Anwon 24th, 352 TA

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I can’t sleep. Or rather, I won’t sleep.

Mere hours ago I cane came back to Port Brimsay Brimsey. I helped carry some of the wounded on a stretcher. I’m not sure how I did it—I was so tired, but I did. And now here I am. Alone in my room. Afraid.

I don’t want to lie down. I haven’t slept in a day over a day and a half. I’m tired out of my mind, yet the idea of lying down, of allowing myself to be vunerable vulnerable, terrifies me. What I saw and heard today still lingers in my mind, clouded as it is.

I don’t know if I’ll be sleeping well for a while.

In fact, I think I’m going to go read. Yes. Read.

 

By the time I’m writing this, it’s late in the evening. I am so, so horribly tired. I can’t think, I can’t cocetate concentrate at all. My vision blurs and swims like my eyes are covered by water, and everything feels sore. All I want now is rest.

But I can’t.

I feel even more terror looking at that bed now. More than I had earlier today. More terror than I’ve felt before. My heart pounds in my chest so hard I worry my ribs will crack—a feet feat I know to be impossible. Yet still would be preferable to sleeping now. My limbs feel like stone. Better that than to see the nightmares beyond.*

I cannot sleep. I will not sleep.

 

*Update from days and a few naps later: I barely understand what in blazes I wrote here.

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Mar 9, 2026 10:08

Good work! I want to read more. Would you like to share with readers like us?

Mar 10, 2026 09:56

I really liked how vividly you capture the narrator’s exhaustion and fear on Anwon 24th the way the terror of sleep lingers in their mind made me feel that tension right along with them. I’m curious though, what happened earlier that night to leave them in such a state that they’d rather stay awake than rest?