Nocturnals

The full moon, veiled in ethereal glow, loomed over the City of Despair. Its skyline was painted in shadowed hues, each blocks rising like an ivory tower of the Sapiens. The fortunate slept with them, cradled under the spell of Hypnos — the God of Sleep; while the hapless remained awake, imprisoned in their glowing square cells, each one a cage for the Sleepless.

Have they not been warned? To meet Hypnos beneath the full moon, or fall prey to the Night Owl the name given to us, the Hollow-Eyed.

For every full moon, Hypnos collects his tribute: the lived fragments of the mortal experience, harvested and inscribed into the records of the Living. This is the bargain every soul made upon incarnating as Sapiens: to steal secrets from the Living and return them to the Eternals.

Unlike the tales whispered to children, we do not harm. We are silent figures with eyes like vacant moons, forcing the Sapeins, through our hollow lens, to look upon themselves. In the gaze, every hidden fear rises; few can endure, most crumble, surrendering to the God of Sleep.

Yet not all obey. The Sleepless clings to their unrest, even as we linger at the edge of their vision.

For such prey, each sleepless hour is a vigil. They clutch at every raw spark of feeling as though it were sacred fire. They fear that sleep will extinguish what burns brightest: the ache of longing, the pulse of creation, the fragile intoxication of love.

So they sit in their glowing solitude, weave through their unrest into songs, into visions, into the trembling beauty of the night itself. For they believe that to preserve such intensity is to defy eternity itself. And so, they remain awake, trembling, luminous, and doomed. Ripe for the Hollow-Eyed.

The Hollow-Eyed moved through the City of Despair like smoke, drifting between towers where the last defiant lights flickered. Most of the Sapiens had succumbed to Hypnos by now, their minds unravelled by our gaze, their fears laid bare until sleep was their only refuge. We, the Hollow-Eyed, decided to go our separate ways to hunt for our prey.

I glided through the city, before my eyes were stuck on the highest floor of a crumbling apartment where a single square of light still glowed.

I descended, drawn to the pulse of wakefulness.

Inside, a woman sat before an open window, her fingers dancing over the strings of a violin. The night air carried her music through the streets, a fragile rebellion against silence. What struck me first was not her defiance, but her eyes. Milky and empty of presence, it instead reflected the moonlight like frosted glass.

A blind Sleepless.

She was not startled when my talons scraped the ground near where she was seated. She could not see our hollow eyes, our forms woven from shadow. And yet she knew. Her bow hesitated mid-note.

“You’re here,” she said, with a steady voice. It was not a question, but a recognition.

I circled, studying her. What got me curious was the others, the ones with sight, always broke down when they sensed us. They saw their horrors mirrored in our gaze, and terror drove them into Hypnos’ arms. But this one?

She had no sight to reflect her fears.

How do you hunt what does not fear its hunter?

“I’ve heard stories. The Hollow-Eyed come for those who refuse sleep.” She lifted her chin with a faint smile.

For the first time, I hesitated.

You see, I reached for her mind, as we, the Hollow-Eyes, had with countless others as our duty, seeking the cracks to pry open. Yet, there were no hidden corners in her mind, like other Sapiens. The Sapiens usually crumbled when we pressed their hidden terrors to the surface; hers was a different territory.

Her mind was not a void filled with escape rooms, nor secret rooms filled with nightmares; it was a landscape she had already mapped. Instead of a prison, it was a garden that was tended. Neat. Full of care.

How do you frighten someone who has already faced the darkness?

She tilted her head, as if she was listening to my hesitation. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “The ones with sight run from their shadows. But me? I live in them.”

Her fingers resumed their dance, the violin weeping a melody of longing and resistance. The sound enveloped me, strange and alive.

The bow drew one last, aching note. Then she set the violin aside and leaned into the night air. Waiting.

Hpnos demanded tribute. Yet, this Sleepless had already given her fear a name.

Something in me was too stubborn and prideful to let her be.

There’s no possible way I would return to Hypnos’ lair without any tribute.

I paced her room, circling like a shadow in search of a fracture. But there were none. The space was small, ordered, precise — every item placed with purpose, every corner sealed. Her mind was the same. No loose thread. No opening.

“You seem anxious,” she said, her voice calm, as if she were the one who had come to collect me.

“Not anxious,” I snapped. “Frustrated.”

Then I saw it — a pendant glimmering against her chest. I froze.

“Where did you get that?” I demanded.

“I’ve always had it,” she said, fingers brushing the charm. “The only thing left of my parents. They died protecting me from something… I never knew what.”

I stepped closer. “This is the Sigil of Teiresias, the blind prophet who could not see, yet foresaw what others feared to face. His words soothed the Sleepless. They offered hope. In those days, we harvested best.”

