The first sensation was always pain. A dull, throbbing ache that began at her wrists and radiated up her arms, a ground wire connecting her to the reality of her body.
Serena opened her eyes to the familiar, suffocating gray of her pre-dawn bedroom. The ceiling was a map of water stains, continents of neglect she had memorized over the years. She was on her back, arms at her sides, locked not by some external force, but by her own design. The restraints cut into her flesh.
Flexing her hands, she felt the sharp, familiar stung where the skin had broken overnight. Again. With a sigh that was more of a surrender, she turned her head on the pillow. The bedside table held a lamp, a half-empty glass of water, and the keys for the restraints.
She fumbled for them, the material harsh against her torn skin. The clicks of the locks were deafening in the silence. As she sat up, the blood rushed back into her hands, a thousand pinpricks of fire. She examined the damage: angry red lines braceleting her wrists, blooming with purple bruises and dotted with dark, crusted blood.
The shower was a ritual of erasure. Steam clouded the small bathroom, fogging the mirror so she didn't have to see the hollows under her eyes. The water was as hot as she could stand, scalding away the lingering feeling of dullness. She watched the water at her feet spiral down the drain, tinted pink for a moment.
'So tired', the thought came, not as a complaint, but as a simple, immutable fact.
"... I'm so tired."
She dressed with practiced care: a high-necked, long-sleeved black sweater, despite the lingering August humidity. The cuffs fell low over her hands.
The bus was a metal capsule of shared misery. Serena pressed her forehead against the cool glass, her book—a dense academic text on pre-colonial India— pressed close to her chest. Outside, the city was a smear of gray and impatient yellow.
A man argued loudly with someone on his phone. A baby wailed. Each sound was a needle poking at the edges of her composure. She focused on her breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. The urban landscape wasn't vibrant or alive; it was a grinding machine, and they were all just cogs.
She remembered the first time she'd found the evidence a few years ago. Waking to a canvas propped against the wall, swirled with paints mixed with something darker, thicker—something that had dried to a disturbing, coppery brown. Another time, it was intricate patterns drawn on the hardwood floor in what her rational mind prayed was red ink, but her gut knew was blood. Her blood.
Therapy had given her vague labels—parasomnia, severe somnambulism, a dissociative disorder, and many more—but no concrete answers. Nothing could explain the primal, ritualistic nature of her issues. Help never worked. Only restraints, for some reason.
The museum was a cathedral of quiet stress. The air cool and still, it smelt of dust and lemon-scented polish. Here, the chaos of the city was replaced by the rigid order of millennia-old artifacts, each in its assigned place, its story neatly printed on a card.
"Serena." Mr. Davies stood by her desk. He was impeccably dressed, tying his tie compulsively. His expression was one of mild, perpetual disappointment. "The provenance files for the new Etruscan collection," he said, not a request—but a reminder of a failing. "They were due to be cross-referenced with the digital catalog by 3 PM yesterday."
"I'm nearly finished," she said, her voice softer than she intended. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her sleeves.
"See that you are. 'Nearly finished' is an enemy of 'done'." He paused, his eyes scanning her face. "You look pale. Are you unwell?"
It was the closest he ever came to concern, and it felt more like an accusation. "Just a restless night," she murmured.
"Well, try to be more present during the day. We have a major donor tour on the 11th. I need you sharp."
He walked away, his footsteps echoing in the vast hall. Serena looked down at her computer screen, the lines of text blurring into a gray haze. She adjusted her cuffs, feeling the rough texture of the fabric against her wounds. The day stretched before her, a long, airless tunnel. All she had to do was get through it, so she could go home and prepare for the night, which was its own, far more exhausting shift to endure.
The day leeched itself onto her, a parasitic weight that made the simple act of standing up from her desk feel like a Herculean task. She was more tired now than when she had arrived, the structured stress of the day having sanded down her nerves to raw, exposed wires.
Mr. Davies gave her a curt nod as she passed his office, a gesture that was neither approval nor farewell, but a simple acknowledgment of her cessation of function for the day.
