Josh had dragged himself through three classes with next to no sleep. He had walked between buildings on campus like a zombie with a bad limp caused by a missing leg tendon. He had stuck to elevators and gentle flights of stairs to navigate vertically. But all of his efforts to save energy weren’t enough to keep him from nearly collapsing before his final class of the day was over.

Nearly might be an understatement. Josh wasn’t entirely sure if he had actually fallen asleep during the lecture, but when he hadn’t realized the class was over until another student on his row in the lecture hall brushed past him on his way out… it didn’t really matter at that point. He’d gotten nothing out of the lecture. Not even notes.

After being rustled awake in the lecture hall, Josh managed to scramble his things together and avoid getting called out by the professor on his way out. But once he made it too the hall he began having trouble keeping his eyes open. Every few steps he had to hold still and blink for an extended period of time, and every time he passed a water fountain he took a sip to get something cold in him. His system worked as he crossed through the various buildings on campus as he made a direct route towards Sara and Connor’s apartment. But when he reached the last part of campus that stood between him and his destination, things got a little more difficult. He had to cross busier streets, there were no more water fountains, and if he stopped to shut his eyes for a second too long he felt like he might actually pass out. And he almost did just a few steps out from the Benedictine. He had reached out to pass through the door to the lobby, and someone else had pulled it away from him to leave. That sensation of not having anything to hold on to kicked in and Josh nearly toppled over into the lobby and onto the strangers shoes.

With a great deal of effort—effort that induced nausea—Josh managed to right himself before he lost his balance. The woman who had opened the door in front of him uttered a muffled apology as she slipped past him. She seemed the type to avoid anyone you could use the word riffraff to describe. And in that moment, Josh was riffraff. He looked dead on his feet and the woman, with her Chanel coat and Gucci handbag, gave him a wide birth. It was as if one touch would spread his disease. And with all the nightmares and weariness, Josh felt like he was diseased. He didn’t blame her, or any of the people that had looked at him with disgust while he was walking along. He looked exactly like what they all thought he was, and it was more or less his own fault for not sleeping. He knew he could sleep, he had slept the night before. But going back to sleep and closing his eyes of his own free will when all he could see when he closed his eyes on purpose was that room of pulsating flesh... it was unthinkable. It was bad enough that his exhaustion forced him to close his eyes for a prolonged period of time every minute or so so that they wouldn’t shut on their own, because he saw it then too. And the feelings that room room evoked, of fear, of being hated, of existential desolation—it was literally soul crushing to experience.

With his mind racing as he pondered his experience, Josh didn’t realize that he’d made his way into the elevator and was on his way up to the penthouse. His body was more or less moving on its own at that point.The elevator ride itself gave him a little motion sickness, but even that hardly registered. And when he made it to the penthouse, he barely managed a knock on the door. It was as if existence itself had become exhausting.

“Hey, come on… holy hell.” Sara had opened the door and started talking before she’d even seen Josh, but the moment she did she stopped dead in her tracks. “You look worse than last time. Are you okay?”

“I think it’s cumulative. Can I take a nap on your couch?” There was nearly no break between the words that tumbled clumsily out of Josh’s mouth.

Sara didn’t even answer. She just pulled Josh in by the arm and practically threw him on the couch. The cushions were stiff, and they smelled mildly of body odor and vomit, but as soon as Josh made contact with them he was out like a light.

“Is that…?” Connor made his way over from the refrigerator, his voice loud at first he cut himself back to a whisper as soon as he saw Josh unconscious on the couch. “That’s the second one in twenty four hours.”

“The second what?” Sara whispered back. “Hapless guy from school to pass out as soon as they walk in our door?”

“Yeah… pretty much.” Connor nodded, the made motion more difficult by the ice pack he was holding to his left eye.

“The first one doesn’t count, since you’re the one that knocked him out.”

“Oh, he was drunk off his rocker. It was only a matter of time.” He rolled his eyes, or eye, the other was swollen shut. “I practically caught him on the way down.”

“You definitely caught him the second time.” Sara chuckled quietly.

Connor frowned, but shook off the laughter. “Get your giggles in while you can. Once Margot gets back, we’re picking up sparring again.”

“And then I’ll get to knock on your butt.” Sara knew the joking was going to turn into an impromptu sparring match, and as much as she wanted to prove her point she relented with a nod over to Josh. “The only one that’s been really beat up today is him.”

“Did he tell you what happened?” Connor dropped the joking aggression easily, he ha no desire to get in a second fight.

“He was going to talk to you about it, and I can’t really tell you… but he hasn’t been sleeping.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“He was sleeping right there the other day though… is this a recent thing?”

Sara didn’t know how much she wanted to tell, but she wasn’t as afraid of letting little pieces go now that Josh had said he wanted to explain what was happening to Connor. “Connor, I think that might have been the only real sleep he’s had in about four days.”

“Oh…” Connor was at a loss for words and so started swearing under his breath. “You think that’s why Kerry was over here and pissed at us? Maybe he thinks we did something to Josh?”

“Maybe?” Sara shrugged. She was at just as much of a loss. “He said I don’t want you in my apartment anymore… which… I mean, I was over there the other day. But Josh asked me to come over.”

“That, or maybe he just doesn’t like us.”

