As he heard the lights in the hallway flicker, Francisco had no way of knowing he would never sleep again.

He was no stranger to sleepless nights. He'd lost count of the times he had seen the sun rise while nursing an energy drink, with ringing ears, a burning stomach, and stale breath as his only companions for the long day ahead. Other times, as one deadline or another crept closer, he had elected to sacrifice his bed for the creaking of his office chair. There were others, of course--a starlit sky, and the warmth of his wife's hand as the waves crashed, rhythmic, and foamed, chaotic, against the sand. That night at the hospital. The living room, the denim couch.

Now Francisco no longer had the luxury of picking his sleepless nights, or even having them picked for him. His prime was far behind him. While once he had prided himself on sleeping like a rock, now he often found himself jolting awake at the smallest sound, or disturbed by the dimmest light. His exhausted body refused to shut down. His heart raced and he lay in bed, feeling his life pass him by, one breath at a time. It ate at him.

"To hell with this," he muttered under his breath, and opened his eyes at last. The room was dark, but as his eyes slowly adapted, a faint figure emerged from the gloom. After the first shiver, he thought it to be a shirt draped over a chair, then he remembered he kept no chairs in his room.

"Good morning, Francisco," said the figure, and from the voice, Francisco knew before him stood an old man, and that the old man was smiling--and sure enough, as if willed into existence, the shadows further defined themselves into a frail and crooked figure with more wrinkles than teeth.

"Good morning, Francisco," the old man repeated.

Francisco reached for the light switch. With a click, light invaded the room, and the figure was gone.

A cloud descended on his mind. His legs grew weak, his skin pale. His innards twisted with nausea, his mouth filled with saliva, and he lurched forward, but nothing but a gasp came out. Francisco stared at the empty corner, afraid to blink, until the light started burning his eyes.

He switched it off, and the old man stared back at him through a pair of spectacles.

"Who the hell are you?"

The old man shrugged.

"What are you doing here?"

The old man took off his spectacles and began wiping them with the hem of his shirt. "Watching."

"Watching what?"

"Watching whom."

The old man rose to his feet, and the top of his head scraped the ceiling. His bony limbs cracked into place, bending in all the right directions. His fingers carefully placed the spectacles back onto his nose, splayed out, then curled like the legs of a dead spider. After that he said nothing else, just watched, watched and smiled until Francisco turned the lights on again--and found himself alone once more.

This time, though, Francisco knew it was different. There were eyes on him. He stumbled to the kitchen and there were eyes on him. He closed the blinds and locked the doors and they only bore deeper into the back of his skull. He checked the corridor--empty, the bathroom, empty, his bedroom, empty, but he dared not approach the light switch, because he knew. He looked at that corner, and every corner, and he knew there were eyes on him.

The hours bled by and he lay on the worn denim couch, eyes closed, willing himself into solitude, but the lights were too bright, and the sounds were too loud, and he wasn’t alone in any room--and as the daylight hours came and went, and came and went, Francisco's body grew weary and his mind numb. Lines of thought faded into the ether no matter how much he grasped at them, and eventually, once his mind could no longer even fathom the concept of self-preservation, he stood up.

The top of his head scratched the top of the doorway, and he stepped into a bedroom that wasn't his own anymore. He reached for the light switch. He did not hesitate.

"Good morning, Francisco."

"Good morning," he said.