stared at her heartbeat.

He had watched the pulse in her throat and wondered how much power her blood might contain.

That was the moment he knew he had become something terrible.

Not when he lifted a building.

Not when he killed a man.

Not even when he drank blood for the first time.

It was when he looked at the woman he loved and saw an opportunity.

Thomas covered his face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

He wasn't sure whether he was apologizing to Eleanor, himself, or whatever was listening.

The next morning, a new patient arrived.

His name was Samuel.

Thomas learned this because the young man introduced himself during breakfast, although the introduction was somewhat interrupted by a spoon floating out of his cereal bowl.

Thomas stared at it.

Samuel stared at Thomas.

The spoon slowly returned to the table.

"Sorry," Samuel said.

Thomas frowned.

"What?"

Samuel glanced around to make sure nobody was listening.

"The spoon. I didn't mean to do that."

Thomas felt his stomach tighten.

"How long?"

"Three days."

Thomas lowered his eyes.

Samuel was perhaps twenty-five. He had messy brown hair, a faint scar across his chin, and the exhausted expression of someone who had been awake for far too long.

"Did you pray?" Thomas asked.

Samuel looked at him.

"How did you know?"

Thomas stood so abruptly that his chair scraped across the floor.

"Don't."

Samuel blinked.

"Don't what?"

"Whatever you're thinking. Whatever you asked for. Don't use it."

Samuel looked frightened.

Thomas realized how ridiculous he sounded.

He was an old man in a hospital gown, warning a stranger about an invisible god.

But Samuel's next words silenced him.

"It saved my sister."

Thomas slowly sat down.

Samuel explained that his younger sister had been trapped beneath a fallen tree after a storm. He had been unable to lift it. He had prayed to anything that might listen, promising anything if his sister could survive.

The tree had risen.

His sister had walked away.

And ever since, Samuel had been able to move things without touching them.

Thomas felt cold.

"Have you been drinking blood?"

Samuel looked away.

"A little."

"Human?"

A nod.

Thomas stared at the young man for a long time.

Then he began to cry.

Not because he was frightened.

Because he remembered.

He remembered the little girl beneath the crane. He remembered the construction worker. The boy beneath the rubble. All those people he had saved.

And now there was another.

Another person standing at the beginning of the same road.

Another person who believed the gift was a blessing.

"Listen to me," Thomas said. "It will tell you that you're special. It will tell you that you were chosen. It will make you believe that every terrible thing you do is justified because someone, somewhere, might need saving."

Samuel looked confused.

"How do you know?"

"Because I believed it."

Thomas reached across the table and took Samuel's hand.

The young man's fingers were trembling.

"You're going to want to use it. You're going to convince yourself that you can control it. And every time you use it, you'll find another reason to use it again."

Samuel swallowed.

"But I saved my sister."

"I know."

"Then how can it be wrong?"

Thomas struggled to answer.

He wanted to explain that saving someone was not wrong. That wanting to help was not wrong. That the terrible part was what came afterward, when the gift began demanding things that no human being should have to give.

Instead, he said something simpler.

"Because you deserve to remain the person who saved her."

Samuel looked down.

For a moment, Thomas thought he understood.

Then the young man whispered, "I don't think I can stop."

Thomas felt the old hunger stir.

Somewhere deep inside his chest, something awakened.

The Sovereign had heard them.

That night, the ocean returned.

Thomas stood on its surface, though there was no ground beneath his feet. The water stretched into infinity. Above him, the sky opened into an enormous black wound.

Something moved beneath the waves.

You have found another.

Thomas closed his eyes.

"Leave him alone."

He has called to me.

"He's young."

He is desperate.

"He's frightened."

So were you.

The words struck harder than Thomas expected.

He remembered the accident. The screaming child. His hands shaking as he begged the universe for help.

He remembered the overwhelming relief when the car rose.

He had never felt so powerful.

He had never felt so needed.

And he had mistaken that feeling for love.

"Why?" Thomas asked.

Why what?

"Why did you choose me?"

The ocean became still.

For a moment, Thomas thought the entity might answer.

Then the sky filled with images.

A million civilizations rose and fell in the space of a single breath. Oceans evaporated. Stars collapsed. Entire worlds became dust.

