The Girl Who Forgot How to Sleep

The Girl Who Forgot How to Sleep

By Hasnain Shah

The first night it happened, Mira thought it was just exhaustion.

She had fallen asleep on her couch after a long shift at the café, the television humming faintly in the background. But when she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t in her living room. She was standing in a wheat field glowing silver under the moon, the air too sharp and too perfect to be real. A child ran past her, laughing, a kite trailing behind him in impossible loops that cut across the stars.

Mira blinked, disoriented, then noticed the man watching her from the edge of the field. He smiled, raised a hand, and said, “You’re early.”

Before she could answer, the world dissolved.

She woke up gasping on her couch, the TV still murmuring, her heart hammering as though she’d run miles. She told herself it was a dream — a weird one, but nothing more. Everyone had strange dreams sometimes.

But the second night, and the third, and the tenth, it kept happening.

Every time Mira closed her eyes, she woke up somewhere new — in someone else’s dream. Sometimes she was in an endless library where books whispered her name. Other times, she wandered through city streets with no faces, no sounds, just the faint scent of rain. Once she found herself in a classroom where every student was her reflection, staring back with tired, sleepless eyes.

When she woke each morning, her body ached with exhaustion. Her coffee intake doubled. Her coworkers began to notice the dark half-moons beneath her eyes.

“Insomnia?” her friend Lila asked one morning, handing her a croissant.

Mira forced a laugh. “Something like that.”

She stopped telling people about the dreams when they started looking at her with concern. Who would believe her, anyway?

But one pattern kept her awake even when she wanted to rest — the man from the field.

He began appearing in other dreams. Sometimes he was in the background: a stranger at a café table, a driver in a passing car, a shadow on the stairway. Always watching. Always smiling faintly, like they shared a secret she couldn’t remember.

The night she finally confronted him, the dream was set in a train station filled with fog.

“Why do you keep following me?” she demanded, her voice echoing strangely. The man stepped closer, the mist curling around his shoes.

“I’m not following,” he said softly. “You keep finding me.”

She shook her head. “Whose dream is this?”

He smiled, tilting his head. “Does it matter?”

Mira turned to leave, but the station doors were gone. The walls pulsed faintly, as if alive.

“Wake up,” she whispered, slapping her own cheek. Nothing happened.

“Wake up,” louder this time — panic tightening her throat.

He was closer now. His eyes were a color she couldn’t name — deep, endless, familiar.

“You can’t wake up,” he murmured. “Not from this one.”

When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in her apartment.

She was lying on a bed in a room she didn’t recognize — ornate wallpaper, a soft ticking clock, a smell of lavender and dust. She sat up, dizzy, and went to the window.

Outside was the same wheat field, silver and endless.

Her pulse thudded in her ears. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”

The man was sitting in a chair by the bed now, calm as ever. “It’s safer here,” he said. “You don’t need to keep wandering.”

“What did you do to me?” Mira demanded. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to wake up!”

He stood and approached, hands gentle but firm. “You’ve been so tired,” he said. “All those restless minds pulling you in different directions. Every dreamer wanting a piece of you. Stay here. With me. Sleep.”

The word sleep felt strange in her ears — like something from a language she had forgotten.

She backed away until her spine hit the wall. “This isn’t real,” she said. “You’re just another dream.”

He smiled. “Then why can’t you wake up?”

Mira doesn’t know how long she’s been in the field now. Sometimes she still hears whispers from other dreams — echoes bleeding through the edges: a train whistle, a turning page, a distant laugh. She runs toward them, hoping one will pull her free, but the man always finds her before she can reach the border.

He calls her name softly, like a lullaby.

She never sleeps anymore. Not really. She only closes her eyes and waits for the next dream — or for the moment she finally forgets what waking up ever felt like.