I’m still buzzing, or maybe it’s just the cheap coffee I chugged to stay awake after… everything. I landed in this city with my last twenty quid, hoping for some kind of a break, some quiet after weeks of hostels that felt more like sardine cans, and I thought, okay, this one looked decent online, and the pictures showed actual space between the beds, not just one cot crammed against another, and I was so tired from the overnight bus, I swear my bones felt like they were vibrating even before I stepped off, but I just needed a bed, any bed, and some sleep. And the dormitory itself was fine, clean enough, with those little curtain things on the bunks that promise privacy but deliver only a false sense of it, like a cheap blindfold, and I just wanted to disappear inside my own head, for a few hours, just to not think about the bills stacking up back home, and the phone calls I was ignoring, and the fact that this whole trip felt less like an adventure and more like a desperate, expensive escape that was running out of steam faster than my phone battery. I set my alarm for early, thinking I’d get up before anyone, grab some free breakfast, and just get out, find a cheap park bench, something. But then the morning came, and it was less a gentle waking and more like being poked with a stick. Someone was tapping my bed frame, and another voice, all clipped and cold, was saying, “Mate, are you even aware of how loud you were?” And I pushed back the curtain, and there they all were, four of them, stood around like some kind of jury, all with sleep-deprived eyes and tight mouths, and one girl, her hair a mess like mine, just shook her head and said, “We didn’t get a wink, not a single wink,” and the shame hit me like a physical blow, a hot wave spreading up my neck and into my face, and I could feel my ears burning, and all I wanted was to crawl under the mattress and just cease to exist. And I mumbled something, I don't even remember what, probably some incoherent apology, and then another guy, big shoulders and a scowl, just said, “It sounded like a dying whale, for hours, just constant, how can anyone sleep through that?” And I felt the blood drain from my face, and I wanted to tell them about the tiny room I grew up in, sharing a wall with my dad who snored like a freight train, and how I always promised myself I’d never be like that, never be *that* person who kept everyone else awake, but the words just wouldn’t come out, they felt stuck somewhere in my throat, tangled with all the embarrassment and the anger at myself for being so utterly, utterly useless. So I just packed my bag, shoving everything in with a kind of furious haste, and I avoided their eyes, not even daring to look up, and I knew they were watching me, felt their gaze like a spotlight, and I got out of there as fast as I could, skipping the breakfast, because the thought of sitting there, trying to chew something while feeling every single eye on me, was just too much, and now I’m sat in this cheap cafe, nursing this bitter coffee, trying to figure out where to go next, and how to silence that noise in my head that sounds exactly like a dying whale. And I don’t even know what to do about tomorrow night, or the night after that, because I can’t afford a private room, not even close, and the thought of inflicting that on another unsuspecting group of strangers… it’s just a knot in my stomach. A cold, hard knot.