You collapse onto your bed and shut your eyes. For a moment, you drift, then your mind snaps back. Your body is exhausted, but your thoughts race. You peek at your phone’s screen. **00:13** You groan into your pillow. If you don’t sleep now, you’ll miss the early train. You already have one lateness strike this month. One more, and your salary takes a hit. But how can you sleep with all this *excitement*, this *danger*, swirling in your head? The paranoia sets in: *What if you can’t sleep at all?* A lose-lose. Your mind circles back to Isabella and the intern. Maybe she was onto something. What if the key was there, waiting in her posts? What if you miss it by sleeping? Your phone buzzes, one last notification. You ignore it. Tomorrow’s problems can wait. But Mango’s patience won’t. But then there is the firm itself. You are yet to do any reading about it. Deep down in your mind, you feel like you did not have time, a daring need to act and act fast encapsulates you. In an instance, you spring up from bed and reach underneath your bed to grab a bottle. You waddle up from bed to switch on the light. No more drinking, you whisper in your head as you stare down the bottle. It is still perfectly sealed, you had purchased it earlier that week when you were feeling low but somehow you fought through the need to drink it. You won't let any progress stall you now. You are nearly a year sober. You intend it to stay that way. You reach for your drawer and take out a smoke instead. You want to quit this too but sometimes the pressure gets too heavy and the voices get too loud. You take a long draw and fall back into your seat, rebooting your laptop. At least I did not drink, you pat yourself on the back. You stare at your screen and decide your next course of action. [[Cybercrime/The_Phisherman/Keep diving deeper into the intern's post|Keep diving deeper into the intern's post]] [[Research Blackridge - Intro|Research Blackridge]] *You feel your eyes closing, your body making the decision your mind refuses to. You don't care anymore. Not tonight.* [[Next Day|Give up and sleep]]