How long had it been since Ivan had slept? Had it been days? Hours? Weeks? Months? It felt like it had been forever. He felt as if he were seeing the world differently. It was as if it were a blur or a terrifying nightmare. Was it really reality, though?

His best friend Chun-Yan Wang had been worried about him for the past week or so. She worried that he wasn't getting enough sleep. Apparently he had grown increasingly irritable, though he hadn't noticed it at all. She had, though.

It wasn't like it was Ivan's choice not to sleep. He would sleep if he could. It was just that he didn't know how to anymore. No one chose to have insomnia. No one would want insomnia either.

.

"I don't get why you hang out with that psychopath anyway," Yao Wang, Chun-Yan's father told her one night in front of Ivan. He figured that since Ivan was always spacing off and muttering to himself that he wasn't paying attention, but he didn't know that Ivan had heard every word. "If you look at him, you can tell that he stays up all night. What do you think he does? The kid freaks me out. What is his problem anyway?"

"Dad, please don't say things like that about my best friend," Chun-Yan sighed. "He can hear you, you know."

"No he can't, Chun, now shut up before I make you," Yao grumbled.

"Yes, sir," Chun-Yan softly said, frowning and looking down.

Yao smacked her, hard. "I am your father, and you will address me as so."

Ivan couldn't take it anymore as he began to shake. He felt his eyes close as he fell asleep slowly.

.

In his dream, he got up and walked up behind Yao with a sharp knife from the kitchen, stabbing it into his back. Chun-Yan let out a scream and fainted at the sight of blood. Ivan kept stabbing the knife into Yao's back over and over and over until the man fell and stopped moving.

He then ran over to Chun-Yan and held her as she came to. "Chun, are you okay?" he asked, frowning.

"Ivan, you killed my father!" she cried out. "No, I'm not okay!"

"He'll never hurt you again," Ivan softly told her. "And I'm not letting anyone ever hurt you again."

Chun-Yan gasped out. "Ivan, no! I need to call the police! You killed my father! Do you not understand how terrible that is?!"

Ivan made a grab for the knife again. "Don't you dare touch that phone," he told her, voice low and serious. "Don't do it, Chun-Yan. I cannot guarantee your safety."

Her breathing came in quick, terrified gasps. "Look, Ivan, why don't you just go back to sleep? You're tired. I'm tired. How about we go up to my room and take a nap? I'll even sleep up there with you."

Ivan smiled. "Yeah, let's do that," he said as they stood up together and went to her room.

Chun-Yan laid down on her bed, saving room for Ivan next to her. She snuggled up to her best friend and closed her eyes, pretending to fall asleep as he fell asleep as well. Once she was certain he was asleep, she slowly crept out of his grasp and went to find the phone.

Ivan woke up the moment she left the room. His eyes flew open, realizing that Chun-Yan was not with him. He ran down the stairs and found her, picking up the knife off the floor and stabbing it into her like he did with her father.

He knelt next to the body of his best friend. "Chun, why can't you just be a good girl and listen to me for once?" he softly asked her unmoving body. "Why can't you just listen to me?" Tears streamed down his cheeks as he washed the knife in the sink and put it back in the drawer where he got it. "You can't save anyone…"

.

Ivan sat up in his bed, his heart racing at a rapid pace. He was wearing his pajamas and checked his clock on his phone. It was three in the morning. What was going on? When did he get home? And what the hell kind of a dream was that?

He shook his head to rid himself of the memory of that horrible dream. Going without sleep for so long must have given him those weird dreams. He got out his phone to call Chun-Yan, but she didn't answer. Of course she wouldn't. It was the middle of the night, after all. Unlike Ivan, she actually slept.

Ivan sighed and put his phone on the charger. He got his backpack out and decided to do his homework. All he wanted was a distraction from any thoughts of that terrifying nightmare. He didn't want to think about anything having to do with murdering anyone, especially his precious Chun-Yan…

Hopefully everything would be better when he saw her at school later.