The thought of the night ahead—the restraints, the unknown—loomed so large it felt like a physical presence waiting for her in her apartment. A cold foreboding coiled in her stomach. She brushed it aside, labeling it as it was: the dread of the cycle. The same walls, the same locks, the same waking pain. It was the despair of exhausting repetition.
Her building was a grim sentinel on a street of similarly weary structures, its red brick faded to the color of dried blood. It smelled of cigarette smoke and simmering cabbage. The climb to the third floor was a daily gauntlet. From beside her apartment, Mr. Henderson's television blared a chaotic mix of news and game shows. Serena's steps instinctively softened as she passed his door; last week, he'd flung it open because her walking was "too heavy," his face a mottled purple, spittle on his lips. She'd stood frozen, a rabbit in headlights, until he'd slammed the door again.
Inside her apartment, the locks clicked into place with definitive sounds. The first of many. Serena's nightly ritual began, a precise, unyielding ballet. Keys in the blue bowl. Coat on the single, specific hook. Shoes aligned perfectly parallel by the door. She moved to the kitchen to boil water for tea, her movements sharp, efficient. But the box of chamomile was empty.
A minor thing, a trivial inconvenience. Yet, in the silent, pressurized space of her mind, it was a catastrophic failure. Her breath hitched. She stared at the empty box, her fingers tightening around it, crumpling the cardboard.
A wave of pure frustration surged through her.
She whipped the box across the kitchen. It hit the wall with a pathetic, papery thud and fell to the floor.
The silence that followed was deafening, ringing with her own impotence.
Shaking, she leaned against the counter, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes until stars bloomed.
After a few moments, the pressure receded, leaving behind a deeper, more profound exhaustion. She went to her bookshelf, her fingers trailing over the spines until they found her worn collection of poetry. She didn't need to read it; the weight of it in her hands, the familiar softness of the leather, was enough. It was a tether to a world of ordered beauty.
Fortified by the silence and the familiar weight of the book, she turned to her easel. The canvas was an escape hatch. Her paints were the one area of her life where she permitted herself extravagance—tubes of cadmium red, cobalt blue, and titanium white, colors that were forbidden in her wardrobe and her walls.
She began to paint. Not the gloomy, blood-tinged art of her sleep, but something from her childhood dreams. A vibrant, impossible landscape emerged under her brush.
A forest where the trees were woven from silver thread and amethyst, their leaves catching a light from no visible sun. A river of liquid mercury flowed through it, and in the sky, luminous nine moons hung in a delicate balance. She lost herself in the details, in the texture of the bark, the shimmer of the water. Her hand was steady, her focus absolute.
This was her. This skill, this vision, was a real trace of her, untainted by the thing that lived in her sleep.
The night deepened outside her window with the lights turning inward. The city's constant hum softened to a murmur, almost whispering. She worked until her back ached and the muscles in her neck screamed. She was painting the delicate, bioluminescent fungi at the base of a crystal tree, each stroke a deliberate act.
To paint was to be awake. To be awake was to be in control. Every minute she spent at the easel was a minute stolen from the bed.
But her body was a traitor. A yawn cracked her jaw, so wide it brought tears to her eyes. Her brush hand began to tremble, not with anxiety, but with sheer fatigue. The vibrant colours on the canvas started to swim before her eyes. The fight was leaving her, seeping out into the quiet apartment.
"No," she whispered, the word a dry croak. "Not yet."
But it was futile. The weight of the day, of the endless cycle, pressed down on her, an irresistible force. To continue was to risk collapsing at the easel, brush in hand, and waking to find God-knows-what.
With a sigh that was the sound of ultimate surrender, she cleaned her brushes with methodical care, another small ritual of delay. She changed into her nightclothes after showering and brushing her teeth, standing before the bed. The restraints lay there, innocuous and terrifying.
Her movements were now robotic, her consciousness already receding like a tide. She did not think of the wounds, humiliation, or disintegration. She only went through the motions. Sit. Left wrist in. Click. Right wrist in. Click.
She lay down, the familiar pressure a grotesque comfort. As the darkness at the edges of her vision crept inward, swallowing the silver trees and moons of her waking mind, her final thought was not of fear, but of a simple, weary recognition.
The other shift was about to begin.
.
.
.