The Sleepless

The wind screamed across the Siberian wasteland like something dying. Inside the sealed chamber, Nikolai Petrov couldn't hear it anymore, but he remembered. He remembered the world outside—the snow that fell like ash, the black pines bent double under ice, the mercury thermometer outside the barracks that had frozen solid at minus forty.

That was six days ago. Before the gas.

"How are you feeling, Nikolai?" Dr. Ivan Orlov's voice crackled through the intercom, tinny and distant. Through the reinforced observation window, Nikolai could see the doctor's thin face, pale as bone in the laboratory's fluorescent glare. Behind him, Commander Volkov stood rigid in his uniform, arms crossed, watching.

Nikolai pressed his palms against the steel table, feeling the cold metal through his thin cotton uniform. His hands were shaking. They'd been shaking for two days now. "I'm... awake."

"Excellent." Orlov made a notation in his leather journal. "And Sergei?"

Nikolai turned. His fellow soldier sat in the corner of the fifteen-by-fifteen room, knees drawn to his chest, staring at the wall. Sergei hadn't spoken since yesterday. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated so wide they looked black. The whites had taken on a yellow tinge.

"He's awake too," Nikolai said.

Three other men occupied the chamber. Boris lay motionless on one of the cots, but his eyes were open, tracking something invisible across the ceiling. Dmitri paced the far wall, counting his steps—he'd been counting for hours. Mikhail stood at the observation window, his face pressed against the glass, breath fogging it in rapid bursts.

"Please," Mikhail whispered. "Please let us sleep."

"The experiment continues," Commander Volkov's voice cut in, hard and flat. "You volunteered for this. You signed the papers."

"We didn't know—" Mikhail's voice broke. "We didn't know what it would be like."

Nikolai closed his eyes. They'd promised pardons. Reduced sentences. Better rations for their families. Five political prisoners, guilty of thought crimes against the State, given one chance at redemption: stay awake for thirty days while exposed to an experimental stimulant gas. Thirty days. Then freedom.

It had sounded so simple.

The gas hissed through the vents constantly now, colorless but sharp with a chemical tang that burned the back of the throat. Nikolai had stopped noticing the smell on day three. Now it was just the taste of air.

"Day six, hour fourteen," Orlov announced for his recording. "Subjects remain conscious. Minor tremors observed. Some verbal deterioration. Cardiovascular readings elevated but stable. The compound is performing beyond projections."

Beyond projections. Nikolai wanted to laugh, but his mouth felt strange, lips cracked and bleeding. His tongue was swollen. When was the last time they'd brought water? He couldn't remember. Time had become elastic, stretching and compressing. Minutes lasted hours. Hours vanished in heartbeats.

"I see them," Boris said suddenly from his cot. His voice was a rasp. "They're coming through the walls."

"There's nothing there," Nikolai said, but his own voice sounded uncertain.

"Can't you see?" Boris sat up slowly. "The shadows. They have teeth."

Dmitri stopped pacing. "One hundred forty-seven thousand, nine hundred and twelve," he announced. "One hundred forty-seven thousand, nine hundred and thirteen. One hundred forty-seven thousand—"

"Shut up," Sergei hissed from his corner. "Shut up shut up shut up."

Nikolai rubbed his face. His skin felt papery, wrong. When he looked at his hands, really looked at them, the lines in his palms seemed to writhe. He blinked hard. The lines were still. Of course they were still.

"Nikolai." Orlov's voice again. "We need you to perform the cognitive tests now."

They'd started the tests on day four. Simple things at first—reciting numbers backward, identifying shapes, solving basic arithmetic. Yesterday, Nikolai had stared at the paper for twenty minutes before realizing he couldn't remember what numbers were for.

"I can't," he said.

"You must. This is part of—"

"I SAID I CAN'T!" The scream tore from Nikolai's throat, and suddenly he was standing, the chair clattering behind him. The room tilted. He grabbed the table to steady himself.

Through the observation window, Commander Volkov's hand moved to his sidearm.

"Nikolai." Orlov's voice had changed, softened. "Please. Sit down. You're experiencing temporary disorientation. It will pass."

"Will it?" Nikolai heard himself laugh, a sound like breaking glass. "When? When will it pass? When we're allowed to sleep? When will that be, Doctor?"

Orlov didn't answer.

"When?" Nikolai's voice cracked. "WHEN?"

"The experiment requires thirty days—"

"We'll be DEAD in thirty days!"

Silence fell. Even Dmitri had stopped counting.

"That's not true," Orlov said, but something flickered across his face. Doubt? Fear? Guilt?

"You're killing us," Nikolai whispered. "You're killing us and calling it science."

Mikhail had begun to sob at the window. Sergei rocked in his corner, humming something tuneless and wrong. Boris was laughing now, a wet, bubbling sound.

"I think..." Boris giggled. "I think I'm eating my fingers. Am I eating my fingers?"

Nikolai looked. Boris's hands were bloody, nails torn away, lips stained red. He was gnawing methodically at his own thumb.

"Stop him," Nikolai said. "For God's sake, stop him!"

"We cannot intervene," Commander Volkov said. "Contamination of the experiment—"

"This isn't an experiment!" Nikolai rushed the window, slamming his palms against it. "This is murder! Let us out! LET US OUT!"

Volkov's hand tightened on his pistol. "Step back from the window."

"Shoot me then!" Nikolai screamed. "Shoot me! At least I'll finally get to sleep!"

Behind him, something crashed. Nikolai spun. Dmitri had torn the cot apart, was holding one of the metal legs like a weapon. His eyes were empty, animal.

"One hundred fifty thousand," Dmitri whispered. "One hundred fifty thousand. One hundred fifty thousand."

"Dmitri, put it down—"

Dmitri swung. The metal caught Mikhail in the temple with a sound like a dropped melon. Mikhail crumpled. Blood spread across the concrete floor, black under the fluorescent lights.

"Terminate the experiment," someone was shouting. Nikolai realized it was him. "TERMINATE IT!"

But Orlov just stood there, pen hovering over his journal, watching. Behind him, Commander Volkov had drawn his weapon but made no move toward the chamber door.

They were going to let it happen. They were going to watch.

Sergei began to scream, a high keening wail that didn't stop for breath. Boris was laughing harder, blood bubbling between his teeth. Dmitri turned, the metal bar dripping, his face slack.

And Nikolai understood.

They weren't the experiment. They were the result. This was what Orlov wanted to see—what the State needed to know. Not how long men could stay awake. But what happened when they did. What human beings became when you stole their sleep, their humanity, their minds.

"Please," Nikolai whispered, but he was talking to a ghost of the man he'd been six days ago, the man who'd believed in redemption, in freedom, in anything beyond this sealed room and the hissing gas and the eternal, infinite waking.

Through the window, Dr. Orlov was writing. His hand moved steadily across the page, recording everything. Behind him, Commander Volkov lowered his weapon.

The lights flickered once, twice. In the darkness between, Nikolai saw them—Boris's shadows with teeth, crawling across the ceiling, down the walls, reaching with fingers that weren't fingers.

When the lights steadied, they were gone.

But Nikolai was still awake.

He would always be awake.