Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Stay Awake

Nothing.

Nothing Happened.

I don't mean that metaphorically nothing happened... As in, there were no consequences, good or bad, for breaking the previous record by 4 days. No, I mean literally nothing happened. Time stopped. Reality became empty and meaningless.

According to the researchers, I fell asleep for 15 minutes at exactly the 15-day mark but for me, that moment lasted much longer. It's hard to explain but my body and my mind didn't experience the nothingness. It's something I felt inside of me. Deep down in whatever makes up my existence. It was as if the rules of reality that we all abided by broke down and everything stopped... and then I was awake again.

As if the agony I endured to reach the 15-day mark wasn't bad enough, what came after is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I guess I should explain. About 6 weeks ago, I was approached by a trio of researchers on my college campus. They were graduate psychology students who were studying the effects of no sleep on the human body and mind. They were recruiting volunteers for a new study in which the subjects would undergo treatment to help them stay awake longer. Their ambition was to create medication that allows people to stay up weeks at a time without any negative consequences.

It was a grandiose goal and perhaps dangerous for the people volunteering but they were paying $400 for each full day we could stay awake. As a broke college student, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Tuition was due soon, I was already months late paying it, and I already had $50,000 in student debt.

A few days later I was scheduled. I would be staying in their lab while they monitored me 24/7. The first couple of nights weren't anything special. I've pulled all-nighters before at LAN parties with my high school buddies. It wasn't until the 55-hour mark that I started to slow down. I was given a few pills that would help me stay alert. They told me I'd have to take them every six hours for them to be effective and with life-changing money on the line, I was willing to do anything.

The rest of the study was a blur. It's hard to remember the details, what I did to stay awake. Did I do any experiments to test my cognitive ability? Did I even interact with anyone? It's too hard to remember now and it doesn't matter anymore. I'm too tired to think about it.

I don't remember the nothingness but I can still feel it. The emptiness won't go away. It flows through my soul. It's not something I can easily explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. It feels as though I'm no longer connected to myself as if I've moved beyond my physical body but it's hard to tell what reality is. I haven't slept for quite a while now.

Eventually, the experiment came to an end and my experience left me delirious and confused. A doctor checked my vitals and thanked me for volunteering. I was handed cash, $6,000 right in my hand. If I hadn't been awake for 360 hours, I would have done a little more than a small smile and nod. I was then escorted back to my dorm room so I could finally rest.

I fell asleep the second my body touched my bed. The sleep deprivation hit me hard.

I had the worst nightmares since I was a child. I dreamt of ethereal beings stealing my very existence. They came from somewhere beyond this world to ours to fill their own. I woke up at 9 am drenched in sweat. Dreams were always weird and this was no exception. I thought it was just a coincidence that I had the same feeling when I awoke that morning that I had at the end of the study. I'm not so sure it was a coincidence anymore.

I couldn't stop thinking about the nightmare for the rest of the day. I've always heard that we dream of experiences we've already had. Sometimes it might be a movie you watched, a book you read, or maybe a random encounter with a stranger. There was always a familiarity to dreams; although, they always seem absurd and completely illogical. That dream, that nightmare, felt too real. It was hard to stay focused.

The next night I went to sleep early. My roommate was getting back late from a weekend trip and I wanted to get a head start on sleep before his rustling kept me awake.

I had the same nightmare. This time, the ethereal beings seemed hungrier, as if they had a taste for a new, exotic meal and wanted to dine on it once again. I could feel myself being ripped from my sleeping body despite my attempts to wrench myself free.

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I became aware of a shadowy figure staring at me beside my bed. I tried to move with every ounce of strength I could muster until finally, after what felt like minutes, I was able to pull myself from a deep sleep. It was my roommate. He told me that I was screaming in my sleep and flailing. I even put a hole in the dorm room wall.

I used to have night terrors as a kid so I didn't put much thought into it, after all I had just recently been awake for 15 days straight. There were bound to be some lasting side effects. I pushed it to the back of my mind. There was nothing too abnormal about it.

Unfortunately, I had an exam coming up and I wasn't prepared. The terrible sleep from the previous two nights and the sleep study left little time for me to learn the new material. I decided I was going to pull an all-nighter or two since I didn't want to fail this class.

My study session started off normal but as the day came to an end I became increasingly drowsy. I was fighting off sleep when I started to hear soft whispers coming from the hallway just outside my door. They were loud enough to disrupt my studying. I wanted them to stop. I would get up to see who was standing outside my dorm but each time there was no one there. I would go back to studying and soon after the whispers would return. I tried to put on headphones but they only grew louder.

I began to hallucinate by the following morning. At first, it was just inconspicuous shadows in the very corners of my vision. Just visible enough to be mistaken for a fly or some dust floating in the air. As the day drew on, the hallucinations worsened. Small shadows turned into figures hiding within the dark recesses of my room, whisperings amongst themselves. I thought it was just sleep deprivation. That I just needed to get some sleep. I wish I listened to my instincts. I wish that the feeling of my hair sticking straight up would have alerted me to the danger I was facing. Maybe it was the lack of sleep clouding my judgment. Instead, I slept. I needed sleep if I was going to pass my exam the next day.

Another nightmare. This time I was in my room. The ethereal beings hovered over me with ghastly smiles as they began to steal whatever it is that makes me, me. I fought to move. I poured every ounce of power into my body. I commanded every fiber of my being to wake. My eyes opened and I was met with the familiar sight of my room. I laid there paralyzed, only able to move my eyes.

I watched as a shadow in the corner of my room began to grow, swallowing the light that passed through it. A void of nothing devouring its surroundings. It felt too real to be a dream... It was real. I could tell - somehow. When it reached me, I could feel it penetrate my skin. I felt it pressing against my body, suffocating me with the weight of nothing. I tried to scream but I couldn't. My lips were sealed and my words compressed in my mouth, unable to find a way out.

And then as quickly as it started, it stopped and I awoke.

I haven't been asleep since then. For a while, things seemed to get better. The whispers and hallucinations went away within the first couple of days. I began to think it really was my sleep-deprived mind playing sadistic tricks on me.

I let my guard down.

They came back... the voices. The hallucinations too. Whispers and laughter turned into screams and cackles. I was engulfed in a cacophony of wails and guffaws, a relentless torrent of suffering. The shadows grew nearer until I could feel them crawling along my skin, itching for a way in. They were always looking for a way in.

I'm trying to fight it but every hour I stay awake I get weaker and they get stronger. I know that if I sleep now, I might not wake up again. My only choice is to never sleep again.

I don't know what's happening but I do know that you shouldn't follow my path. If you stay awake too long, you'll experience nothing, just like I did. Don't experience nothing. Because when you experience nothing, nothing experiences something. It won't stop until it has something. It won't stop until it has you. It won't stop until it has me.

I'm writing this as a warning. Whatever I did, it broke the barrier between our world and theirs. When I'm awake I drift into the realm of nothing. When I'm asleep, they invade the realm of something.

It's been 14 days, 13 hours, and 42 minutes since I last slept. I don't know what will happen to me if I stay awake any longer. I just want it to stop. I can't sleep anymore. Not unless I want them to come back and steal my existence... I just hope nothing will be better than this.

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