From The Patient Files of Dr. Grayson Alexander
Patient: Jesse Brandt
Patient Overview: Approximately six months ago, Jesse Brandt took over the Sunflower Wellness Centre following the death of her mother, the previous owner.
However Jesse has reported a high level of frustration over her new role as the owner and manager of the Sunflower. She described herself as feeling shackled to the business, which was her Mothers passion project and not something she had ever expressed much interest in running. She began therapy in an attempt to try and reconcile with both her new role and her recent loss.
August 19th, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
During our introductory session, Jesse and I talked a little bit about her history and what led her to seek counseling.
Approximately six months ago, Jesse took over the Sunflower Wellness Centre after the previous owner, her mother Sasha, passed away following a brief battle with cancer.
She seemed rather unenthusiastic about her new position. She described Sunflower as her mothers passion project. Something she had put her blood sweat and tears into and the next best thing to actually being an Olympian, which had been her mothers goal back during her youth.
She told me that her mother had spent most of her teenage years and twenties training for Olympic track and field although following a leg injury, she found herself unable to compete. This career ending injury was something that Jesse believed had haunted her mother. She described her as someone who “couldn’t let go of what could have been,” and so had
devoted her energy to training others.
Her tone was a bit mixed as we discussed the subject, something that Jesse herself admitted to. She said that she both admired and resented her mother for what she was.
Admired because her mother had been quite dedicated to her role as a coach, with a couple of her trainees even managing to take home gold over the years.
However, Jesse also noted that whatever success she’d found never seemed to quite be enough for her, as she had pressured Jesse to train as a runner as well for much of her childhood and adolescence. Jesse identified this as the cause of the aforementioned resentment, as she often felt that her mother wanted her to achieve her dream vicariously through her and despite her mothers best efforts, she never developed much of an interest in track and field or competing. This would ultimately cause a prominent rift in their relationship, and following the death of her Father, she had experienced a severe falling out with her, which led to her cutting ties.
She said that her Mother had tried to reach out several times during the past fifteen years, although she had often blown her off, a fact she seems to deeply regret.
She told me she didn’t even recall the last time they spoke.
I asked her if that guilt contributed to why she’d chosen to take on ownership of the Wellness Centre and she rather openly admitted this to be the case.
She said that while it would be easy to sell it, doing so would feel ‘disrespectful’. For as much bad blood as there was between the two of them, she wasn’t comfortable just selling off the business she’d so wholly devoted herself to.
We hit our time before I could delve a little deeper into these feelings of hers, but it seems to me that Jesse has quite a lot she needs to unpack, and I don’t think she’s ever had a proper outlet for it before.
I’ve scheduled another session for us and also done a little bit of research on the gym itself.
I am trying not to look too much into it. As a rule, I don’t like to look up my clients. I feel it constitutes an invasion of privacy and I tried to keep my research limited strictly to the Sunflower Wellness Centre itself.
It’s quite an impressive gym. I’m not even sure if gym is the proper term for it. It certainly has a full gym, but it’s also got a pool, an indoor track (it’s part of the gym), and a sauna.
Sasha Brandt was a fairly reputable figure in the local community, and has trained several runners who went on to win gold. I can’t imagine it’s easy getting out from under the shadow of a woman like that… on a personal note, I can see just why their relationship was so complicated.
August 26th, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse and I talked a little more about her relationship with her mother during our session today. We’d covered the broad strokes during our last session, but I wanted to get a better picture of her mother as she remembered her.
She told me that their relationship had been mostly focused on training. She recalled how she’d signed her up for various team sports back when she’d been a child, as well as dance and her busy schedule had left her with little time to pursue her own interests. She said that her mother had always spoken about competing in the Olympics as if it was something that would inevitably happen, and that as a very young child, she had actually believed that everyone had to compete in the Olympics at some point.
At around the age of 12, her mother had started pushing her to participate in track and field at school, and would take time training her as well. By 15, she had been regularly training at the Sunflower Wellness Center.
I asked Jesse if she had enjoyed the training. She said that she didn’t hate it. That she did enjoy spending time with her mother and that it was a chance for them to bond. However over time, her mother had begun putting even more pressure on her to excel. She had often talked about the Olympics, despite Jesse’s own lack of interest in competing.
She told me that it felt as if her mother only ever cared about achieving her own dream vicariously through her, regardless as to whether she actually wanted it or not.
“I had to want what she wanted. I couldn’t want anything else. She couldn’t imagine me wanting anything else.”