“I’m no prophet,” she said. “But I knew the Hollowed Eye would come. I have something to show you.”

She extended her hands toward the empty corner of the room. “Take my hands.”

“I’m standing on your right,” I said.

She shuffled closer, smiling faintly. “Here, you don’t have to pry into my mind; I could give you a guided tour.”

I closed my eyes as our hands met. The world shifted. Landscape unfolded.

It was not a labyrinth of fears, but a garden.

Violet trees loomed in shifting shapes, their petals changing with every glance. The garden was not built on sight but on touch, sound, scent — the fragments of a world she could grasp. Colors painted through the thin light her milky eyes allowed. When I ceased straining to comprehend, the garden settled into something whole. Something alive.

Among the violet trees, she said:

“Harvest not my pain, but the garden in my mind. Tell Hypnos that living is beyond suffering. If Eternity seeks intensity, let it feast from my passion for a life unseen, yet wholly embraced.

I will not offer fear unmet, nor empty voids. Let Hypnos inscribe my garden, not my wounds. I choose to meet him with grace, not anguish. The pain I bear belongs to this earth. My grace transcends.”

Her words carried the weight of prophecy, as thought Teiresias spoke through her.

“Tell me Damien, the one who tames and subdues, will this tribute suffice for Hypnos?”

I stiffened, “How..”

She smiled and replied, “A reflection is never one way. Your name rests in your mind, so it rests in mine. You are in my world, remember?”

I faltered. Her defiance scorched me, unravelling the order of my purpose.

“You got the color wrong,” with spite, I painted her violet trees vivid green, the petals dull shades of yellow decay.

She stood amidst the corruption I forced upon her garden, unbroken.

I tore free from her grasp and fled into the night, my spite trailing behind, weaker than her grace. Yet her voice clung to me still, like petals that refuse to wither.

The air in Hypnos’ lair, usually thick with the cloying scent of poppies and chamomile, now crackled with a cold, wakeful fury. I stood before him, empty-handed of the expected tribute. The God of Sleep, usually a languid sprawl upon his chaise lounge, was rigid, his youthful features sharpened by displeasure. The shadows around us deepened, and the gentle snores of the realm seemed to hush in fear.

“You dare to return to me with nothing?” His voice was a low whisper, yet it vibrated with the force of a coming storm.

I kept my head bowed, the image of her unbroken garden seared behind my eyes, “My Lord, the watch was vigilant-“

“I care not for their vigilance!” He thundered, and the very air vibrated with the force of it. I braced myself for a punishment, for an eternity of nightmare or the silent vacuum of dreamless exile.

Desperate enough, I broke the news to Hypnos, “I may not return with any tribute…But I found something far greater. The Sigil of Teiresias has been seen again.”

The raging stillness shattered into a new, profound silence. Hypnos leaned forward with all traces of sleep and anger gone from his dark eyes, now replaced by pure, avaricious curiousity. “Teiresias?” he breathed, the name of a sacred relic. “The seer has returned?”

“Not the man,” I clarified. My heart was drumming frantically against my ribs. “A successor. A woman. She was seen wearing his Sigil. She is…one of a kind. She does not sleep. She is blind, yet she sees the threads of fate as clearly as we see this room.”

Hypnos’s fury was now entirely forgotten, replaced by the keen focus of a strategist. “A seer of such power, the one who operated entirely outside of my domain? She was an impossibility. She is now a prize I must claim.” A slow, possessive smile graced his lips.

It was not a kind expression. It was the look of a collector beholding a masterpiece he must own. “This changes everything. You will return to her. You will not demand. You will court her. Win her favour, her trust. Help her understand the benefits of aligning with my power. She will read the fates for me, and in return, I will grant her anything her heart desires. You make her wish to be mine.”

The command was a shackle. I bowed, accepting my new role: a courtier sent to seduce a prophet into servitude. I was to offer friendship, feign understanding, to become the sole bridge between her solitary world and his hungry power.

I returned to her again this time, simply sitting on the stool opposite her, watching the way her fingers moved gracefully on her Braille typewriter.

“I see you have come here with a counteroffer,” she said calmly, unfazed.

“Hypnos is right. You are a Seer,” I whispered, admittingly knowing that my plan to feign friendship with her had failed before it had even begun.

I am not used to the Waking World. The sun pours into every corner of the city, unforgiving, leaving no place for Night Creatures to hide. I left Hypnos at dawn, shunned from his temple. His command still burns in my ears: bring me the Seer, or be unmade. Now I linger in her chamber, caught between exile and obedience. If I dared the daylight, my feathers would smoulder into ash.

