The bell above the door of the Oddities Shop tinkled softly as Dorian Vale stumbled in, the sound cutting through the silence like a knife. Outside, the city slept, but inside this curious establishment, time seemed to move by different rules. Dust motes danced in shafts of amber light that shouldn't exist at this hour, and shadows pooled in corners where they had no business gathering.
Dorian's reflection caught in an antique mirror—a ghastly sight. Hollow eyes sunk deep in their sockets, skin stretched taut over cheekbones, dark hair wild and unkempt. His fingers twitched with exhaustion as he clutched his leather satchel, knuckles white. Thirteen days. Thirteen days since he'd last closed his eyes and found peace.
From behind the counter, Mr. Nox watched with quiet amusement. He was a slender man with silver-streaked hair that seemed to catch light from sources unseen. His eyes—were they blue? Green? Gray?—shifted color in the dim shop as he closed the ledger before him with a gentle thud.
"Welcome," Nox murmured, tapping long fingers against the worn leather cover. "I don't often get customers at this hour." His lips curved into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Or perhaps... for you, there is no such thing as an hour anymore?"
Dorian flinched as if struck. How could this stranger know?
"I need something to let me sleep," he said, voice cracking from disuse. He hadn't spoken to another soul in days. The university had given him leave when his lectures became increasingly scattered, when students complained he would trail off mid-sentence, eyes fixed on empty corners of the lecture hall.
Mr. Nox tilted his head, studying Dorian with an unsettling intensity. "Or do you fear what comes with it?"
The question hung in the air between them. Dorian's mouth went dry. This wasn't how transactions usually began. He'd expected skepticism, perhaps mockery—not this immediate, uncomfortable insight.
"How did you find my shop, Mr. Vale?" Nox asked, moving out from behind the counter with a fluid grace that made Dorian wonder if the man's feet touched the ground at all.
"I don't—" Dorian hesitated. How had he found this place? His memories of the night were fragmented. Walking the streets. The desperate need to find relief. Then... the door. "Someone mentioned it. A colleague, perhaps."
"Ah," said Mr. Nox, clearly unconvinced. "The desperate always find their way here, one way or another."
Dorian swallowed hard. "Can you help me?"
"That depends," Nox replied, "on what exactly keeps you from sleep."
The words tumbled out before Dorian could stop them. "I have not slept in thirteen days." His hands trembled as he ran them through his disheveled hair. "My mind won't shut off—it's not dreams, not nightmares. It's something... else."
Mr. Nox waited, patient as the grave.
"I see too much," Dorian confessed, the admission painful in his throat. "Even when I close my eyes, I... hear things. Feel things. As if the world refuses to let me rest." He laughed, a harsh sound like breaking glass. "I'm a scholar. I've dedicated my life to knowledge, to understanding the patterns others miss. And now... now I can't stop seeing them. Everywhere. In everything."
"The curse of the observant," Mr. Nox hummed in thought. "Come."
He led Dorian past shelves lined with eerie artifacts that seemed to defy categorization. A clock missing its hands, its face displaying symbols instead of numbers. A candle that burned with no wick, flame hovering an inch above the wax. A book bound in material Dorian couldn't identify, pages rustling though no breeze stirred the air, whispering in what sounded like a dead language.
Dorian would normally have stopped to examine each item, to catalog and question and theorize. But tonight, he followed like a man possessed, desperate for the promise of relief.
Mr. Nox stopped before a glass case positioned near the back of the shop. Inside sat a small vial of what appeared to be black sand. Unlike ordinary sand, it swirled as if caught in an invisible current, particles rising and falling in hypnotic patterns.
"The Sand of the Forgotten Night," Mr. Nox explained, his voice taking on a rhythmic quality that made Dorian's exhausted mind drift. "Scatter this over your pillow, and you will sleep—dreamless, undisturbed."
Dorian reached for it with trembling fingers, but Mr. Nox placed a hand over his. The shopkeeper's skin was cool and dry, like paper left too long in the sun.
"Be warned," Mr. Nox said, eyes locking with Dorian's. "Some minds do not wake the same."
A warning. Some distant part of Dorian's brain—the scholar, the skeptic, the man who'd built his career on careful analysis—registered this as significant. But thirteen days without sleep had eroded his caution to nothing.
"I'll take it," he said, fishing in his pocket for his wallet. "Whatever the cost."
