The Hollow Man
I can't sleep. Not for weeks now. The clock says 3 AM, but time feels strange when you haven't slept in so long. My eyes burn as I stare at the ceiling of my perfect IKEA bedroom. Everything matches the catalog, page 147. ️
"Sir, are you okay?" My boss waves his hand in front of my face. I blink hard, trying to focus on the spreadsheet glowing on my computer screen. The fluorescent lights make my head hurt.
"I'm fine," I lie. Just another day at my desk, copying numbers that don't matter into boxes that nobody reads. Nothing matters here.
"Life is what happens while you're busy making spreadsheets," Tyler would say later. But I hadn't met Tyler yet. Right now, I was still sleeping with my eyes open.
My doctor won't give me sleeping pills. He tells me to exercise instead. "Try natural remedies," he says with a practiced smile. I want to tell him how natural it feels to want to punch through his office wall.
That's when I find the support groups.
The church basement smells like old coffee and cheaper cookies. Plastic chairs arranged in a sad circle. People with real problems sit sharing their pain. Their stories make my empty life feel full for a moment.
"Hi, I'm Bob," says a man with breasts bigger than most women. Former bodybuilder. Steroids. Cancer. Now he hugs people and cries. I hug him back, feeling his tears soak through my shirt.
The Perfect Life
My apartment is on the 15th floor of a building that looks like every other building. Glass and steel reaching up to touch a sky we never really see. Inside, everything is perfect:
• Rislampa paper lamps made from environmentally friendly unbleached paper• The Johanneshov armchair in the Strinne green stripe pattern• The Alle cutlery service. Limited edition.• The Vild hall clock made of galvanized steel
Everything carefully chosen from a catalog to tell the world who I'm supposed to be.
"The things you own end up owning you," Tyler would teach me later. But right now, I'm still collecting things like they could fill the emptiness inside.
Then comes the night that changes everything. The night I meet Tyler Durden.
I'm on a beach. Naked strangers gather driftwood for a fire. Tyler's making something. His hands move like he knows exactly what he's doing. I watch him pour chemicals into a mixture that smells sharp and clean.
"Do you know what this is?" he asks, not looking up.
"No."
He grins, and his teeth flash in the firelight. "This is chemical burn. This is what real pain feels like."
For the first time in months, maybe years, I feel awake. Really awake. The stars above us look different - sharper, more real. Tyler's words cut through all the fake stuff in my head.
"First you have to know - not fear - know that someday you're gonna die," Tyler says. His eyes lock onto mine. "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
The waves crash behind us. The fire crackles. Something inside me starts to wake up, like a match being struck in a dark room. Tyler sees it happening. He smiles again, but different this time. Like he knows something I don't.
That night, I don't try to sleep. Tyler and I go to a bar parking lot. We fight until our knuckles bleed and our ribs ache. For the first time in forever, the pain feels real. The blood tastes real.
Later, holding frozen meat against my swelling face, I realize something: I still haven't slept. But now, finally, I'm starting to feel alive.Breaking the System
The basement of Lou's Bar feels different at night. Dark. Raw. Real. The concrete floor is stained with things nobody talks about. Twenty men stand in a circle, waiting. Their eyes shine with something between fear and hunger.
"The first rule of fight club is..." Tyler's voice echoes off the walls. He's shirtless, his scars telling stories in the dim light.
"You do not talk about fight club," we all say together. The words taste like copper and truth.
The Rules We Break
Every night, more men come. Office workers. Mechanics. Waiters. They all have the same empty look I used to see in my mirror. But here, in the basement, that emptiness fills with something else.
"We're the middle children of history," Tyler tells us. "No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives."
I watch a lawyer take off his tie. His hands shake a little. First fight. They always shake the first time. But after? After, they stand straighter. Like they finally know who they are.
Tyler moves through the crowd like a shark through water. He touches shoulders, whispers words that make men stand taller. His voice carries power:
No shirts
No shoes
Two men per fight
One fight at a time
Fights go on as long as they have to
The Growing Storm
My boss doesn't understand why I smile now. He can't see the bruises under my shirt. Can't understand why his threats don't work anymore.
"Did you get the memo about the TPS reports?" he asks.
I look at him and see what Tyler sees - a man trapped in his own cage. "Yes," I say. But what I'm really thinking is about tonight's fights.
Each punch we throw is a rebellion against everything they told us to want. The perfect car. The perfect job. The perfect life.
Fight clubs start popping up everywhere. Tyler travels for work, and wherever he goes, basements fill with men ready to wake up. We're like a virus, spreading through the veins of the city.
"You're not your job," Tyler preaches to the growing crowd. "You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet."
"You are not your khakis," he says, and everyone laughs. But it's true. We're learning to be something else. Something real.
The Change Begins
My IKEA catalog sits untouched. The perfect furniture collects dust. At night, I feel my bruises and smile. Pain is better than numb. Real is better than perfect.
But sometimes, when Tyler's talking to the group, I see something in his eyes that makes me wonder. Something wild. Dangerous. Like he's planning something bigger than just fights.
"We'll do bigger things," he tells me one night, cleaning blood off his knuckles. "Fighting is just the beginning. We're going to wake everyone up."
