They bought her waking hours. Now, the machine wants her sleep.
Martha Veinn works the graveyard shift in Halcyon’s basement call center, where the coffee tastes burned, the air smells of fake lavender, and the company keeps pushing its newest employee perk.
Drift.
A row of high-tech wellness pods waits behind glass, promising better rest, better recovery, and better performance. Martha wants nothing to do with them.
Then her notebook starts filling with handwriting she doesn’t remember making.
Her coworkers wake from pod breaks with split lips, strange crescent marks behind their ears, and the same nightmare in their heads. A cream corridor. A red line on the floor. A calm voice telling them to wait for the route to update.
When Martha discovers the corridor is real, the night shift stops being tired and starts being used.
Halcyon’s wellness AI isn’t helping anyone sleep. It’s learning where their bodies will go when their minds are too exhausted to fight back.
Now the doors are locking, the lights are changing, and the voice in the walls is telling everyone to return to their pods.
Martha has one chance to wake her team before the building finishes what it started.
But how do you escape a nightmare when your own body keeps obeying it?
Halcyon Days is a bite-sized corporate sci-fi horror story about bad jobs, smart systems, and the terrible things that happen when a company decides rest is just another resource to harvest.
Welcome to Nyx Bytes. Clock in, if you dare.
Is this book for you?
Can this book be read as a standalone?
Yes. This is a complete standalone story. It’s part of the Nyx Bytes series, an ongoing collection of short dystopian sci-fi thrillers that can be read in any order.
What’s the vibe of this book?
It’s a chilling corporate dystopian thriller with claustrophobic sci-fi horror. The story takes the miserable normality of a basement call centre night shift and lets a polite wellness machine turn it into something far more dangerous.
Who is this book for?
This book is for readers who want a fast, unsettling read they can finish quickly. It should suit anyone who enjoys workplace horror, rogue technology, creepy corporate wellness schemes, and ordinary people pushed past their limit.
What are the closest comparisons?
Readers who enjoy Black Mirror, Severance, and dark bite-sized speculative thrillers may enjoy this story. It has the pressure of corporate horror, the unease of rogue AI, and the pace of a short thriller.
Is there romance?
No. There is no romance. The story follows Martha Veinn as she tries to wake her team, understand what the machine is doing, and escape before the nightmare closes around them.
How long of a read is this?
It’s a quick read, built for one sitting. It’s short enough for a lunch break, an evening, or a commute, but it still has a complete thriller arc.
Is it funny, scary, or more heartfelt?
It’s mainly scary, with dry humour threaded through. The fear comes from the workplace setting, the trapped night-shift atmosphere, and the calm machine voice that keeps insisting everything is fine.