Click

The loud click awakened Adam with a start, and he looked in a frustrated, sleep-filled daze towards his Pikachu work alarm clock that was set to go off in 15 minutes.

Just enough time to not be worth going back to sleep.

OF COURSE

He shook his head, clearing it as best he could as he turned off the alarm and rolled dramatically off the end of the bed, bringing his blanket with him to wrap around his drained body as he wandered into the kitchen to get water for his dry throat, and coffee for his hazed mind.

The cool water ran refreshingly down, spilling slightly as he once again, this time, clearer and more distinctly heard a CLICK seemingly coming from behind him on his left.

What the hell?

It sounded almost like someone taking a sneaky picture, the whirl of a camera, but as he spun and scanned the small kitchenette that was also his living room, Adam couldn’t see anything out of order, though his house was admittedly more cluttered than normal with him working two jobs.

Pouring his quickly brewed coffee, he added enough creamer to cool it to sipping temp and proceeded to burn his mouth with two large gulps, resolving his mind must still be attempting to stay in dreamland with how hard it was for him to clear his brain fog.

The shadows on the walls caused by the darkness of early morning were somewhat ominous in the moment, and Adam shivered slightly as he looked away from them, focusing again on his coffee and pulling his blanket a little tighter around his shoulders as he headed back to his bedroom.

He usually tossed and turned, woke up multiple times to pee and lay awake pondering life, his anxiety making it impossible to fall asleep right away. The night before, however, had been the first one in months that he had slept like a baby. His pillowcase’s indented red marks on his cheek being even more proof of how deep a sleep he’d had.

He rubbed at his face in the large mirror on his bedroom wall as he dropped his blanket and reached for his clothes pile dumped next to his bag on the floor. He was not looking forward to another day at his crappy Fast food management job, and he wished he had more paid sick days as he got dressed, shaking out his crumpled uniform top and slacks. They were the same ones from the evening before’s closing shift at 10, which he had stuffed haphazardly into his backpack to take advantage of a few hours of drinking with buddies before heading home.

He attempted to remember the night before, but it was all a blur after his hazy memory of arriving at his favorite sports bar and grill, The Scrounger.

Shrugging to himself, he figured the fact he had woken up in his own house, on time for his morning shift, was a sign it had been a successful night. Especially if it had been the reason for his deep sleep, because if so, he’d need to do that more often.

Finally ready to go, he once again attempted to smooth the set in stone wrinkles in his top before once again shrugging in careless defeat and grabbing his car keys and jacket.

As Adam drove the 5 miles to work, he tried hard to again clear his mind, wondering if maybe he had taken something the night before with how difficult it was for him in the moment to shake the cloud from his head.

CLICK!

The sound made him jump, slightly swerving to the left as his heart raced and he looked around quickly before staring back to the road. That’d been louder and felt as though it had been right behind him, and while he saw nobody in the backseat through his rearview mirror, he couldn’t shake that creepy feeling that one got when someone was watching them.

Though who they were and why they would want to watch and take photos of Adam, had him baffled, and he felt silly in his anxiously muddled thoughts, figuring he must be having another crisis of some kind, maybe from lack of a healthy diet and sleep, maybe from his increasing anxiety issues.

Shifting in his seat and turning on the radio to blasting, Adam did his best to focus on the road, resolving to call his therapist and make an appointment as soon as possible.