Mr. Nox smiled, a thin curve of lips that revealed nothing. "Oh, the price has already been accounted for, Mr. Vale."
Before Dorian could question this cryptic statement, the vial was in his hand, cool against his palm. He clutched it like a drowning man might clutch at driftwood.
"Thank you," he whispered, already turning to leave.
"Sweet dreams," Mr. Nox called after him, but Dorian was already gone, the bell tinkling in his wake.
The journey home passed in a blur. Dorian lived in a modest apartment near the university, books stacked in precarious towers against every wall. Pages of notes covered most surfaces, his research on ancient mythological patterns spilling across tables and chairs.
He fumbled with his keys, finally managing to unlock the door on the third try. Inside, he didn't bother turning on the lights. He knew the layout by heart, could navigate the narrow paths between his paper kingdoms even in his current state.
In his bedroom, Dorian stared at the vial, watching the black sand swirl inside its glass prison. It moved with purpose, as if alive, as if aware. Any other time, he would have studied it, documented its properties, questioned its origin.
Now, he simply uncorked it.
The scent that escaped was unexpected—not unpleasant, but impossible to place. It reminded him of snow on empty streets, of spaces between stars, of the moment before music begins.
With shaking hands, he upended the vial over his pillow. The black sand scattered across the white pillowcase, continuing to move in sinuous patterns even after it left the glass. It seemed to absorb the dim light from his bedside lamp, creating a void in the shape of his pillow.
Dorian didn't undress. He simply collapsed onto the bed, his face pressing against the pillow, inhaling that strange, indefinable scent as the black sand shifted beneath his cheek.
For one terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then the world began to fade, edges blurring, sounds dampening. His racing thoughts, the incessant pattern-recognition that had kept him awake for thirteen endless days, began to slow.
His last conscious thought was a vague wonder at what Mr. Nox had meant when he said the price had already been accounted for.
Then, nothing.
No dreams. No thoughts. Just... silence.
Dorian woke to sunlight streaming through curtains he didn't remember opening. He blinked, disoriented, as consciousness returned in slow waves.
He had slept. After thirteen days of torturous wakefulness, he had finally, blessedly slept.
He sat up, running a hand through his hair. His body felt lighter, almost hollow, as if something substantial had been removed during the night. The incessant buzzing in his mind—the connections and patterns that had overwhelmed him for weeks—was gone.
He felt... free.
Smiling for what felt like the first time in months, Dorian swung his legs over the side of the bed. His gaze fell on the pillow, but there was no trace of the black sand. Just a faint, dark stain in the shape of his head where he had lain.
He needed to document this experience. Rising, he moved to his desk where his research journal lay open, pen placed precisely at the center of the page where he'd left it before his desperate journey to the Oddities Shop.
Picking up the pen, he began to write: "After thirteen days without sleep, I finally found relief through—"
He stopped, pen hovering over the page. Through what? He frowned, trying to remember the name of the substance he'd used. The Sand of... the Sand of...
The name slipped through his mind like water through cupped hands.
Annoyed, Dorian flipped back through the journal, certain he must have made notes about his intention to seek help. But as he scanned the previous entries, something strange caught his eye.
Entire sections of his research—gone.
Not physically removed. The pages were intact. But where detailed analyses of mythological patterns had been, he now found blank spaces. Dates, facts, even the names of books he'd read blurred into nothingness when he tried to recall them.
Panic rising in his throat, Dorian flipped frantically through the journal. More gaps. More blank spaces where knowledge should be.
He dropped the journal and rushed to his bookshelf, pulling down a volume he knew by heart—"Comparative Mythology in Ancient Civilizations." He'd read it so many times the spine had cracked, had filled the margins with his own observations.
Opening it, he found the text intact, his own handwriting still visible in the margins. But as he read the words, they slipped from his mind the moment his eyes moved past them. It was like trying to hold onto smoke.
"No," he whispered, letting the book fall from nerveless fingers. "No, no, no."
He grabbed another book, then another, experiencing the same phenomenon with each. The knowledge was there, visible, tangible—but his mind could no longer retain it.
Dorian staggered to the bathroom, suddenly needing to see his reflection. The mirror showed a man he barely recognized. The hollows under his eyes had filled, the twitching in his hands had stilled. He looked healthier than he had in weeks.
