He stares into the darkness.

It is way past the time he should have nodded off into the fog associated with dreamland, but Jaehyung has a foreboding feeling that sleep will not visit him today.

All he hears with punctuated clarity is his own heartbeat and breathing, both serving as a reminder that he is alive and that he does not just simply exist. Yet the comfort they occasionally bring him evades him tonight and all he is left with is a hollow feeling of loss he cannot explain.

He stares into the darkness.

The sheep he attempts to count has long dissolved into nothing but an endless spiral of thoughts that feed the demon that sits at his windowsill and taunts him.

Unseen by everyone but him, it follows him everywhere like his shadow that he cannot shake off, and it follows him even in the warm sunlight that no longer comforts him.

Tonight, it smiles and chuckles silently at him, waving its clawed hands in a mocking manner, as if telling Jaehyung that he is powerless. He finds that he cannot refute that, for he cannot even muster the strength to sit up and start the day. He cannot sleep anyway, and there are many other far more appropriate uses of time rather than laying here without purpose.

But perhaps that is all he needs now--to lay here without purpose and to pretend that he just exists.

He stares into the darkness.

The demon silently watches on from the windowsill, grinning. 

Jaehyung turns his heavy body away from the window, his eyes dry and hurting as he blinks.

He wills himself to cry, wondering if all he needs is a release. He no longer remembers what desperation feels like, but all he knows is that he really wants to sleep.

The tears do not come and the feeling of emptiness continues on, crawling, inching forward with the passage of time that does not wait for him. 

The clock strikes four as Jaehyung begins to make out the dancing shadows of the tree by his window. 

He almost laughs, but cannot.

The sun formally announces its presence, yet he cannot will himself to do anything but continue to lay there, watching the soft lights slowly creep into his room. 

The arrival of the sun means everything to others but means nothing to him.

He turns to face the window again, where the demon sits, waiting for his attention again. 

The sun is almost finished painting a reluctant display of lights across the horizon.

He ignores the dry feeling in his throat, opening his mouth, wanting to plead with someone, anyone, to help him. But he shuts his mouth immediately after he opens it, knowing that there is no one to hear him and that there will be no answers. 

As the sun begins to radiate brilliantly in the sky, the demon does not fade away. It continues to laugh gleefully, beginning to dance in the warm sunlight that he once hoped would spare him from its torment.

It is eight in the morning now. His alarm goes off, and he automatically sits up to begin yet another day.

His eyes are vacant. 

The smile he fixes on his face is empty. 

He stares into the darkness.