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There is something living in his chest, its ribs pressing against his from the inside. He knows he’s been crying: the tracks are there, faint salt-lines cooling against his cheek. His tongue, useless as a dead slug, lies slack against his teeth. Wet, ragged sounds escape his mouth, caught in a web of his own spit before they can become a scream.
It takes too long. Sleep presses down on him, not with haste, but with the slow, patient weight of deep water. His body betrays him first, its bones turning to wet sand, its muscles to slack clay. By the time his mind catches up, It’s simply elsewhere.
There is no grace in Its departure, no fading, and Vessel is left in Its wake. His body remembers what his mind cannot, curling inward, spine bowing, knees drawing up toward his chest like a child trying to make itself invisible. He meets the ground, his side scraping against the concrete’s pebbled skin.
He knows the routine by heart. Sleep takes what it wants, and Vessel scrubs the memory of Its fingers from his skin.
It’s a small price. The mantra rattles like a loose stone in his chest every time he has to scour the evidence away.
The hum isn’t a sound but a pressure, something pushing at the inside of his skull. A vibration in his marrow that feels like the first thrum of a migraine, or rather, the sound of a stomach that is still hungry. Not quite satisfied.
Vessel’s fingers find the rag by touch, its fabric stiff with old, crusted evidence. He brings it to his face. The smell, astringent, unnatural, and sharp, is his first anchor to the present. Always start with the face: the most visible, the cleanest. He wipes his cheeks, his chin, his neck, the rough material leaving a stinging burn that smells of offering, feels like penance. His wrists throb with a familiar tenderness.
He assesses his own body like a coroner examining a stranger. His eyes adjust, finding the dim glow of the hallway beneath the shut door.
He checks his hands first. Bruised, but clean. He runs a hand over his chest. Wet.
Then, he moves to his arms. His left arm is clean, marred only by the map of veins and scars he knows by heart.
His right arm, however, is clammy, slick with an unnatural sheen. He wipes at it with the rag. It doesn’t vanish; it sinks into his pores, revealing a network of bruised violet veins that pulse in time with the hungry hum in his bones.
He sits up, staring. Scrubs harder, the rag scraping against his skin. He hisses, but the mark doesn’t bleed. It simply stays, a permanent receipt of the attention he’s been given.
They’ll see. The others.
The thought of their eyes is a cold splash. But it’s nothing compared to the weight of Sleep’s attention, the knowing presence in his mind that has already seen everything. Has witnessed him in withdrawal, counting down the days until he could be blessed again.
His head snaps up, scanning the dark of the windowless room, light beneath the door, empty corners where shadows watch.
Nothing. No footsteps, no voice, just the hum and a taunting flicker of the hallway light.
Still, his stomach lurches. He presses his back against the crumbling concrete, the rough surface biting into his shoulder blades. His fingers curl into fists, nails biting into his palms, and he forces himself to hold his breath so he can focus on listening.
It’s fine. It’s dark. No one can see.
The lie is useless. He remembers. The dark is never empty; it breathes behind his ear, slow and damp, a pressure that isn’t quite sound. The dark is where Sleep strips him bare, where It takes Its time, where It peels him open like a fruit and examines every silenced scream, every bruise, every twitching, ugly piece of himself he’s tried to hide. The dark is where Sleep alone sees him, but Sleep can easily decide when to turn the lights back on.
No one can see.
His throat tightens.
The rag is still in his hand, and he brings it to his arm again, scrubbing with frantic, jerky motions. The messiest parts of his body remain unclean in his rush to remove the mark. The skin reddens beneath the assault, but the violet remains, taunting him for his efforts, settled too deep.
“Come on,” he rasps, his voice cracking. “Come on.”
You failed.
The voice in his skull is familiar, but whose? His own? Sleep’s? The thought slithers into his mind, indistinguishable from his own shame.
His hand falls limp at his side, the rag slipping from his fingers, landing with a wet slap against the concrete. Somewhere, in the hollow spaces between his thoughts, Sleep stirs.
It doesn’t need to speak. The silence presses in, heavier than any word, more damning than a shout. Vessel knows that silence: the weight of a parent watching a child fail, the stillness of a teacher waiting for an answer that won’t come. Patient. Expectant. More cruel than any blow.
Sleep knows what Vessel is thinking, knows the terror that prickles at the back of his neck and the shame that coils in his gut like the back of Its hand. Sleep knows he’s afraid of being seen, not just by strangers, not just by the world, but by Sleep itself. Because being seen by Sleep means being known, and being known means being held accountable.
Vessel can feel Sleep tasting his fear now, the hum in his mind sharpening. Vessel’s hands tremble, his breath hitches.
This has happened before. It will happen again. The only variable is how long Sleep makes him beg for the next visit.
Try.
The word unfurls in his mind, slow and deliberate, a seed planted in fertile soil.
Vessel drives his palms into his eyes, curling. His breath is too shallow. He tries to swallow it, but Sleep’s silence presses in.
You wanted this.
He did. He remembers the first time: how his hands shook not with fear but with relief. Finally, something that wanted him back. He remembers the euphoria, the dream-like feeling of being seen. Sleep’s attention was a drug, and he mainlined it with desperate, greedy hands. He let it take and take, every demand a confirmation he mattered.
You begged for this.
He did. He remembers the prayers, the nights spent on his knees in the dark, whispering into the void. He remembers how he’d meant it then–how his voice didn’t shake, how his hands were steady, how relief flooded him when something finally answered. His pleas to be swallowed whole, wondering if the pain would stop if he went deeper.
Try.
Vessel fills in the blanks. Try to do it alone. Try to give himself the same amount of attention Sleep gives him. Try to get the same high from anything else but Sleep.
He lifts his head, his eyes wet again. He swipes at them with the back of his hand, the motion automatic, almost absent.
The concrete is cold. He’s been sitting too long. His hip aches. He notices it suddenly, like a sound you only hear once it’s gone.
There’s a crack in the ceiling. He’s never noticed it before. It runs from the corner to the center of the square-shaped room, thin as a hair, and he thinks, absurdly, that someone should fix that.
The hum shifts.
The frequency drops, lower, sinking into his stomach, a hunger that growls.
Vessel’s breath catches. He knows this feeling.
Every muscle coils. His mind races, then stops. His body unwinds, pliant and wrong. Words tangle in his throat, thick and useless. His hands press flat against the concrete, fingers splayed, as if he could push himself away from the sensation curling around him like smoke.
The mark on his arm pulses once. Twice. A third time, slow and deliberate.
And then–
No warning. No grace. Only Sleep, sudden and suffocating, pressing in from every direction, filling Vessel with perverse gratitude, a hunger that tastes like want. The darkness thickens, solidifies, pins him to the ground.
Vessel opens his mouth.
The sound that comes out isn’t a scream.