He had to be going insane, or so John had thought the past few .. days? Weeks, even?

There was no other explanation for what was happening to him, around him — in the midsts of the dark nights when he slept, as much as within the broad light of the day when the base was shuffling with life of the soldiers.

The only time this phenomenon, these strange occurrences, stopped was when the man was out on an assignment or another mission. Which, for him, in any case, was the best scenario.

At least at those moments he’d get some sleep.

But these small moments at the base — they crept under his skin like a bug, and he swore that the occasional flicker of the light in his office was the doing of his team, or the way his cabinet door would slowly open when he was up late.

Then there was the giggling of his blankets whenever he slept in the barracks, the creaking of the floorboards.

And he swore to Gods it was someone from his team playing mind games on the old man, considering he was all and exhausted from the amount of work he’d been assigned lately.

It had to be, or there was something wrong with his brain. Hallucinations, maybe?

Or sheer exhaustion.

After a while of yelling at his team first thing in the morning, making the men account for each minute they spent outside their rooms, going as far as to question people that wouldn’t even come near his office or, even more so, his room unless it was completely necessary.

And nothing ; no one could connect the stupid dots in his head that kept him up at night like the man was genuinely going nuts, and maybe it was the exhaustion and the fact that even the base therapist gave the man no answers, he began thinking.

A funny thought, it was. A sign of him finally falling into the deep depths of insanity — maybe it was something supernatural.

It was a lingering thought in the back of his head even now, in the dark of the night, as he laid in the uncomfortable bed with the blanket clutched in his fists for dear life.