The clock struck eleven o’clock. There was much to be done, the writer knew, but so little time to finish everything. She took a swig of her coffee, and it scalded her lips and tongue. She cursed bitterly under her breath. Her eyelids were heavy from lack of sleep, her ears buzzed with fatigue, her limbs felt heavy and stiff. She struggled to stay awake. “So this is what it feels”, she thought, “to not feel anything at all”.

The buzzing sound is what woke her. Then came the creaking of the door, and the clicking as it shut. She couldn’t tell, for a second, if she was only caught up in a dream. Her coffee had gone cold beside her. The light from her lamp flickered momentarily. She realized, feeling the stiffness in her neck from moving it out of its awkward position, that she surely could not be dreaming.

Who was there? They were gone by now, because she had heard the footsteps in the hallway fade away only minutes ago. And the clock kept ticking.

The panic seized her heart as she realized she only had fifteen minutes left. It sent a jolt through her, her fingers tingled. She could feel the adrenaline as it coursed its way from her head down through her veins. Her fingers fumbled for the pen. It was at the very far corner of the desk, dangling precariously over the edge. With the motion of her hand, it rolled off the desk, announcing its contact with the ground with a very loud thud that bounced off the walls, echoed down the corridor, and swam through every inch of her brain.

There was only 10 minutes left.

Who had walked down the hallway? Nevermind that, she had work to do. As long as they didn’t return, she would be all right. But as fear-stricken as she was, she could not concentrate on a thing. Her trembling hands could not write a word. All of the evidence of her fear was bore on that single piece of paper. She wanted to crumble it and start all over, but she knew it was no use. There was no time for that. 5 minutes, and counting.

In her mind, she heard the tapping of fingers on the keyboard. It could have been the clock ticking seconds away, or the sound of the rain against the windowpane. It reverberated through the hallways. The sound was deafening. She didn’t know what to do. And you, the Reader, read through each line with growing curiosity or intensity, wanting to know what will happen next. Who is this writer, and is someone pursuing her? Is what the writer experiencing real, or is it only the imaginings of a fatigued mind? What will happen, in these final five minutes, and how many pages will it take for us to finally reach the climax, or will it be a conclusion?

Your coffee grows cold on the bedside table beside you, you realize you have not moved your stiffened limbs for minutes – or maybe hours, your eyes are glued to each page, maybe you – yourself – are growing weary with fatigue. You are growing increasingly frustrated with this writer’s inability to just reveal the climax of this story, for all of the details to be revealed, so that you, the Reader, can finally find out what has been intriguing you for this long…. And so you read on….

It is too late. You glance up at your clock. Five minutes have passed.