"Stay Awake" is a short story by Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite is an American author. Brite initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s after publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections...

, first published as a chapbook by Camelot Books in 2000 and reprinted in Gauntlet Press's tenth anniversary edition of her 1992 novel Lost Souls. The story takes place six months after the events of Lost Souls, and answers what is, according to the author, the most frequently asked question about the novel's two main characters.