GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE BOY WHO COULDN’T SLEEP

I hadn’t really slept since we moved into the house on Church Street, even though I finally had my own room.

I mean, I slept a little, but not a deep sleep. Not dreamless sleep—the kind that washes over you and leaves you feeling whole in the morning. Every night felt like being buried alive in cotton—suffocating in slowness, dragged into a paralyzed fog where I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, but something could touch me. And every morning, I woke weaker. Like I’d run a marathon in my dreams. Like something fed off me while I lay helpless.