This installment goes a bit into the territory of the supernatural. I'll just let you all come up with your own idea of what's really happening here :) It's inspired by my roommate's experience with insomnia.
Response to darkprincess238: I'm flattered you like it. There will be more about Kanzaki's fate in the coming sequel to this. And my health is… Less than stellar, but I have doctors for that.
Yuuma Isogai shuddered. He coughed a bit, droplets of the ice cold water he had just splashed on his face fell back into the sink. He couldn't stand to look at himself in the mirror as of lately, he was beginning to look a lot like his father. So many thoughts about dead people recently.
It was his ten minute break from his last shift of the night at the café. It was a Wednesday. He'd go home at eight (two hours left), finish the last of his homework, tuck his kid siblings into bed, and go to sleep.
Well, not exactly go to sleep. It had been months since he really had a night's worth of sleep. He'd lie in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours, unable to shut his brain off for the night.
He tried to do something to fill the first few hours. Reading a book didn't tire his eyes out. Cracking the spine of that seventh-grade algebra textbook that he was saving for his brother and sister and quizzing himself on things he learned ages ago didn't bore him to sleep. Melatonin did nothing for him. Shutting down the electronics even earlier wasn't helping, it was only prolonging the amount of time he had his connection to the rest of 3-E turned off. The only comfort to him was leaving the blinds drawn so he could see the Koro-sensei constellation.
By the time it got to half past three in the morning, Isogai began to feel himself losing touch with reality. Shapes began to dance on the walls. They were shadows, illuminated by the bathroom light across the hall.
First the shadows were mere blobs, but they soon began to take shape. The 3-E building was on the far left wall. Isogai himself (Even shadow Isogai had antenna hair) and Kataoka would walk in first, when the sun was still low in the sky. Nagisa and Kayano would follow soon, distinguishable by their twin pigtails and how much shorter they were than everyone else. Okuda's braids swayed in the wind. The Terasaka gang- who else had the hulking figure- stopped to smell the flowers (maybe that actually once happened, who knows). It must have been Okajima who was being chased by several girls, carrying a camera. Karma would be the final one to come to school (Isogai thought he heard the bell ringing), it was clear who he was by the way he carried himself. After a full year seeing these people every day, you get familiar with all their subtleties.
Isogai could have sworn he saw knives fly across the room. Bullets were under his feet on the occasions he tried to get up. All shone green in the dim light.
And of course, there was Koro-sensei, with his mass of writhing tentacles. The little cap and gown. And his smile was visible in the dark. His shadow scurried across Isogai's room, threatening to wake his family up by making the paper thin walls shake.
Every time that happened, without fail, Isogai would sit up. It wasn't even something he actively thought to do, it was just an instinct, as if he couldn't not do it. And he'd say… something, to who he thought was Koro-sensei. But he never was conscious of it. He couldn't stop his mouth from opening, couldn't stop the words from coming out. It was like he was deaf for just a minute.
Was he imagining it? He thought he felt a soft squishy tentacle on his head. No pressure at all, as if it were floating. He thought he saw the outline of his favorite teacher, and was flooded by a sense of warmth and acceptance.
Then he blinked, and the sunlight bled in through the windows and the birds were chirping.
Those were the good nights.
On the bad ones, he was visited by no one. He was only haunted by his own thoughts.
Did we do the right thing?
The walls in his old dilapidated house creaked.
It was our assignment, sure, but couldn't we just give up and take the 'F'?
A thunderstorm roared outside his window.
Koro-sensei, aren't you there?
Some animal scurried across the roof.
Can I see you just one last time?
The incomprehensible noise of his alarm stopped those thoughts dead in their tracks.
Time for another day of the same old-
"Isogai? Isogai!?" He found himself being shaken by his boss, who seemed to be in a panic.
"Mr. Satou? I'm fine, I don't know what you're-"
"You were just passed in the sink."
It finally registered to the former class president that he was indeed leaning up against the bathroom sink. He had pains in his scalp, maybe he had hit his head on the nozzle.
"I was? Haha, I just didn't get any sleep last night." He hoped to be able to brush it off.
Mr. Satou was unimpressed. "Are you sick? Do you want to take the night off?"
Isogai was tempted to say yes for a sweet moment, but then remembered his sister's face when she came home from school crying because a classmate had bullied her about her old clothes.
"No, I'm fine."
I have to be strong. I can't walk out on an assignment.