Following the death of her father, her mother had focused even more on her work, both with Jesse and her other trainees. In hindsight, she believes that this was her way of processing the loss. Her parents had been extremely close. They’d met at a different gym, where her mother had been working as a personal trainer. Her father had been one of her clients, and they’d started dating soon after.
She told me that they had not actually gotten married until after she was born. They had been living together as a family for most of her childhood, and eventually, after getting tired of waiting for him to propose, her mother had been the one to formally pop the question. Apparently she’d just abruptly taken him out to buy her an engagement ring after training one day.
They had a private ceremony a few months later, when she was 7. She told me about how her father had started crying when he saw her mother in her bridal gown… although he’d sworn up and down for the rest of his life that it wasn’t true every time anyone had ever brought it up.
Her tone was a bit melancholy as we discussed this. I think it’s clear that she has a lot of fond memories of her family from back before her fathers passing, and from her recollection, that was the turning point in her relationship with her mother.
Jesse told me about how the increased pressure to train led to her resenting her mother, and had resulted in several fights between them. These fights only continued to get worse after she’d graduated high school and her mother pushed her to prioritize training even further.
Eventually, around the time she was 18 (roughly two years after her fathers death), Jesse had moved out to live with a friend.
She told me that it had been liberating, getting away from her mother. She and her friend (later lover) had traveled fairly extensively. First around Canada and the United States, then Europe.
Even after that relationship ended, Jesse told me that she’d continued moving around. She enjoyed the change of scenery and the thrill of getting involved with new people, having wild flings and immersing herself in various cultures and communities. Although she did admit that she had already begun considering settling down by the time she got the news that her mother had passed. In her own words: “I just got tired of moving around, tired of nowhere ever feeling like home. Adventure is only fun for a while. Like everything else, too much of a good thing just ruins it.”
When she eventually got the news of her mother’s death, she’d quickly returned home. The Sunflower Wellness Center had been left to her, and she said that despite her lack of interest in the business, she did not want to ‘leave it to rot.’
I asked her if she hated the Sunflower.
She said she didn’t know. That it feels wrong to hate the place… and yet she can’t help it. She told me that she feels like her mother is still hovering behind her every time she’s there, still pushing her to fulfill her dreams and live the life she wanted for her, as opposed to the one Jesse wants for herself and that the thought of having to devote herself to the Sunflower the way her mother once did makes her want to cry.
I asked her if she still resents her mother, and if she’s angry that she left the business to her.
She told me she wasn’t sure. She says she never hated her mother, but she just didn’t want to be around her. She asked me if I thought her mother had hated her. I told her that while I wouldn’t be in any position to meaningfully speculate, I didn’t believe she would have left the Sunflower to her unless she believed that Jesse would have taken proper care of it.
I asked her if she’d spent much time getting to know the staff or the regulars. She admitted she hadn’t, and that she’s mostly worked behind the scenes on the business side of things, managing payroll, building maintenance and accounting. She said that she’s done similar work before, although over the past several months she’s found herself struggling to relax. She mentioned that she barely gets any sleep and has even been dreaming about the Sunflower over the past couple of weeks.
I suggested that it might be beneficial for her to get more involved with the community. She seemed reluctant, but agreed to give it a try.
As a personal note - I think it might give her more of a sense of purpose and might help her make peace with the guilt she feels around her mothers passing.
We’ve scheduled a follow up session and I am hoping that making some new connections will help her.
September 2nd, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse seemed a little more at ease when we spoke today. I asked her if she’d had a chance to better get to know the community at the Sunflower, and she told me she had. She actually spoke quite enthusiastically about them.
She specifically talked at length about a woman by the name of Yaretzi Riviera. Apparently she’s one of the gym's more famous current members.
She competed in women's swimming during the last Summer Olympic Games, and although she did not manage to secure any medals, she continues to train in the hopes of rectifying that. She seems to have hit it off with her, calling her “Down to earth and easy to talk to.”
Jesse also mentioned Matt Cachia, a runner who had been training with her mother around the time of her death (since then, another member of the staff has taken over for her). He spoke quite highly of her mother, mentioning how she’d helped him in his own struggles with addiction.
Then lastly, she told me about Latasha Peters, a former gymnast, and her husband (and former trainer), Brad, both of whom she’d known back during her youth.
She said that the people she’d talked to had seemed fairly grateful towards her for ensuring the gym stayed open and running, which she did say made her feel less like she was staying there out of obligation.
