Sleep had weight.
It pressed inward, dense and final, pinning Alex beneath it. His body lay slack on the bed, limbs heavy, breath shallow and uneven. The fan's uneven rhythm blurred into something distant, no longer sound so much as confirmation that the world still existed somewhere beyond him.
He did not dream.
Or if he did, the dreams never rose high enough to surface. They stayed buried—motion without image, direction without destination. The sense of being carried without effort. Without resistance.
Something disturbed the weight.
Not enough to wake him.
Pressure spread through the room, low and invasive, as if the air itself had thickened. The bedframe trembled faintly. The fan's rhythm stuttered once, then corrected.
Alex's fingers twitched.
Sleep closed over the movement and pulled him down again.
The pressure returned.
Stronger. Deeper.
Glass complained—a thin, brittle cry—just before the outer wall failed.
The impact was not gradual.
A cargo truck tore through the apartment's exterior, its grille and headlights punching through concrete and glass in a violent burst. Bricks shattered outward. Window frames folded inward. The front axle crushed the bed against the floor as if it had never been meant to hold weight at all.
Alex never woke.
The force collapsed the space above him in a single, catastrophic instant. Mattress, frame, and skull were driven together with decisive finality. There was no pain. No interruption. Sleep ended where the body did.
The truck did not stop.
It plowed through the room, engine screaming, tires shrieking uselessly against debris. The fan shattered into sparks. The desk split apart. The narrow walls peeled back, exposing wiring, pipes, and torn insulation to the open air.
Then the vehicle was gone.
What remained of the apartment sagged in its wake—one wall missing entirely, the ceiling split and hanging, dust drifting slowly through the space where a room had been.
The bed was no longer recognizable.
The body beneath it did not move.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Dust hung in the air, thick and pale, catching the light from the street below. Bits of plaster and insulation settled slowly, tapping against broken surfaces as they fell. A length of wire sparked once, twice, then went dark.
Somewhere nearby, a car alarm began to wail.
It was joined, moments later, by another.
Voices rose from the street—confused at first, then sharp with urgency. Footsteps pounded against pavement. Someone shouted a question. Someone else shouted an answer that didn't quite form into words.
Inside the ruined room, silence held.
It was heavy and unnatural, pressed flat against exposed concrete and splintered wood. Air moved through the open wall, carrying the smell of exhaust, dust, and something faintly metallic.
Alex was already gone.
Whatever had carried him forward did so without sound, without weight, without memory.
Below, people gathered.
Phones were lifted. Someone cried out a name that did not receive an answer. Emergency lights washed the building in pulses of red and blue, coloring the debris in alternating shades of warning and shadow.
The truck sat half a block away, steam hissing from its hood. The driver stood nearby, hands shaking, staring back toward the building as if unable to understand how distance had failed him.
Above it all, the night continued its slow descent.
Lights flicked on in neighboring apartments.
Televisions resumed their noise. Somewhere, a fan hummed steadily, uneven but persistent.
The world adjusted.
It always did.