//------------------------------//
// Auxiliary Story D. 
// Story: THIS IS A STORY 
// by _NAME_ 
//------------------------------//


The stallion was wide awake, and it was the middle of the night.

He had been trying to fall asleep for the past five hours or so, but no matter what he did, he stayed firmly in the waking world.

It was almost four o'clock in the morning now, and he had to get up in three hours to get ready for work, which he was not at all looking forward to at the current moment.

Sighing loudly, he rolled over onto his side for what felt like the hundredth time that night, stuck a foreleg under his pillow, and tried to get somewhat comfortable.

A minute passed by, yet no sleep came.

He pulled the covers tighter around him, and shifted one of his hooves around slightly.

And some more minutes passed.

Still, he was awake.

The stallion flipped back onto his back and opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling in exasperation.

It was endlessly frustrating to him to not be able to fall asleep when he wanted to, especially considering that he had never had a difficult time falling asleep before, and that there wasn't anything particularly worrisome or stressful going on in his life that could be keeping him awake.

He didn't have the slightest idea as to why he was having so much trouble getting to sleep on this night.

Grunting in anger, he kicked the covers off of his body and sat up in bed, breathing deeply, his eyes darting around the darkened room, looking at nothing in particular, before finally settling on the clock on his bedside table.

Only about ten minutes had passed by since he had looked at it last, though it had felt like much, much longer to him.

And so the stallion fell back down into the bed, defeated and downtrodden, wishing nothing more than to be able to fall asleep.

But he was not that lucky.

He stared up at his ceiling the rest of the night, right up until the morning sunlight broke through his window and his alarm went off, ushering in the next day.