Somniphobia – Jason Hayes
Jason paced the darkened room once more being mindful of the furniture so he did not walk into it as he alternated between having his hands clasped behind his back and having them on his neck rubbing at the imaginary knot that had seemed to settle there permanently as he fought against his body's exhaustion. He was beyond exhausted and with every lap of the small darkened room he could feel his body lagging further but he was intent on pushing through it because the last thing he wanted to do was sleep or even attempt to sleep.
His sleep had not been restful for days, the nightmares were constantly plaguing him and there seemed to be no escape from them, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught up in one of them again because that had left him breathless and terrified. It felt like every bad thing that had ever happened to him and those he cared for was being re-lived through his nightmares.
He looked up at the ceiling yet again before he bought his hands up to his face and scratched at the day's old scruff that he had left to grow knowing that he was not going to win the battle that was seemingly raging between his body and his mind but he was going to try and push himself so that he did not go to sleep, or at least not to the point where he could dream.
The fear that he felt when he thought of going to sleep was one that he had never experienced before. Sure he could recall when he was a lot younger and he could not go to sleep until his Mom had checked underneath the bed and in the closet for monsters but there had never been this pained and intense fear that now made its way through his body as it manifested itself into such a physical thing. He knew the toll that sleep deprivation could take on the human body, and he knew that his body had been pushed past its limits time and time again but he was going to do everything he could not to go to sleep because sleeping meant that the nightmares would plague him and would leave him terrified as he would wake up alone with no one to soothe him or to tell him it was just a nightmare.
He could only imagine how he looked, how dishevelled he appeared, after all almost everyone that knew him had asked if he had been sleeping and he gave them the brush off as much as he could but he could see it in their eyes that they did not believe him for a second. Hell, even Blackburn, had ordered him to go home and sleep and they weren't even on a mission or deployed.
With a sigh Jason left the darkness of his bedroom and made his way into the living room, turning on the lights as he went, and turned on the t.v. to the sports channel figuring old reruns of games from years ago were better than pacing in the dark thinking about how much he did not want to sleep for his fear of what it would bring.