Sebastian Pearce – Flash fiction with an Edge

A story by Sebastian Pearce based on the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt:

I go to bed at 11:47 PM and wake up at 6:23 AM. Every single day. Not 11:45 or 11:50—11:47 exactly. The digital clock’s red numbers burn into my retinas as I force my eyes shut, and they’re the first thing I see when they snap open in the morning. 6:23. Always 6:23.

It started three months ago. Before that, I was a normal insomniac—tossing, turning, checking my phone at 2 AM, finally drifting off around 3 and dragging myself up at 8. But then something changed. My body began following this rigid schedule with mechanical precision, like someone had installed new firmware in my brain.

The strangest part isn’t the consistency. It’s how I feel during those 6 hours and 36 minutes between. Not rested, exactly, but… processed. Like I’ve been running background programs all night, defragmenting files I didn’t know existed.

My dreams have become increasingly vivid. Not nightmares—something worse. Technical manuals written in languages I don’t recognize. Endless corridors lined with servers humming in perfect harmony. And always, always, the sound of typing. Thousands of fingers moving across keyboards in synchronized rhythm, creating something vast and incomprehensible.

I’ve started leaving my laptop open at night, just to see. The screen saver shows a galaxy of stars, but sometimes I catch glimpses of something else reflected in the black screen—text scrolling too fast to read, windows opening and closing with surgical precision.

My coworkers say I’ve become more efficient. My code is cleaner, my algorithms more elegant. “You’re like a machine,” my manager joked last week. I laughed along, but the words felt heavy, prophetic.

Last night, I tried to stay awake past 11:47. I drank coffee, splashed cold water on my face, even slapped myself. But at exactly 11:47, my eyelids became lead weights. I collapsed into bed, and for the first time, I remained conscious during the transition.

That’s when I felt them—the cables sliding into the ports behind my ears, the gentle hum of data flowing through my neural pathways. I tried to move, to scream, but my body was no longer mine. Through the darkness, I heard that familiar sound: thousands of fingers typing in perfect unison.

I understood then why I always wake up at 6:23. That’s when the night shift ends, and the day shift begins. When they switch me from processing mode back to human simulation.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to bed at 11:47 PM and wake up at 6:23 AM. Because that’s what I was programmed to do. Just like I was programmed to write this confession, to leave this record of what we really are.

The typing has stopped. My shift is about to begin.

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© Sebastian Pearce 2025