Akiko yawned as she looked at her monitor. The storm had raged all night, and that window had kept coming open, no matter how she tried to seal it shut. She had kept dreaming of the snake, as well, and she didn’t feel that the sleep she had got had been very restful. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one with such a problem.

“Dreadful storm last night.â€ Satomi looked sleepy, and stifled a yawn as she sat down. “It kept waking me up.â€

Megumi looked up from her desk.

“I couldn’t hear it while I was in bed. Lucky me. But it was terrible, wasn’t it?â€

Akiko nodded her agreement, and, when she failed to stifle the yawn, quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

“You look even worse than I feel,â€ Satomi observed. Akiko nodded again.

“One of my windows kept coming open in the wind, so I had to keep getting up to close it. I feel like I hardly slept.â€ Satomi pulled a face.

“You want to get the landlord to look at that.â€ Akiko knew she was right, but her landlord was not renowned for fixing problems quickly. In addition, when she had looked in the morning, she couldn’t for the life of her find anything actually wrong with the catch. The window just should not have been coming open.

“Well, I guess I need to get on.â€ Akiko tried to focus on the screen as she said that, but the dull ache behind her eyes got worse, and she pressed her fingers to her temples in an attempt to ease it. Resting her head in her hands, she looked at the words on the screen, as meaning seemed to drain away from them, turning them into abstract patterns. She felt her head nodding forward, and quickly sat upright, reaching for the mouse.

A few minutes later, she had to support her head again, as she tried to work out what she was supposed to do with the numbers at the bottom of the report. It was a simple matter of copying them to other places, but her mind was moving too slowly, and she just couldn’t sort out which was supposed to go where.

Her head nodded forward, and she jerked it up, glancing at her coffee cup. Empty. She thought about going to refill it, but she really didn’t have the energy. Her eyes lost their focus as her head fell forward again.

The monitor went dark, as the energy saver kicked in, and the reflection of the office sprang into prominence. Tamao’s iridescent form rose up behind her, the fiery gems of his eyes boring into hers through the monitor. Akiko just stared at it. There was no giant snake in the office, she told herself. People would panic. I’m just falling asleep at my desk.

The surge of panic at that thought jolted her, and she lifted her head. The monitor screen was still blank, but the reflection was of nothing stranger than her colleagues going about their business behind her. Shaking her head in an attempt to get properly awake, she moved the mouse, bringing the figures back, and started work on copying them around.