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Chapter 1: The Last Days Awake
The house was deathly silent.
No footsteps echoed down the hallways. No laughter. No voices.
Only emptiness.
Their parents. Their sister. Gone. Swallowed by the sleep.
Chester lay on the cracked ceiling's shadow, heart pounding like a gambler's dice roll — always unpredictable, always thrilling. Twenty-five years old tomorrow. The age where sleep became a sentence. A never-ending gamble.
What came after the sleep? No one knew. Some said it was oblivion — nothingness. Others whispered of another world, but no one had returned to confirm.
He clenched his fists. The world moved on without them, but their nightmare was just beginning.
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For twenty days, Chester and Solon had battled the pull of sleep.
Bloodshot eyes, trembling limbs, cold sweat — the slow decay of the mind's fortress.
"Not yet," Chester muttered. "I'm not rolling those dice until I'm ready."
Solon's voice was a dry whisper. "But the longer we wait, the more this waiting feels like dying awake."
The house felt like a tomb, every creak and groan a ghost's reminder of what awaited.
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Chester found an old set of dice — smooth, worn, and perfect in their chaos.
He rolled them across the table, watching them spin unpredictably, never knowing where they'd land.
"Chance," he breathed. "That's all life is."
Solon's eyes, weary but steady, met his. "When you roll, you accept the outcome. Maybe this sleep is just another roll we can't see."
But deep down, Chester wondered if the roll had already been made — and they were just waiting for the result.
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Outside, the city lights flickered like distant stars, unreachable and cold — like a future that might not exist for them anymore.
The clock's steady tick echoed through the silence, inching toward midnight — the point of no return.
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Chester lay on the worn mattress, the cold biting into his skin.
"Together," he whispered. "No matter what comes next."
Solon nodded, eyes heavy but full of unspoken fear.
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Their lids grew heavy, darkness creeping in like a thief.
And as the world tilted beneath them, Chester's last thought was a question that haunted every sleepless night:
Is the sleep the end? Or the beginning of something far worse?
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End of Chapter 1
To Be Continued