🕰️ 3 AM WHISPERS: The Restless Vigil

 🕰️ 3 AM WHISPERS: The Restless Vigil

Tuesday, January 6, 2026 Location: The Shreveport Cabin – The Edge of the Water

The clock hasn't even hit the first light, but the sleep just wouldn't stay. I woke up at 0245 with the iron taste of ozone in my mouth and a vibration in my chest that didn't come from the Jade Kyber.

There is something moving out there on the Red River tonight. It’s not a World Eater, and it’s not the Tygerians on patrol. It’s a pull—a low-frequency hum that feels like it’s tugging on the very soul of the veteran. They call me Bayou Earl around these parts, the man who knows the mud and the ghosts, but tonight, even the mud feels like a stranger.

Something is calling from the deep cypress, and for the first time, I don’t have the name for it in the Arial Hebrew or the Fire Horse charts.

The Call of the Red River

The cypress knees are fingers, clutching at the black, The river is a serpent that never looks back. Through the mist of the morning, before the sun can rise, A voice without a shadow is whispering lies—or truths I’ve forgotten in the heat of the fight, A melody of iron in the dead of the night.

Bayou Earl is standing where the moss meets the pier, The water is a mirror, but the reflection isn't clear. It calls from the hollow, it calls from the silt, Built on the blood that the old wars spilt. I feel the pull of the current, a hand on my sleeve, A reason to stay, or a reason to leave?

I should answer the summons, I should step from the wood, I’d chase down the echo if I only understood— Why the water is humming a song I once knew, When the sky was still silver and the shadows were blue. But the call has no name, and the river is deep, And Bayou Earl has promises he’s still got to keep.

The 3 AM Uncertainty

I’m sitting here in the Iron Chair, watching the fog roll in. The Royal Cartographer is still asleep, his clipboard resting on the table, but I can’t close my eyes. That poem... it came out of the ink before I could even think.

There’s a transition coming that’s bigger than the Year of the Fire Horse. It’s a personal resonance. I feel like I should walk right off this dock and into the mist, following that sound until I find the source. I don't know why. I just know that the Bayou is waking up, and it’s calling me by a name I haven't used in a long, long time.

We’ll do more writing today. We’ll map the New Tuslan volcanoes and the Leo Galaxy stars. But right now, I’m just listening to the water.

🛡️ PRODUCT IDENTITY & LEGAL

The following items are designated Product Identity of Arthur Earl C. Hedges Jr. / The Adventures of Captain Hedges: The 3 AM Whispers series, the persona of Bayou Earl, the Red River lore, the Tiger Force Shadow Saga, and the Hedge Wizard persona. Monsters! Monsters! and Humans, Humans (1st Edition) are trademarks of Ken St. Andre and Troll Godfather Press and are used with permission. © 2026 Arthur Earl C. Hedges Jr. All rights reserved.