He saw humanity's future.

He saw cities abandoned, continents swallowed, and the Earth reduced to a cold stone circling a dead star.

And beyond it all, the Sovereign remained.

You were small, it whispered.

Thomas began trembling.

You were afraid. You wished to be more.

"I wanted to help people."

You wanted to matter.

Thomas couldn't speak.

Because it was true.

Beneath all his good intentions had been a desperate little human desire.

He had wanted his life to mean something.

He had wanted to be remembered.

He had wanted to be more than a man who went to work, came home, and eventually disappeared into the ground.

The Sovereign had offered him an answer.

And Thomas had accepted without asking what it would cost.

"I don't want it anymore."

You cannot return to what you were.

"I know."

You are becoming something greater.

Thomas looked at the black water.

"No."

The entity stirred beneath him.

"I was becoming something less."

For the first time, the ocean began to move.

Thomas awoke screaming.

The hospital room was shaking.

His bed trembled against the floor. The window rattled violently. Every object in the room had risen several inches into the air.

A nurse rushed through the doorway.

"Thomas!"

He couldn't hear her.

The Sovereign was calling.

And somewhere down the corridor, Samuel was screaming.

Thomas felt the connection between them.

It was a terrible sensation, like two electrical wires touching inside his skull. The young man's fear was feeding the entity, and the entity was reaching through him.

Samuel's room was filling with floating furniture.

Thomas stumbled into the hallway.

Patients were crying. Nurses were shouting. A television crashed against the wall.

Thomas saw Samuel standing in the center of his room, blood running from his nose.

His hands were raised.

He was trying to stop it.

"Make it stop!" Samuel screamed.

Thomas knew what was happening.

The Sovereign was using the young man's desperation to establish another connection.

Thomas could feel the familiar hunger.

There was blood in the room.

A nurse had cut her arm while trying to reach Samuel.

Thomas could have taken it.

He could have drunk enough to regain his strength and tear the entity's influence away.

But he knew what would happen.

The moment he drank, the Sovereign would have a stronger hold on him.

And Samuel would be lost.

Thomas looked at the nurse.

"Get everyone out."

"Thomas, you need to—"

"PLEASE!"

The nurse froze.

Thomas had not shouted like that in months.

He looked at Samuel.

"Listen to me!"

"I can't stop it!"

"Yes, you can!"

"I don't know how!"

Thomas stepped forward.

Every bone in his body seemed to ache.

He felt the Sovereign pulling at his thoughts, searching for the familiar weakness that had once made him so easy to control.

It showed him Eleanor.

It showed him their home.

It showed him every person he had saved.

Then it showed him every person he had failed.

The little girl beneath the crane.

The man he had killed.

Eleanor leaving.

His empty house.

His reflection.

His own ruined face.

Take the blood, the entity whispered.

Thomas looked at Samuel.

"Don't listen to it."

Samuel began crying.

Thomas took another step.

"Look at me. Not the room. Not the things moving. Look at me."

Samuel's eyes found his.

"My sister," the young man whispered. "I just wanted to save her."

"I know."

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"I know."

Thomas reached for him.

The furniture crashed against the walls.

The ceiling lights exploded.

The Sovereign pressed against Thomas's mind with the force of an entire universe.

He could feel his humanity slipping.

But then he remembered something.

Eleanor's hand in his.

Her laughter.

The warmth of her head resting against his chest.

He remembered how she used to fall asleep during movies and insist she had watched the entire thing.

He remembered that she hated thunderstorms, despite being a nurse who worked through emergencies without hesitation.

He remembered loving someone for no reason other than that she existed.

And he understood.

The Sovereign could measure a heartbeat.

It could recognize the biological responses associated with love.

But it could never understand why a person would willingly sacrifice something precious for someone else.

Thomas had spent months sacrificing his humanity for the chance to save people.

Now he would sacrifice the one thing the Sovereign wanted most.

His power.

He reached inward.

Not toward the blood.

Not toward the strength.

Toward the connection itself.

And he pulled.

The pain was indescribable.

Thomas felt every blood vessel in his body tighten. His teeth cracked. His vision filled with impossible colors.

