There was something quietly exhausting about cities, especially this one. Not the loud kind of exhaustion that came from sirens or traffic or the endless announcements echoing through concrete streets, but the kind that settled beneath the skin like static. The skyscrapers outside his bedroom window glowed through the night no matter how tightly he pulled the curtains, and there was always someone awake below, living a life that sounded more interesting than his own.
He lived on the twelfth floor of a building that looked newer than it felt, a muted blue rectangle squeezed between two taller giants as if trying not to be noticed. His room, though small, held what mattered most to him: a desk scattered with notebooks, a secondhand laptop covered in stickers that only made sense to internet weirdos like him, a small bookshelf curved from the weight of encyclopedias and horror fiction, and a glowing antifungal terrarium where a stubborn succulent clung to life.
Night was when he felt most alive.
He wasn't the type to go out — the world outside was too sharp, too fast — but the internet made everything reachable. School by day, rabbit holes by night. And lately, one rabbit hole had taken over all the others: the SCP universe. The idea that humanity might not be alone with its imagination, that some nightmares were cataloged and contained by people in lab coats, spoke to the part of him that believed the world needed more mystery. He liked the thought that somewhere out there, hidden in the folds of reality, anomalies roamed free in the dark. It made life feel bigger, like there was so much more to discover.
Tonight, like most nights, his computer screen lit his face from below as he leaned forward, scrolling through feeding logs, interviews, redacted files. He had no clue what he wanted to be when he grew up, but part of him wondered if working for something like the SCP Foundation could ever be real. It was a childish wish — he knew that — but it was comforting, imagining a job where fear wasn't a weakness but a tool.
He bookmarked another page and sat back, stretching until his spine gave a small chorus of cracks. The clock on the wall read 2:11 AM, though he barely noticed time passing when he was diving through forbidden knowledge and urban legends disguised as classified documents. He tried to blink away the dryness in his eyes. Sleep always came late and rarely easily, but tomorrow would arrive whether he liked it or not.
He crossed the room, carefully stepping over clothes that refused to find the laundry hamper, and opened the window a crack. The cool air rushed in, carrying the distant hum of late-night life — footsteps echoing in alleys, an occasional shout, the rumble of a delivery truck groaning past. He stood there, just breathing for a moment, watching the city breathe back.
The moon was tucked behind a shield of clouds, but the skyline glimmered like a constellation flipped upside down. He rested his forehead against the cold glass and let the silence settle. Or almost settle — cities were never truly silent, but sometimes the noise felt comfortable, like white noise whispering that life continued on all sides.
He yawned, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and finally shut his laptop. He didn't even bother to close the tabs anymore. They would still be there tomorrow night, waiting to pull him deeper. The bed welcomed him as soon as he fell into it, sheets slightly messy but warm, familiar. He lay there a while, staring up at the faint glow seeping through his curtains, thinking about containment breaches and worlds just beyond this one.
There was always a moment just before sleep where his imagination wandered too freely. Tonight, he lingered on a question that often popped into his mind:
What if even one of those stories were real?
He pictured strange creatures lurking beneath the subway tracks, eyes watching from construction sites at night, entities that drifted through walls while people slept. He imagined the Foundation hidden somewhere in this very city — labs below office buildings, agents disguised as commuters, anomalies transported in trucks like the ones he could hear rumbling down the street.
He smiled faintly. It would be terrifying.
It would be incredible.
His heartbeat slowed, his thoughts softened around the edges, and he let himself drift at last. The digital glow faded behind his eyelids. The city lights blurred into quiet.
The static beneath the skin faded as sleep finally claimed him.
If he had been awake a little longer, he might have noticed something else — a faint hush falling over the street below, a strange pause in the city's constant breathing. A silence that didn't belong.
But he slept on.
And somewhere, far beyond his dreams yet impossibly close,
something listened.