But his eyes were different. The keen intelligence, the restless curiosity that had driven him his entire academic career—dimmed, as if a light had been switched off behind them.
The vial. He needed to find the vial.
Rushing back to the bedroom, Dorian searched frantically for any trace of the black sand or its container. Nothing. Not even a glass shard or a single grain remained.
The Oddities Shop. He had to go back.
Without bothering to change clothes, Dorian grabbed his keys and fled the apartment.
The streets looked different in daylight, and Dorian realized with growing horror that he couldn't remember exactly where the Oddities Shop was located. He wandered for hours, turning down side streets and alleyways that seemed vaguely familiar, only to find dead ends or ordinary storefronts.
The panic that had been simmering since morning reached a full boil by late afternoon. How could he have forgotten? He never forgot anything—it was his gift, his curse, the very foundation of his academic success.
Just as despair threatened to overwhelm him, Dorian turned a corner and froze. There it was—the shop's weathered sign swinging gently in a breeze he couldn't feel. "ODDITIES" painted in faded gold letters that seemed to shimmer and reshape themselves when viewed from the corner of the eye.
He rushed forward, pushing the door open with enough force to send the bell into a frantic jangling that echoed through the shop.
Mr. Nox was already waiting, silver-streaked hair catching the dim light as he flipped through the ledger. He didn't look up at Dorian's entrance.
"Ah," he mused, turning a page with deliberate slowness, "I did wonder how long it would take."
Dorian stomped to the counter, rage and fear making his hands shake. He reached into his pocket and pulled out... nothing. The vial. Where was the vial?
"Looking for this?" Mr. Nox held up the small glass container, empty now but for a single grain of black sand that continued to swirl as if caught in its own private storm.
Dorian snatched it and slammed it on the counter. "What did you do to me?!" His voice cracked, higher than he intended.
Mr. Nox lifted the vial delicately, holding it up to the light. "You asked to sleep. I merely... quieted the thoughts that kept you awake."
"You erased my knowledge," Dorian hissed, leaning across the counter. "Years of research, gone. I can't remember—I can't—" He broke off, chest heaving with emotion.
"Not all of it," Mr. Nox corrected, setting the vial down with a gentle clink. "Only the parts that weighed too heavily." He tilted his head, studying Dorian with those color-shifting eyes. "Tell me, did you sleep well?"
Dorian's breath trembled. "Give it back."
"Your knowledge?"
"Yes! Whatever you took from me—my research, my understanding—I need it back!"
Mr. Nox sighed, as if disappointed. "You scholars. Always so eager for wisdom, yet never prepared for its burden." He moved from behind the counter with that same unsettling grace Dorian had noticed the night before. "Come."
Against his better judgment, Dorian followed once more, deeper into the shop than he remembered going before. The artifacts on the shelves seemed to watch him pass, the whispering book falling silent as if listening to their footsteps.
Mr. Nox stopped before a tall shelf lined with glass containers of various shapes and sizes. He gestured toward a jar positioned at eye level, filled with what appeared to be swirling black mist.
"Your sleepless nights? They're all in there," Mr. Nox explained, his voice oddly gentle. "Every question, every theory, every thought that refused to let you rest."
Dorian stared at the jar, mesmerized. Inside, the black mist shifted and coalesced into almost-recognizable shapes—a diagram here, a line of text there, fragments of the knowledge he'd lost.
"My research," he whispered, reaching for it.
Mr. Nox caught his wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong for someone so slender.
"Be careful," he warned, "for knowledge does not return as it left. A mind too full is as cursed as a mind too empty."
Dorian tried to pull away, but Mr. Nox held firm.
"Listen to me, Mr. Vale. I am offering you a choice." With his free hand, he indicated the jar of swirling mist. "You can drink this, reclaim your stolen knowledge... but risk never sleeping again. The patterns, the connections, the insights that tormented you—they will return tenfold. Your mind will become a labyrinth from which there is no escape."
He released Dorian's wrist and gestured toward the door. "Or you can leave as you are now, free of the burdens that haunted you—but forever incomplete. A scholar with gaps in his understanding. A man who knows he has forgotten something vital, but can never quite grasp what it was."
"That's no choice at all," Dorian said bitterly.