The other men lean in when he talks like this. Their eyes get bright. Hungry. They want more than just fights now. They want what Tyler's promising - a way to break everything that's broken them.
I should feel scared. But all I feel is alive. More alive than I've ever been. The insomnia's still there, but now it feels like a gift. Like I'm awake while everyone else is sleeping through their lives.
Tomorrow, we'll go back to our jobs. Our desks. Our lives. But we'll be different. Changed. And soon, Tyler says, we'll change everything else too.Project Mayhem Emerges
The basement feels smaller now. Too many bodies. Too much energy. Fight club isn't enough anymore. Tyler paces like a caged animal, his eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Gentlemen," Tyler says, "we are going to break free. Tonight, we become Project Mayhem."
New Rules, New Game
The men lean forward. Their faces glow with sweat and excitement. Tyler's words hit harder than any punch:
"In Project Mayhem, we have no names. We are the all-singing, all-dancing garbage of the world. And we're about to turn the tables."
The rules change. No more just fighting. Now we have homework:
Start a fight with a stranger
Break something beautiful
Cause chaos in perfect places
Make the rich feel poor
Wake people up
The First Night
We move through the city like shadows. Twenty men in black shirts. The fancy car dealership gleams under streetlights. Perfect cars with perfect price tags.
"Ready?" Tyler whispers.
Baseball bats appear. Glass shatters. Car alarms scream into the night.
Each broken window is a message: Your perfect things can't save you.
Growing Stronger
More men join every day. They shave their heads. Wear black. Follow Tyler's orders without question. The house on Paper Street becomes our base. Bunk beds fill every room.
"Sir!" they say when Tyler walks by. Their eyes shine with purpose.
But something feels wrong. Tyler's getting harder to find. When I see him, he looks different. Wild. His plans get bigger. Scarier.
"The things you own end up owning you," Tyler says. "It's time to own nothing and be free."
City of Chaos
Our homework gets bigger. We pour sand into gas tanks. Switch rich people's mail around. Make soup with nasty things and serve it to fancy restaurants.
The news talks about us. Calls us terrorists. But we're everywhere now:
- The waiter at your fancy dinner ️
- The guy who parks your car
- The person who delivers your mail
Every night, more chaos. Every day, more men join. Tyler's army grows.
Questions in the Dark
But late at night, when the house is quiet except for snoring space monkeys (that's what Tyler calls our new members), I wonder. Where is this going? What's Tyler's real plan?
I try to ask him, but he's never around when I need him. And when I do see him, he just smiles that knowing smile.
⚠️ "Trust me," he says. "By the end of this, we'll all be free."
The city feels different now. Scared. Angry. Alive. Every morning brings news of another Project Mayhem attack. But Tyler wants more. Always more.
"This is just the beginning," he tells the space monkeys. "Soon, we'll hit them where it really hurts."
I should feel excited. This is what we wanted, right? But something feels wrong. Like I'm missing something important. Something right in front of my face.
At night, I dream of Tyler's smile. It looks different every time. Sometimes it's my smile. But that's crazy, right?Shadows of Doubt
My head hurts all the time now. The space monkeys buzz around Paper Street like angry bees. I can't sleep. Something's wrong with my brain.
"Sir, the teams are ready for Operation Latte," a space monkey tells me. I don't remember planning Operation Latte.
Missing Time
Things happen that I can't remember. Big things. Important things. Like the explosion at the art museum. Everyone says I led it, but I was asleep. Or was I?
"You were amazing last night, sir! The way you handled the police!"
"What police?" I ask.
The space monkey looks confused. "But sir, you were there..."
Tyler's Ghost
Tyler appears less and less. When he does show up, it's always at weird times. Like 3 AM. Or when I'm alone. Never when I need to talk about important stuff.
I find strange things in my pockets:
Bloody bandages I don't remember using
Keys to places I've never been
Maps with places marked in red
Notes in my handwriting I don't remember writing
Strange Clues
Marla looks at me funny now. Like she knows something I don't.
"Sometimes you're you," she says, smoking her cigarette. "Sometimes you're... different."
"Different how?"
"You know how." But I don't know. I really don't.
The Mirror Moment
Late one night, I catch my reflection in a broken mirror. For a second, my face looks like Tyler's. I blink hard. Just me again. But the scary thought stays.
When was the last time anyone saw me and Tyler in the same room?
Project Mayhem Gets Darker
The missions get scarier. Not just breaking things anymore. The space monkeys talk about bombs. Big ones. Plans I never approved but somehow exist.
"But sir," they say, "you ordered this last week!"
I find blueprints for buildings. Important buildings. Banks. Government offices. Places that shouldn't be blown up.
Questions Without Answers
I try to write down when I see Tyler. Make a schedule. But the pages in my journal get torn out. Words appear that I didn't write:
"STOP ASKING QUESTIONS"
"YOU KNOW WHO I AM"
"WE ARE THE SAME"
The space monkeys watch me all the time now. Their eyes follow me everywhere. Are they protecting me? Or watching me?
Breaking Point
One morning, I find a gun in my room. Under my pillow. Loaded. Ready.
"Did Tyler...
[Content restricted to members only]