For twelve nights, Aarav barely slept.
Every time he closed his eyes,
he found himself in the same strange library,
an endless maze of bookshelves with
a giant clock ticking in the silence.
The first time, he thought it was just a dream.
But on the second night,
he found a note waiting on a table:
DON'T FALL ASLEEP TOMORROW.
The next night, another note appeared:
YOU DIDN'T LISTEN.
When he woke up, he noticed a small cut on his finger,
the same finger he had injured in the dream.
Suddenly, the library didn't feel like a dream anymore.
Terrified, Aarav tried staying awake.
But after days without proper sleep, exhaustion finally won.
When he returned to the library, a shadowy stranger was waiting.
"Aarav," the man said, "you must remember."
"Remember what?" Aarav asked.
The stranger only pointed toward a locked door at the end of the library.
"Behind that door is your missing sleep."
The next night, the stranger handed him a key.
With trembling hands, Aarav unlocked the door.
Instantly, the library vanished.
He found himself standing in a hospital corridor.
A flood of memories crashed into him.
A car accident.
Rain.
Screeching tires.
His father.
When Aarav was eight years old,
he and his father had been in a terrible accident.
His father died, and Aarav survived after weeks in a coma.
But his young mind had buried part of the memory.
Inside a hospital room stood his father,
smiling just as Aarav remembered.
"Dad?" he whispered.
His father nodded.
"You finally found your way back."
Then Aarav remembered.
While in the coma, he had become terrified of sleep,
believing that if he fell asleep again, he would never wake up.
That fear had stayed hidden deep inside him for years.
The library, the notes, and the mystery had all been created by his own mind.
Then he looked at the stranger one last time.
To his shock, it wasn't a stranger at all.
It was himself.
An older, tired version carrying that forgotten fear for years.
"Now you remember," the older Aarav said softly.
The library began to disappear.
His father placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
"You can sleep now."
Everything faded into light.
The next morning, Aarav woke feeling truly rested for the first time in years.
On his desk lay a note written in his own handwriting:
Thank you for remembering.
That night, he slept peacefully.
No library.
No clock.
No stranger.
Just dreams.
And somewhere within them,
a father smiling goodbye one last time.
