LONDON, Friday 06:30

The volume on the clock radio was high. Far too high. The Heart radio jingle shrieked at her with unwarranted enthusiasm and gave Lyn Asmera cause to regret not just using the alarm on her phone like everyone else she knew.

Lyn raised her head enough to fumble for the snooze button and sank back into the pillow. A second later the cold damp against her cheek betrayed the fact that she had been drooling in her sleep again. She grunted in sleepy horror and rolled over in the morning gloom, disgusted with herself enough to move but not enough to get up, and clamped her eyes shut as she refused to acknowledge the day. The other side of the pillow was distressingly cold for what had only a moment before been a comforting nest of blankets and duvets.

She rolled onto her back and clamped her eyes shut and willed sleep to descend once more.

Then the alarm on her phone sounded. It buzzed and vibrated its way across the sheet of glass covering her bedside table before reaching the edge and falling to the hardwood floor with a crash. For a blissful moment Lyn hoped it had broken in the fall but then it buzzed again. The noise and vibration travelled up through the metal frame of her bed and into her skull. Lyn folded the pillow around her head in one last futile attempt to escape the day and succeeded only in pressing the damp patch which had taken advantage of the last few seconds to cool vindictively, against her other cheek. The day was determined to intrude on her rest.

The overly enthusiastic radio DJ launched into the station's song of the moment. The same song she had woken up to for the last ten days. She wondered where they found these people. No-one should be that cheerful at this time of the day, and it's too early to be morning.

She gave in at last, bade sleep farewell, opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

"Damn," Lyn whispered to herself. "Morning hasbroken."