Flash Fiction, December 2025
Semi-Finalist, NYC Midnight Scary Story Challenge 2025-2026

Synopsis: Desperate, a young man enters an unusual contest to secure funding and care for his comatose lover.

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Desperation’s lucrative, especially when the heart’s involved. Mine’s named Billy.

We were the fastest friends two boys could be. Later, we were young men with a mighty need to touch each other. Facing “God’s wrath” was one thing. Facing our families, laid bare in our “sin”, was another. For me, it was brushing dirt off a chipped shoulder. For Billy, it was an oak tree and sturdy rope.

Billy’s been in this bed since, going on seventeen months, all ventilators and feeding tubes. They’re part of him; extended limbs of an unwilling body. Extra limbs don’t come cheap, though. Not without insurance, a village, or hope.

But ‘hope’ is what they offered me and eight others. Nine of us, all going broke, all desperate to wake the dead. The conditions were simple: sacrifice sleep for cash. Emerging clinical trials. Better doctors, better hospitals. Better limbs. Last one standing – last one sleepless – gets it all.

A representative, young and well-rested, met me in the cafeteria. She handed over paperwork and a cold coffee.

“Each contender receives an implant, neural or cardio-vascular. Yours will signal if you sleep for more than 120 seconds.”

“And Billy’s?”

She pulled a sheet from the stack, much denser with smaller print.

“If you’re eliminated–” She paused.

“If you fall asleep, Billy’s administers lethal shocks. He won’t feel it. It’s quick, painless.”

She said it benignly, like it was nothing. Easy. Ordinary.

“Painless for who, exactly?”

But I signed. I was already accustomed to sleeplessness. Hospital chairs aren’t known for their comfort. She chuckled a little, calling it “inadvertent training”. I called her a cunt behind my cup.

Next came the implant. The doctor didn’t warn me before slicing into the back of my neck. I cussed through all the pain and the stitches after. The bump left behind was small, but dense. Heavy, too, like shouldering a casket.

So far, five have been eliminated. I don’t feel for them when their failures become flatlines. Billy’s barely twenty. Those other bastards had their turns. That’s what keeps me going; not the excess coffee and Red Bull. Not the blaring television or buzzing fluorescents. It’s just Billy and the life he still deserves. The life we do.

But as his respirator hums its cruel and steady lullaby, my eyes close. 

It’s only for a few seconds, I swear that’s all, when Billy’s hand clamps shut around mine.