I jolted up in bed and punched the mattress, accompanying it with a frustrated grunt. It had been another restless night and I was beginning to feel as if my existence was futile. The only reason I have to live was now to sleep, yet I could see the dust gently pirouetting in rays of sun that streamed through my curtains so I admitted the night a failure.

I got up and mindlessly lumbered over to my Apple Macbook, even though I knew it fruitless. I was unable to process much information in this state anyway but I felt it was my last remaining grip on the outside world. The piercing light of the screen penetrated my eyes as I lifted up the screen, though even this couldn't force them to close for more than a few seconds. I scanned the opened tabs and was reminded of the failed antidotes: Binaural beats, white noise, melatonin tables, rescue remedy. All had failed to shift my state into the rejuvenating embrace of dreams and nothingness.

As I swiftly closed the amalgamation of tabs, an unfamiliar site met my lifeless glare. Silk Road. "Ah yes, Silk Road," I thought "the online home of all things illicit." It was a site shrouded in secrecy, lurking in the Deep Web and accessible only via Tor, an anonymous network. I must've opened it up in my sleepless stupor, but I can't recall when. I scanned the page with as much interest as I could muster and gleaned that this user, 'Nightjar', was a slighty erratic chemist selling an experimental sleep drug he'd concocted in his home lab. It was called Sumnosaphate.

A few days passed before the nondescript package encroached my letter box, thought it didn't feel like that. By this point, time just vaguely meandered from one point to the next. I was sometimes unsure it was moving at all. It felt fatiguing just to open the bubble wrap envelope, but as it gave way a blank box tumbled into my lap. In it 12 pills lay wrapped in cling film, as well as a handwritten leaflet. It said the normal medicine mumbo jumbo: "Don't take with alcohol," "Don't operate machinery." The usual shit. A disclaimer at the bottom caught my eye, it had my signature there, stating that the anonymous concocter was not responsible for any undesirable outcomes. How did he even know who I was? I'd never signed anything. I was too tired to care. I popped two of the pill, got up and flicked the light switch, failing to realise it had been broken for days. I rolled my eyes at my own ignorance and slumped onto the mattress.

A man, clad in a white doctor's coat, shook me awake.