It begins not with nightfall, but with the awareness of night. The slow surrender of day does not soothe—it accuses. The ceiling wears the color of ash-glazed pearl and the walls sigh in gentle empathy. You lie still, not dreaming, observing your own failure to fall asleep. Sleep does not evade you—it forgets you. As if your name were lost from some divine roll call of the drowsy. Thirty hours have passed since you last surrendered to slumber. Yet no yawn, no drift, no mercy.