The sleepers

Chapter 3: routine

Millice above

Somniphobia.
The fear of sleeping.
I'm sure I'm not the only one in the institute who has this. I've slept for half my life, and I sure as hell have had enough of of it. So I spend my nights lying in bed staring at the roof, making coffee or eating my way through my problems. When daytime comes I layer foundation on my bags and do my best to make eyes look a little bloodshot as possible.
I have to look like I've slept well, if the clones catch a wiff of anything that could possibly be bad for our a-cells then BAM needle to the shoulder and lots of good healthy sleep for you!

Three days I have gone with no sleep, and I feel like the living dead. Currently I'm siting in a calculus class. Light chatter fills the class as one of the clones walk up and down the isles of desks handing out a double sided sheet. Sitting to my left is Zachary, he's tapping his pencil repeatedly, and his knee seems is bouncing in time with the pencil. As if feeling my gaze he turns his head around causing the top pair of glasses to bump into his other pair that were resting on his nose.
"Dammit" he props his glasses back up and leans in a little taking a closer look at me "you okay? I mean your looking a little -"
"I'm great" I widen my eyes as a hint for him to be quiet
He tilts his head to the side and scrunched his eyebrows together "Uh Lizzy your eyes are realllllyyyyy wide like uber wi-"
Sighing I rub my temples "no, Zac, I'm subtlety telling you, in the nicest way, to please shut up"
His brow raises and his mouth opens into a O, the clone passes handing Zac and I a sheet, and an awkward silence passes. Once she moves on we resume talking
"ahh right, duly noted" Zac grins sheepishly. Now that the clone has passed out the sheets and left the room, the quiet chatter grows louder and people start shuffling desks closer to friends. Zachary slides his desk closer to mine and we begin the sheet.

At 12:15 the clone comes back into the room and dismisses the class. Standing up I stretch in arms and legs , swiping my sheet of the desk I hand it to the clone as we pass her on the way out.

"LIZZY! ZACHARY!" a singsong voice call out our names for across the just as we exit the class. People surrounding the voice stumble forward as she pushes her way forward. Millice falls into step beside us and beams a smile ,
"You caught up in classes yet Liz?"
I sigh "I had to get Zach to help me with pretty much the entire sheet"
"Aw, well you could just drop it and join drama with me" Millice gives Zachary a playful shove "your the smartest of us all now eh?"
"I like to think I always was" he grins.
A voice speaks up from behind me "as long as I'm the best looking" an arm flops onto my shoulder and Felix appears at my side.
"Oi what class were you just in?" I nudge his side
"Lock picking"
"Wait that's a thing?"
"Yep" he pops the p and pushes open the door to the cafeteria letting us all in.

The cafeteria is the only place inside the institute that doesn't smell like it has been sterilised. It's a large white marble room, and long French windows where the sunlight enters. Round tables are dotted throughout the room and most are filled with people chatting. Eying the que for food I grab Felix's arm and our group makes its way to the line.

Compared to Felix's tray mine seems modest, his is tittering with food, and an apple piled at the top looks like it's about to fall. Not a moment later I see it take its last wobble and plumet to nearly all the way to the ground until a hand swipes it out of midair.
"What's up fam" Chaerin, the "vampire" who had taken my blood tests the other day, bites into the apple and pops it back onto his tray, "mind if I walk and talk?"
Millice nods "we were just making our way over"
"Well it's not much news, but we've got your blood results back and they look pretty good nothing unusual but we wanna send them over to you commies" she nods at me and Zachary "so you guys can look into them a little better"
"Fine by us" I smile at Zachary.