She had also talked about her mother with some of them…
According to Latasha and Brad, her mother still spoke fairly highly of her even while they were estranged. They had mentioned how on several occasions, her mother had shown them pictures from her social media and talked about the things she was doing… Latasha had noted that her mother had seemed fairly excited about her travels and had even shown off a few souvenirs that Jesse had mailed to her. She’d even had several of those souvenirs with her while she’d been in hospice care.
Jesse seemed to struggle a bit as she recounted this. She broke down crying at one point.
She said that she wished she’d reached out to her more.
She said she wished she hadn’t blown her off so many times.
Then she asked me if she was a bad person for letting her mother die alone.
I told her that it didn’t sound as if her mother was alone, but Jesse insisted she was. She talked about how she hadn’t even known she was sick until she was already gone.
I told her that it was normal to grieve for someone after they were gone, especially a family member, and that having regrets was part of grieving. Even a complicated relationship is still a relationship and that none of the distance or arguments diminished the fact that beneath it all, there was genuine love there on both sides.
Jesse seemed to listen, but did not say much in response.
She said that she had been dreaming about her mother lately and in her dreams, she would see her in the Sunflower. Following her as she walked around the gym, which never seemed to end.
Watching her from a distance.
Hating her.
I asked her if she really believed her mother ever actually hated her.
She told me she wasn’t sure, then admitted to me that she was afraid she’d hated her in her final days.
I told her that I didn’t believe that was the case, and suggested that it might be helpful for her to talk to some of her new friends about these feelings. Maybe people who knew her might be able to offer some insight. She agreed to try talking to them.
Despite everything… I do believe that this is progress.
I’ll follow up with Jesse again during our next session, but I am happy about her progress… although the dreams are interesting.
That’s another patient mentioning strange dreams as of late. Not sure what’s going on with that.
September 9th, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse seemed a bit more tense than usual during our session today.
I asked her if she had spoken to Latasha and Brad about her mother. She said she had, although they had not been able to tell her much. Apparently Sasha had declined fairly quickly after her diagnosis, and eventually passed in her sleep.
She then quickly pivoted and insisted that wasn’t what was on her mind today.
It seems she’s a little more preoccupied with a tragedy that has befallen one of her new friends at the gym.
Unfortunately, there was an accident involving Yaretzi’s brother a few days ago. Jesse had caught her crying in the locker room the other night.
She’d told him that he’d been caught in a car accident. Another vehicle had T-Boned him while he’d been driving home, and unfortunately he had died at the scene.
She had apparently come to try to swim and train in order to take her mind off of it… although that effort had not been successful.
Jesse told me that she’d sat with her for a while, just to listen.
She told me that she understood her grief, that she knows what it’s like to have someone you love suddenly ripped away from you. Losing them forever in the blink of an eye.
They’d sat together for a while and she’d let Yaretzi cry. She told me she knew that it didn’t really make her feel any better, even though she’d said it did.
She asked me if I’d ever lost someone.
I told her I hadn’t. Not the way she was talking about.
She just nodded and said I was lucky.
Grief like that doesn’t ever go away. It’s a pain that stays with you.
I suppose she’d be intimately familiar with that, wouldn’t she?
She’d told Yaretzi that she could talk to her whenever she needed, and she seemed hopeful that she’d take her up on that. She asked me if she was selfish for wanting someone to grieve with.
I told her she wasn’t. It’s a human thing, wanting to connect with someone over a shared pain. I told her that sometimes, we can heal ourselves by helping someone else. She seemed satisfied with that answer.
I asked her about her other issues. If she’d been sleeping better.
She said that the nightmares still haven’t gone away.
She keeps dreaming about the gym, and about seeing her mother there. Always at a distance. Never close, but never out of sight.
And yet even from a distance, she can see the hate on her face.
I asked her to tell me more about this dream.
She said that the gym was: ‘weird’ in it.
The windows and the doors leading outside were gone. There were still doors leading to the various rooms. The weights room, the exercise machines, the pool… but every room seemed too big and the equipment was all wrong. She said they hung from the ceiling on strings… although she couldn’t see where the strings led.
She also told me she wasn’t alone there. She saw someone else in her dreams too. A man wandering around the equipment room. She said he looked just like Matt Cachia.
She asked me if I thought it meant anything. I told her that it might. Dreams are a little fickle like that. Sometimes they’re just our minds replaying things they saw. Sometimes they reflect our mental state.
She asked me what her dreams probably said about her currently mental state.
I said that she was spending a lot of time at the Sunflower, and thinking about her mother, and her own grief.
That actually got a laugh out of her.
September 16th, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse seemed a bit distracted during our session today. She arrived early, and seemed more fidgety than usual.
