Don't Sleep

Snow flakes fall against the nights sky on a small town bereft of life surrounded by a pine forest. A few of the flakes reveal themselves to be tiny balls of light that randomly veer to their right of left at will. Tom and Becky, a young couple, tired and dirty flee through a pine forest in fear of pursuit by a light in the far distance. When it disappears, they halt to gain their breath and talk in hushed tones about a “man”. A scream and reappearance of the light sends them fleeing back through the forest. Later, free from pursuit once again they take rest, Becky undoes her coat to reveal her four-month pregnant belly. When her eyes droop closed a new fear strikes her and she slaps herself until Tom intervenes, highlighting the rope burns around their wrists. The two trudge through the forest again until they discover the cabin they were hoping to find. It’s all boarded up from the inside. Tom goes closer to investigate to find no light or sound emanates from within. When he glances back, the awaiting Becky he expects is gone. He rushes to find her asleep on the ground. In a panic he tries to wake her, at his wits end, slaps her awake. The fear of sleep pervades them both. As Tom tries to surreptitiously break in through the cabin’s window, an accidental noise brings the “man” in a sprint and his light to their location. At the last second, Tom and Becky scramble through the window and use the broken down board to block the “man” from following. The “man’s” eye are a blinding bright light. Tom uses a meat mallet to bash the “man’s” head in, quelling the light that had ruined his eyes. Tom shaken, put on a brave face and they find two bedroom doors. One adorned with a sign that reads “Sally’s room” decorated in girly stickers. Inside, only a single bed and toy box. They turn the other bedroom door, this one stuck until Tom gives it a good shoulder barge – the smell of death assaults them. The door barred and sealed from the inside, Tom gets it open enough to see a woman’s corpse, wrist cut. Smeared on the walls in blood: “Don’t sleep”, “Sleep alone” and “Don’t let the light in”. Tom persuades Becky to take the free bedroom and he’ll take on the sofa against her protestations. He’ll bind with hands and feet with rope. He writes her a note that seems to help calm her and she enters the bedroom. She slides the bed against the door to block it and falls asleep with the note and a knife before her head hits the pillow. A tiny orb of light hard to differentiate from the snow flakes drifts down. In a sudden motion it changes direction towards the cabin and the bedroom Becky sleeps in. As it falls, it passes through the roof and seems set to descend into her pregnant belly but veers, at the last second, to her head. Beck wakes outside the bedroom on the floor. Her ears ring and her vision is whitewashed. She can barely make out the blood that seeps from behind her former bedroom door. In a panic she heaves against it to discover Tom dead with the note he wrote and the kitchen knife buried in his chest. She rushes out to the kitchen area with the note and retches over the sink in sobs. She slides to the floor, defeated, unable to face the world and birth without Tom. However, she reads the note and it brings her strength. She stands. Becky collects supplies from the cabin and heads out. Discovers the small grave of Sally and nearly breaks again but peers up to the bright clear sky instead. Unaware, her pregnant belly glows.