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If you were suspicious about the aurora that started up a few days ago, it seems like you have good reason to be. Ever since they began, no one seems to be able to get a good night’s sleep. Fatigue is setting across the town, making people a little extra cranky. It’s a complete downer to the holiday cheer but no one seems to know what to do. There’s no sign that there’s anything supernatural about the aurora, but there’s certainly something odd about it. People lucky enough to even fall asleep only get to rest for a few moments before they are violently jostled awake by the sensation of falling through a rainbow of colors. Some worse off may suffer from the sensation of drowning beneath strange, rainbow colored water. People are passing out from fatigue and some people are suffering from strange vertigo. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
Even with thick curtains, soft music, diffused essential oils (claiming to be excellent for sleep) and a velvet mask over his eyes, nothing was providing Caleb any relief from the damned rainbow of bullshit flickering outside his window. For whatever reason, he couldn't find the sweet solace of sleep. Even his family members at the salon - two sisters and their mother - couldn't find relief ever since the auroras started. Lucia was especially cranky, having to act as receptionist while deprived of sleep. She was irritable and snappy, though the customers were no better. Everyone seemed incredibly disrupted by the auroras and their lack of sleep.
If and when Caleb managed to find a few moments of rest, he had the most vivid of dreams, free-falling through a rainbow hellscape of vertigo and nausea that would send him rocketing into alertness. Chest tightened and adrenaline pumping, sweat beaded on his brow, Caleb decided dreaming was a terrible idea and sought ways to sleep without having those terrible nightmares.
A call to Cerisse yielded a similar story - she, too, was having extreme difficulties sleeping and the two of them concluded the White Moon was behind this. Their sleep-deprived minds were perhaps more paranoid than usual with regards to their White Moon counterparts. At the end of the call, Caleb was certain this was some damnable White Moon campaign of sustained torture over the city as a whole. Really, it just proved the Negaverse's stance on the space invaders: they were toxic to the planet. Just look what they were doing! Planting this terrible aurora of pure evil to blanket the city with the hopes of torturing every single Negaverse agent without regard to whoever else they happened to hurt. Yes! It was like carpet-bombing and apartment for fleas without regard for whatever precious possessions were on your glass shelves and...
Caleb sighed to himself. We're not fleas... dear god that was a terrible metaphor...
It was then that an addled trip to the convenience store down the block was in order. Surely there were more chemical assistants to sleep that could circumvent this sustained terrorist effort against the city. Walking through the automatic doors, Caleb was greeted by several other people seeking the same relief. In the aisles of Walgreens, many over-the-counter sleep aids were sold out or on low stock. Snatching up a box of who the hell cares just have it knock me out, Caleb squinted at the warning label.
Ask your doctor if you have breathing problems such as asthma... something something... trouble urinating due to an enlarged prostate gland...
Clinically proven to help you fall asleep 23 minutes faster!
Dear god in heaven above, was this sweet relief!? Wait, how many can you take... what's the dosage on...
"Oh hell, what does it matter!?" The redhead spat and pinched the bridge of his nose. Everyone in the city was on edge anyway, so could he really be blamed? No, but he didn't want to look like a complete loon in the middle of the Walgreens sleep aid aisle, standing in between Unisom and seven different kinds of laxatives. What was life coming to? Time to pay for this and pray for sweet relief.
WC: 535