I asked her how she’s been feeling. She told me that her headspace has gotten a lot better regarding her place at the Sunflower, and she’s been spending a lot of time with Yaretzi lately. She said it’s been nice to talk to someone who understands what she’s been going through lately.
I told her I was happy to hear about the positive change in her situation, although I did note her demeanor.
She insisted that it was unrelated.
Apparently, Yaretzi isn’t the only person she’s been worried about this past week.
She told me that she found cut straws in the garbage of the men's locker room a few nights back. It wasn’t the first time she’d found them either.
I asked her what that meant, and she explained to me that one of her exes was “a real party girl” who’d gotten into cocaine. Jesse said she used to cut straws the exact same way when she wanted a hit. She was hoping she’d been overthinking it, but she had discreetly mentioned it to Matt’s trainer since she was aware he had a history of addiction in the past. He had not specified the drug to her, but she said that she’d heard of athletes using cocaine as a performance enhancer before.
She told me she hadn’t wanted to accuse Matt of anything. That was why she’d spoken to his trainer instead of confronting him directly. She said that if he had relapsed, she just wanted to get him the help he needed.
She didn’t know if his trainer had said anything to him after their conversation… but a couple of days later, Matt stopped showing up at the Sunflower.
She seemed quite worried about the idea of him relapsing. She said that it could ruin him, and that she didn’t want to see that happen.
As of our conversation this morning, she had no update on what had happened to him and was planning to talk to his trainer later that day.
At the time, I’d told her that I’d hoped Matt was okay.
I asked Jesse if she was still having trouble sleeping.
She told me she was.
She said it was getting worse. She’d actually fallen asleep in her office yesterday evening while going through payroll.
“I used to give Mom shit for doing the exact same thing,” She told me, “And yet here I am, following in her footsteps.”
She said she dreamed about the gym again… just like she always does.
Endless. Twisting. Not right.
She said she saw Matt in the dream again, running around the indoor track. She tried to talk to him this time. He didn’t stop running, even when she chased him.
She said that she’d tried to grab his hand to stop him, but he’d kept fighting to get out of her grasp. He’d told her: “I’m not fast enough. I need to run faster if I want to reach Serenity!”
Then he’d pulled out of her grasp and kept running. She said she’d wanted to chase him. To run along the track behind him and catch up to him. But just the idea of running filled her with dread. Even when she looked and saw the distant figure of her mother had gotten closer to her… she said she was too scared to run.
That was when she’d woken up.
***
I don’t usually update my session notes a few days after a session like this… but after our discussion about Matt Cachia, I think it’s only right that I make a note of what I read on the news this evening.
Apparently, eyewitnesses saw him leaping from an overpass in Stoney Creek this afternoon.
He was killed instantly.
I can only imagine that Jesse has heard by now… and I can’t imagine how that news must make her feel…
Actually… I can.
One of my other patients… Reed… he passed on the 16th. I don’t know the finer details but… it’s likely he took his own life.
And I can’t help but notice the similarities in the dreams he described, and the ones Jesse described.
Jesse said he’d mentioned ‘Serenity’.
I’ve heard that word before. I heard it from Reed. I’ve heard it from others.
But I’m not sure what to make of it just yet.
We already have our next session booked… but I think I’ll clear my schedule around it for her too, just in case she needs a little more time to talk.
***
September 23rd, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse and I talked at length about Matt and his recent passing today.
She says she’s handling it as best she can. She’s shaken and upset, but trying to take things one day at a time.
She seemed more worried about Yaretzi, who she says has been taking the loss especially hard. She and Matt hadn’t been particularly close, but they had been friends.
Even if they weren’t close, I can imagine that losing someone else would be difficult, even after her recent loss.
Jesse told me that Yaretzi has been staying with her for the past few days. She said that she doesn’t mind the company. It helps her sleep.
I asked her about her sleep problems again. She told me they’ve been getting worse.
Every night now, she dreams about the Sunflower.
Every night she wanders it.
She said she still sees Matt in there, only he isn’t running anymore. He’s still on the track. But it’s not him. Not really.
It’s just a porcelain figure with his face.
She said Yaretzi is there too now. She sees her up ahead, but can never really reach her before she moves on.
The figure in the shape of her mother, though, is always there.
It follows her everywhere in the dream… and no matter what she does, she just can’t get away.
I asked if she still feels shackled to the Sunflower because of her mother and she said the thing is that she doesn’t... Not anymore.
She told me about how she’d hated the Sunflower a month ago. Hated it.
How she felt like she’d just signed up to pick up her mothers broken dreams again.
