sometime between the hour of Sleep and Awake he tiredly raised his head from his pillow. the warmth of his face still radiating from the cloth where his head had lain for so many hours beckoned him to come back to it. The cloth would caress him back into the lazy, grey clouded world of images and voices only really heard in earnest in a dream. Slowly, as his eyes blinked the muddled, blurry feelings of sleep away, he wondered what it was that had awoken him.
no sound poked its head from the darkness that enveloped each crevice and corner of the room, hidden away as it was from the light of the moon in the window by drab, dull curtains, too long since they were last dusted.
no movement made itself known. there was only the heavy silence that exists in the time before dawn, in a place where no light reaches through a door or window to chase away creatures and mutterings that frighten so many children. a silence not even broken by his own rhythmic breathing. this sound he was aware of, yet did not seem to register at all in the shadows that swallowed him. white noise of his own design, heard but never listened to.
He pulled his head away from the pillow, slowly, not wanting to disturb his body which remained under the warmth of the blanket spread over him. To disturb that would be to awaken fully, a feat not easily reversed once done in the unknown hours of the night or morning. he couldn't rightly decide which.
his eyes began to adjust to the din, shapes began to appear in the dark, if not from memory then from seeing them slip out of some deeper blackness to just make their presence known. he becomes aware of a harsh glare coming from near his head, casting an angry red pallour through the air.
the Clock. the Thing that will tell him where he is between Sleep and Awake. the Thing that stays ever silent, yet watchful. he turns his head, moving hi eyes with it to see the baleful look forever emblazoned on the plastic face that holds back the screaming red numbers.
the Clock casts no judgment on his state of half consciousness. it has seen it many times before this, and has never said anything other than stare unblinking into sleep deprived eyes.
the Clock would tell him When he was.
he squinted as he looked deep into the glare that shone off the luminous numbers. the brightness burst through the dark of the room, digital supernovas that all at once blinded and gave sight.
he had still not remembered what had awakened him, and the thought, still swirling in some far off cloudy thought, was troubling even if it was not at the surface of his mind.
the Clock would know. the Clock would tell.
but even as he looked, he knew something would keep it from him. the Clock would not say, nor would it tell him where he was between Sleep and Awake. the numbers had all but disappeared, and he stared at what flashed in their absence with dumb curiousity. he was still not awake enough to discard this as a trick of his eyes.
he looked at the Clock, and the Clock looked back.