"Isn't it?" Mr. Nox countered. "Before you came to me, you were willing to pay any price for sleep. Now you've had it, and you're willing to pay any price to return to the state you were so desperate to escape."
Dorian had no answer to that.
Mr. Nox lifted the jar from the shelf, holding it out. The black mist inside seemed to press against the glass, as if eager to escape. "The choice is yours, Mr. Vale. But choose carefully. I rarely offer my customers a second chance."
Dorian stared at the swirling mist, feeling the weight of his own emptiness. Inside that jar was everything he'd lost—his life's work, the connections that had made him special, the insights that had earned him respect in academic circles.
But he also remembered the torment of those thirteen sleepless days. The feeling that his mind was eating itself alive, that the patterns were consuming him from the inside out. The absolute, crushing certainty that if he didn't sleep soon, he would lose his sanity entirely.
He reached out for the jar, fingers trembling... then stopped.
With a shuddering breath, he stepped back. "No. I... I can't live like that again."
Something flickered in Mr. Nox's eyes—surprise, perhaps, or approval. He returned the jar to the shelf with a nod.
"A rare decision, Mr. Vale," he murmured. "Most would rather suffer than accept what they have lost."
Dorian looked at the jar one last time, watching as the mist inside seemed to settle, as if disappointed. "What happens to it now? My knowledge?"
Mr. Nox smiled, just slightly. "Nothing is ever truly lost. It simply... finds its way to those who need it more."
"And who needs my research on mythological patterns more than me?" Dorian asked, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
"That," said Mr. Nox, "is not for you to know anymore." He gestured toward the front of the shop. "The hour grows late, Mr. Vale. Perhaps it's time you returned home. After all, you can sleep now."
Dorian nodded, suddenly exhausted despite having slept better than he had in weeks. As he turned to leave, a question occurred to him.
"You said last night that the price had already been accounted for. What did you mean?"
Mr. Nox's smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed just slightly too sharp. "You paid in advance, Mr. Vale. With the very thing you came back to reclaim."
"But how could you know what I would choose to give up?"
"I didn't," Mr. Nox admitted. "The Sand of the Forgotten Night takes what keeps the sleeper awake. For some, it's memories of love lost. For others, it's trauma or guilt or fear." He tilted his head, studying Dorian with those shifting eyes. "For you, it was knowledge. The very thing you treasured most became your tormentor."
Dorian had no response to that painful truth. With a final nod to Mr. Nox, he made his way back through the shop and out the door.
The bell tinkled softly behind him as he stepped into the gathering dusk. By the time he reached the end of the block, he'd already forgotten why he'd gone into that odd little shop in the first place. Something about sleep? A remedy for insomnia?
Whatever it was, it didn't matter now. He felt lighter than he had in years, unburdened by... something. The specifics slipped away like sand through fingers, leaving only a vague sense of relief in their wake.
Dorian Vale returned to his apartment, to his books and his notes, to the gaps in his research that he would never quite be able to fill. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he wasn't troubled by what he didn't know.
Mr. Nox watched from the doorway as Dorian Vale's figure receded into the evening shadows. The man's shoulders were slumped, but his step was lighter than it had been when he'd first stumbled into the Oddities Shop.
When the scholar was out of sight, Nox turned back to his ledger, which lay open on the counter. A new name had appeared on the page, ink bleeding across the parchment as if written by an invisible hand: Dorian Vale.
Next to the name, a single word: Knowledge.
"He'll be back," Mr. Nox mused, tracing the name with his fingertip. The ink smudged slightly under his touch, but the name remained clear, indelible.
On the shelf behind him, the jar containing Dorian's stolen knowledge whispered softly, black mist swirling with restless energy. Patterns formed and dissolved—diagrams, symbols, fragments of text in languages long dead—a testament to the brilliance that had nearly driven its owner mad.
Mr. Nox moved to the shelf, lifting the jar with gentle hands. "Patience," he murmured to the mist inside. "You'll find a new home soon enough. Someone hungry for insight, desperate for understanding."
He set the jar back in its place among dozens of others, each containing something different—memories, emotions, secrets, dreams—all taken as payment from customers who had come seeking relief from their own private torments.
The ledger on the counter flipped its pages in a nonexistent breeze, settling on a blank space waiting to be filled. Mr. Nox smiled at the sight.
"After all," he said to the empty shop as he moved to turn the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, "the sleepless never stay away for long."