Chapter 1

It was 2:17 AM when her phone lit up, its blinding glow piercing the dark room.

Luna Fletcher buried her face in her pillow with a frustrated groan. "Great, wide awake again."

Flipping onto her back, she stared at the familiar crack running across the ceiling. That made it 108 sleepless nights in a row.

The irony was thick. Luna was a popular ASMR sleep streamer with three million followers. Her audio series, Lights Out with Luna, had racked up over a hundred million streams.

Yet here she was, unable to catch some Zs herself. It would be the ultimate scandal if her fans ever found out.

A sudden ping cut through the silence.

Her phone lit up with a push notification: [Alert: A 2 AM Solace Vending Machine is active in your area. Exclusive to the sleepless souls. Distance: 150 feet.]

Luna squinted at the text. "Scammers are really working overtime tonight. Who uses creepy urban legend bait at two in the morning?"

She tried to swipe it away, but the banner clung to her screen like stubborn malware that wouldn't close.

"Fine, let's see what kind of scam this is," she muttered.

Grabbing her "Dead Inside" hoodie, Luna slid into her slippers and headed out. A crisp breeze bit at her skin.

Down at the corner, Aldo Cook's food truck was still cranking out smoke. The man was zoned out, staring blankly at a double bacon cheeseburger sizzling on the grill.

Following her phone's GPS, Luna stopped in front of a vending machine.

She had walked past this rusty box by the bus stop a million times. Normally, it held cheap bottled water and canned coffee. Tonight, though, something was wrong.

A soft, cozy light glowed from the usually dirty glass. Text flashed across the tiny screen: [Good evening, sleepless soul. Please pick your Solace.]

The drinks were gone. In their place sat rows of clean white boxes, numbered from 01 to 24.

A small label sat beneath each box.

[Solace 01: For the nights when everyone else is asleep and you feel left behind. Reminder: You aren't.]

[Solace 07: For the moments your boss screams at you and you can't fight back. Contains: One guilt-free, virtual clapback. No risk to your job.]

[Solace 13: For the brokenhearted in desperate need of a good cry. Warning: Contains non-toxic tear gas.]

[Solace 24: The Ultimate Solace. For the moments when words aren't enough.]

Luna's mouth twitched. "What the heck?"

She pulled out her phone to post this weird setup on her Insta story, but a voice popped out of the shadows. "Don't bother, because it scrambles the camera."

Luna jumped and almost dropped her phone.

She whipped around to see a young man in a grey mechanic's jumpsuit. He was crouching by the base of the machine and tapping a screwdriver against his palm.

The guy was cute, but he treated eye contact like a disease. He stared at the metal casing, the pavement, his shoelaces—anywhere but her face.

Luna crossed her arms over her chest. "Who are you?"

"I'm Silas Rowland," he muttered, gesturing toward the machine. "I fix these things.

"This one's been glitching out lately, booting up in the middle of the night and peddling all this weird stuff. I've been staking it out for a few nights to catch whatever is triggering it."

"Wait, so it really is alive?" Luna asked.

Silas finally looked her way, though his eyes locked firmly onto the empty space above her shoulder. "Not alive. Just... buggy code. I think."

"Then do your job and fix it," Luna shot back.

Silas rubbed the back of his neck. "I've tried. Swapped the motherboard, wiped the whole system, and even rebuilt it from scratch. Nothing works.

"Between two and four in the morning, it turns itself on and strictly sells to people who can't sleep."

Luna gave him a suspicious look. "Are you just a paid actor for this thing? Is this some weird street scam?"

That actually got Silas to look her right in the eye, though it only lasted for a fraction of a second.

His ears turned beet red as he scrambled to look away. "I don't run scams. I'm just better at talking to machines than people."

Digging into a pocket, he pulled out an ID badge. The plastic showed he was a senior tech for Nightowl Automated Retail, and he had been on the payroll for eight years.

Luna snorted with a laugh. "Eight years fixing vending machines? You really prefer metal boxes over people?"

Silas dodged the question and pointed at the glowing screen. "You gonna try it? Might as well since you made it all the way out here."

Luna thought it over, then brought her phone near the payment scanner. The display changed, asking for a selection.

She hesitated for a second before punching in the code for Solace 07, the one for snapping back at her boss.

A heavy clatter broke the quiet as a small white box tumbled down into the metal tray.

Luna reached through the flap to grab the package and pulled the lid off.

She found a folded piece of paper and a bright yellow rubber duck sitting inside.

The note read, "Feel free to scream every bad word you know at this duck. Your secrets are safe. Give it a hard squeeze when you finish, and your bad mood will be collected."

"This is stupid," Luna muttered.

But as she complained, she was already death-gripping the rubber toy.

Her mind instantly flashed back to that afternoon. She pictured her boss tossing her proposal across the desk like a piece of junk mail, that punchable look on his face.

"You absolute prick," she growled, strangling the toy. "I pulled three all-nighters for that project!

"You skimmed it for thirty seconds and called it trash? You're a useless hack who can't even format a PDF without my help!"

The toy shrieked under the pressure.

Silas stood off to the side, watching her meltdown in stunned silence.

She kept at it for a few minutes until her voice finally started to crack. Catching her breath, she gave the rubber duck one last, hard squeeze.

With a choked quack, the duck spat something into her palm. It was a strawberry hard candy.

Luna froze. The little wrapper was strangely warm. She peeled it open and popped the candy into her mouth, letting the sweet strawberry flavor melt over her tongue.

Then she caught sight of the note again. There was more writing on the back.

It read, "Congrats. Your bad mood has been collected. Enjoy a little sugar on us. Tomorrow will be better."

Luna stared at the tiny words. Her throat felt tight, and her eyes began to sting.

'Damn it,' she thought. 'It's been three months since I sat awake at 2 AM eating candy to cope. No. It's been three whole years since anyone cared enough to offer me one.'

Looking up, she caught Silas peeking at her. He managed to keep eye contact for a solid two seconds before he panicked and looked away.

"This machine," Luna began, her voice rough. "Who programmed it?"

"No idea," Silas replied. "But I bet whoever did really gets what it feels like to be awake when everyone else is asleep."

The street stayed quiet for a moment.

"You said you've been staking this thing out for nights," Luna pointed out. "Don't you ever sleep?"

Silas paused, looking down as he gathered his tools. "I work the graveyard shift. My whole job is fixing broken machines after midnight."

He grabbed his toolbox and started down the street. A few yards away, he stopped.

Instead of turning around, he mumbled to the empty street. "Hey. Solace 01 is actually pretty good. Try it next time you're stuck awake."

Then he hurried off into the shadows, disappearing down the block.

Luna stood there alone, thumbing the plastic wrapper.

Down at the corner, Aldo leaned out of his food truck and shouted over to her. "Hey, kid, stop flirting with the vending machine.

"Come get a burger and warm up. Trust me, melted cheese will never break your heart like a guy will!"

Luna couldn't help but laugh.

She turned back to the vending machine right as a fresh message scrolled across the glowing screen: [Goodnight, Luna. See you tomorrow.]

Luna froze. "How does it know my name?"