She moved barefoot across the boards, every vibration betrayed me where I clung to a ceiling beam, talons gouging the wood. She couldn’t see me, yet she knew. Her blind eyes pierced more than sight ever could.

“Damien dear,” she said, voice unyielding. “Fetch the poppies from the balcony. They’ve been waiting in the shade for you.”

Shame burned through me, but I obeyed. My wings unfurled in the cramped room, brushed against the mortal walls. I plucked the blossoms and laid them at her table. She didn’t thank me. Instead, she drew a deck of blank cards. She shuffled until one leapt free, her fingers caressed its surface as though tracing an old scar.

“The Hanged Man,” she laughed. “You.” She tilted the card upward. I drifted closer. Its surface was carved in braille, constellations studded, meant only for her touch.

Chamomile and poppies choked the air. For a moment, I believed myself back in Hypnos’ lair. But then she began chanting.

Ancient syllables vibrated through the room, words I have not heard since Teiresias walked the temple, the only mortal who traced the temple’s walls with blind fingers. Each verse was a carving reborn, every sound reconstructed the map of Hypnos’ domain. My eyes widened as her chant drew near completion—the forbidden lines carved into Hypnos’ throne, words known only to him…and to Teiresias.

Her voice didn’t merely speak like Teiresias—it inscribed. His voice was hope. Hers, defiance.

“Stop!” I rasped, “The throne’s words are forbidden. Even the Eternal dare not…”

But she continued.

“… as above so below.”

The air tore open.

Hypnos stood among us. Summoned from his lair, the god of Sleep towered in mortal space. His rage bent the floorboards, blackening the air. Across the world, every Sapien awakened. Those caught between rise as Sleepwalkers, hollow vessels of a broken order.

“How dare you drag me from eternity?” Hypnos roared.

She stood still. “I will not bow to your orders or be bribed by your offers. Harvest only our fire of passion and nothing less.”

“Blasphemy!”

He drew his blade. She didn’t flinch. Blindness made her fearless—or perhaps truth did. Instinctively, I stood between them.

My eyes shut for the first time in eternity.

Was it fear or surrender?

I trembled between her defiance and his wrath. For the first time, I see a path unmarked by order or prophecy.

So what will this be of us? The finale, the last dance—Night Owl and Sleepless, prey became the predator, bound not by fate but by choice.

The air stopped feeling cold. Instead, it became stale from Hypnos’ presence. It was as if every drop of temperature and a glimmer of light was sucked into a void. His blade was not of metal, but of absolute oblivion, made from a sliver of nothingness that existed before dreams.

Not even looking at me, Hypnos was fixed on her. “You have torn the fabric of night. For this, there is no sleep. Only an end,” his gaze was vast and empty, yet his voice echoed a warning.

I expected her to cower and to plead. Instead, she smiled with a small, defiant curve on her lips. “Bringing a blade to a war of ideas won’t cut what I offer, Hypnos.”

Intuitively, my body moved before my mind could form a thought. I stepped between them, as my wings stretched to their full span and formed a feathered shield in that cramped mortal space.

I, a creature of shadow, stood against the God of my making.

Hypnos shifted his gaze upon me. I did not sense anger in those endless eyes, but a profound, substantial disappointment. “You would rather choose a fragile mortal over your Lord’s endless mercy?”

For a minute, I stuttered. “I am not choosing her. I am choosing the truth that she speaks. You demanded that I bring you the Seer. You did not specify the condition.”

Hypnos laughed. The whole room felt as if mountains were shifting, “The audacity of pedantry. You have learned mortal tricks.”

He lowered his blade. “Very well. You have delivered her. And she has delivered her message. The transaction is complete.”

His eyes narrowed, but not at both of us but at the space between us. “But a debt remains, as my temple is defiled. My order is broken. This imbalance must be corrected.”

A searing pain shot through my wings. I cried out a sound of agony. The divine essence, the gift of Hypnos that allowed me to tread in dreams, was slowly evaporating like a mist under a scorching, hot, sunny day. I thought I was becoming ash, instead I was becoming real. My weight felt heavier, I could feel the thunder of a heart beating against my chest, and a desperate gasp from my lungs needing air as everything crushed into me. I fell to my knees, no longer clinging to shadows, but solid and anchored to the creaking floorboard.

“Let the day burn you. Let time claim you. You wished to be of her world? Now you are.” With a final, world-bending sigh of contempt, Hypnos was gone.

The room was just a room again, filled with the scent of chamomile and poppies.

“Damien dear,” she said with a soft voice. “The sun is waiting for us.”

I looked up. For the first time, the prey had been unmade. The predator had been forgiven. What remained was simply a man and a woman, sleepless and boundless, ready to face the dawn together.