Sara shook her head in strong disagreement. “No, I don’t think that’s it. And no, I’m not being egotistical. He just doesn’t have a reason to have any sort of general opinion like that, not unless Josh has been talking to him about us. But I don’t think Josh would be telling him bad things about us… unless we seriously misjudged Josh?”

“Nope.” Connor let out a single huff of a laugh. “He’d have to be a total psychopath to act that well, and we’d be able to tell. There’s signs for it, and I don’t think he could see the marks if he was that warped inside.”

“Hold on, you remember that story Margot told us about the guy in her boot camp?” Sara narrowed her eyes on Josh’s unconscious body. “He was a cannibal and he could see the marks.”

“He was a cannibal because he did bath salts on a regular basis.” Connor scoffed.

“Shssshh.” Sara hissed with a finger to her mouth.

“Look, what I’m saying is that some people are just deeply messed up and choose to nurture that part of their psyche over the parts that would keep them stable. And they do that for whatever reason. I don’t think that kind of personality would be willing to actually grasp a mark; their minds are already in their own… other reality removed from this one. They wouldn’t know something truly alien if it bit their face off. But people that do hard drugs, they’re just normal people… that have drugs in their system.”

Sara rolled her eyes, unwilling to dive into the conversation she had been presented with. “Whatever, what I’m saying is, Josh is normal. He wants to be a lawyer and work in an office the rest of his life so that he can help people. That’s the pinnacle of just barely over the line. He’s the epitome of normal.”

“Homicidal maniacs looks just like everyone else.” Sara caught the corner of Connor’s mouth twitch up in a smile that was begging for her to answer the movie quote.

“Don’t… I’m being serious…” Sara’s face scrunched up in a sour expression. “You really think I haven’t seen Adams Family?”

“It’s older…” Connor half whined. “You could have missed it.”

“You think I missed it… by that much?” Sara held her fingers up in a pinching gesture.

“C’mon, Sara. Please. Get Smart was satire. Of course I’ve seen it.” Connor laughed as quietly as he could. “You know I love movies that make fun of themselves. Saves me the trouble.”

“It’s a draw then.” Sara hit Connor with a silly glare. “Truce?”

“Truce.” Connor agreed easily and held out a hand to shake on it formally.

Sara shook Connor’s hand and went for a flourish shake with her pinky finger at the same time as he did. It was a common silly handshake they had started doing in their childhood. It felt strange to do in their adult lives, though they didn’t really consider themselves adults. But they were living on their own, they had responsibilities. The biggest one on their minds in that moment was sleeping on their couch.

And he slept there for over an hour. Connor had given up on waiting after the first thirty minutes. It was about at that point that he figured Josh had been downplaying his request when he called it a nap. After giving up on waiting, Connor had moved to the kitchen to wash off berries and then snack on them. Sara had gone back to studying. Both were done with their tasks before Josh woke up.

After Sara had finished studying, she had gone over to the living room and sat down on an armchair next to the couch so that she could read and keep an eye on Josh. Strangely, the closer she was to him the less anxious she felt about his condition. It was like she had developed an instinct for his safety, and as she thought about it she started to wonder if she could test that feeling. But when she stood up to see what kind of radius her sense of security around Josh was, it was gone. For a moment she thought it might have been a vertical distance issue, or a line of sight feeling, but as she looked back to Josh she realized that it was because he had woken up.

“Hey.” She said, her signature huge grin bright as ever. “You slept for like two hours.”

“Oh… heck.” Josh stumbled to his feet.

“Yeah, and you were sleepwalking. You gouged out my eye and knocked over the jar of spoons in the kitchen.” Connor called out with an air of false aggravation.

“Did I?” Josh wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. He only saw Connor’s swollen and bruised eye and the now vacant space on the kitchen island. “I’m sorry…”

“Shut up. Don’t apologize to him. You didn’t move a muscle the whole time.” Sara said with a laugh. “That’s from Connor’s fight with Kerry.”

“You should see him.” Connor waggled his eyebrows suggestively as he spoke, but winced when the motion reopened a barely scabbed cut over his left eye. “I think I broke his nose.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Josh coughed up a chuckle thick with the phlegm accumulated from sleep. “His dad’s a plastic surgeon, so if there’s long term damage he can get it corrected.”

Sara sat back down and put a hand on Josh’s shoulder to get his focus. It worked. Josh was immediately looking at Sara, his mostly vacant tired expression catching her off guard.

“Are you… are you okay? Did you have another dream just now?” Sara asked quietly enough that Connor would have a hard time hearing her.

Josh messaged his temples as he tried to recall any memory of a dream. “No. It feels like I blinked.”

Connor sat down on the other end of the couch and for a moment looked like he was about to put a hand on Josh’s other shoulder, but thought better of it. Too much contact after waking up didn’t sound like a recipe for successful comforting. With his arm already awkwardly up, Connor let it rest on the couch behind Josh.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” Connor wasn’t sure what to anticipate, and tried his best to make his voice and position seem friendly.

Josh gently withdrew from Sara’s grasp and turned to Connor, getting close enough to be slightly uncomfortable by accident. Both men scooted back an inch on the couch to facilitate a more casual conversation.

“I’ve been having dreams. Awful… terrifying dreams. I think it’s because I can see the marks, because I keep seeing a mark on my own arm in them… and I was wondering if you’ve ever experienced anything like that?”

“I have a lot of dreams, Josh. You’re going to have to tell me more.”

“Right.” Josh took a deep breath. “I think I might be able to show you better than I can tell you.”