The room disappeared.

He stood again on the black ocean.

But this time, the water was rising.

The Sovereign emerged.

Thomas couldn't describe what he saw. It was too large, too ancient, too fundamentally incompatible with the human mind.

He could only understand that it was looking at him.

You are destroying yourself.

Thomas smiled weakly.

"Maybe."

You could have been more.

"I was enough."

The entity shifted.

The ocean became a thousand different oceans, each containing a thousand different skies.

Thomas saw the full extent of the universe.

He saw its birth.

Its death.

Its endless repetition.

And somewhere in the middle of all that darkness, he saw a tiny blue planet containing a woman who had once loved him.

He saw Samuel.

He saw the little girl beneath the crane.

He saw ordinary people living ordinary lives, never knowing how close they were to something that could swallow their entire understanding of existence.

They were small.

They were fragile.

They were temporary.

And they mattered.

Not because they were powerful.

Not because they were eternal.

Because they were here.

Thomas pulled harder.

The connection broke.

He awoke on the hospital floor.

The room was silent.

The furniture had fallen.

The lights were broken.

Samuel was unconscious but breathing.

Thomas tried to stand and discovered that his legs no longer worked properly.

A nurse approached him.

"Don't move."

Thomas looked at his hands.

They were shaking.

But they were only hands.

No power.

No impossible strength.

No whispers.

Just hands.

He began laughing.

Then crying.

Then laughing again.

The nurse knelt beside him.

"Thomas?"

He looked at her.

For the first time in a very long time, he saw a person instead of a collection of biological processes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She didn't understand.

He didn't expect her to.

Samuel survived.

The doctors eventually concluded that the incident had been a severe psychiatric episode, although nobody could explain the destruction in the room.

Thomas remained hospitalized.

His recovery was slow.

He still experienced nightmares. Occasionally, he woke convinced that he could hear waves beneath the floor. Sometimes he stared at the stars for hours, wondering whether the Sovereign was still watching.

But he no longer drank blood.

He no longer attempted to use his abilities.

And he began doing something he had not done in years.

He listened.

He listened when other patients spoke about their fears. He listened when nurses complained about exhausting shifts. He listened when Samuel talked about his sister.

He never told the young man that everything would be all right.

He had learned that some promises were too precious to make carelessly.

Instead, he told Samuel that he could choose what happened next.

That was enough.

One afternoon, Samuel approached him in the courtyard.

"Do you ever miss it?" he asked.

Thomas knew what he meant.

The power.

The strength.

The ability to make impossible things happen.

He considered the question.

"Sometimes."

Samuel nodded.

"Me too."

Thomas looked toward the sky.

The clouds were moving slowly, pushed by an ordinary afternoon breeze.

"Do you know what I miss most?" Thomas asked.

"What?"

"Being able to hold someone's hand without wondering what was inside them."

Samuel didn't answer.

Thomas smiled sadly.

"I used to think being human meant being weak. I thought if I could become something greater, I'd finally understand what mattered."

"And now?"

"Now I think being human means knowing you're weak and choosing to care anyway."

They sat together until the sun began setting.

That evening, Thomas returned to his room.

He looked at the clock.

3:17 p.m.

For a moment, he felt the familiar uneasiness.

He wondered whether the ocean was waiting.

He wondered whether the Sovereign had truly left.

Then he remembered Eleanor.

He remembered that he had never properly apologized.

He wondered whether she was happy.

He hoped she was.

And for once, he didn't feel the need to know.

He lay down.

The room was quiet.

No whispers came through the walls.

No objects floated.

No impossible shapes appeared in the corners of his vision.

Thomas closed his eyes.

"I can't sleep," he whispered.

But this time, it wasn't because something was calling him.

It was because he was afraid of what tomorrow might bring.

And that frightened him in a wonderfully ordinary way.

He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and turned toward the window.

Outside, the stars were beginning to appear.

They were beautiful.

They were distant.

They were indifferent.

And Thomas, small and fragile beneath their endless light, was finally content to be human.

For the first time in months, he slept.

And somewhere beyond the boundaries of the universe, in an ocean without stars, something ancient and immeasurably patient waited for another prayer.