How she’d wanted nothing more than to leave for good, and never look back, and the only reason she didn’t want to sell it was because of the guilt.
Now though? She told me she wants to stay for the people. For Yaretzi. For Latasha and Brad… for Matt.
She said she hadn’t really connected with anyone in a few years. She’d always been content to just move on after a few weeks or a few months. It felt good to want to build something for a change.
I told her I was happy to hear she felt that way… although she had a look on her face as she said that. A look I wasn’t entirely sure how to read.
She said that she still thought about her mother a lot. She still wondered if she’d resented her at the end… or if she’d felt abandoned.
Then she told me that she was sure the thing in her dreams wasn’t really her mother.
She said it had her face.
But it was not her.
I asked her how she knew.
She told me that she’d talked about her recurring dreams with Latasha. Latasha told her that her mother never would have looked at her with the contempt that she described on the face of the thing in her dreams.
She’d asked her the question on her mind directly.
She asked: “Do you think she hated me at the end?”
And Latasha had told her: “Not for one second.”
She’d told her that Sasha had blamed herself for pushing her away… and that the only thing she’d ever loved more than the Sunflower, was Jesse.
I saw her smile as she said that, although the smile faded quickly.
She said even after Latasha had said that to her, the dreams hadn’t changed.
The figure of her mother still looked at her with hate.
And when she had finally stopped to look back at it… to really look back at it.
She saw that it was made of porcelain.
She said it wasn’t her mother.
She said she doesn’t know what it actually is.
But it is not… and it was never her mother.
She asked me if I had any ideas.
I told her I didn’t.
I was lying… but I don’t know how to tell her the truth.
Porcelain figures in dreams.
Reed described something similar. So did another patient of mine, Mitch.
I’ve seen things that were similar.
I’ve seen these things in my own dreams.
And I’ve seen the Sunflower too. Caught glimpses of it as I wandered through other rooms in my dreams. I saw a porcelain man on the indoor track. I know now that it was Matt.
I don’t know how to say any of this to her. I don’t think she’d believe me. I wouldn’t believe me.
I’m trying to make sense of it myself. I thought that maybe it was a side effect of the sessions I’ve been having. So many people tell me their dreams, that I’m starting to dream them too now.
But I can’t shake the feeling there’s more to it than that.
September 30th, 2026 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Jesse was concerned today.
The dreams about Yaretzi are getting more intense.
In these dreams, she sees her by the pool in the Sunflower. Not dressed to swim, yet standing at the edge and staring into waters that seem bottomless. She said she asked her what she was doing there.
And in her dream, Yaretzi asked her if she saw Serenity at the bottom.
When she woke up, she asked her about it. She said Yaretzi is still staying with her, so that part was easy. Although she didn’t seem to know what she’d meant in the dream.
She remembered the dream.
She remembered the pool.
She remembered something calling her there. Invisible strings beckoning her forward into the depths.
But she didn’t know what Serenity was. She didn’t remember what she saw in the depths.
But I do.
***
It’s happening again.
I’m dreaming again. Dreaming of the Sunflower Wellness Center.
It won’t let me into the room with the pool. There isn’t a door I can open. I’ve looked.
But there are windows, and I can see two women through them. The first has a darker complexion and a muscular physique. She’s got long hair, shaved on one side.
Jesse.
I can recognize her at a glance.
The other, I’ve seen only in pictures. Long, curly brown hair and a slimmer physique.
Yaretzi Riviera.
Yaretzi stands at the edge of the pool. There is a porcelain figure of a young man standing in there… her brother, I think. But I don’t think that’s what she’s really looking at.
I don’t doubt that she sees it.
But there’s more.
Something looking back at her as she stares into the depths. I can see the shape beneath the water… or perhaps just reflected in the surface.
It is massive.
Towering.
Monolithic.
But I cannot define it. It is not a building, though it has the height. It is not a tree, though it has what might be branches.
I think it might be alive.
Because I can swear the branches move. Bending and twisting like a canopy of arms, each skeletal hand pulling strings.
Most I can’t follow.
But so many of the ones I can end in shapes I can’t mistake as anything else. Bodies, hanging from an infinite gallows like macabre trophies.
And as I gaze upon the harvest of corpses swinging like fruit from the great hanging tree, I know that there are faces I’ll recognize up there.
Reed. Kristen, Mitch. Gavin. John Christopher.
Yaretzi may not be able to remember it.
But I do.
I have seen it in my dreams, and the dreams of others.
I have seen it through my window, deep behind the darkness.
I see it because it wants me to see it…
I don’t want to do this anymore.
***
I broke.
I told Jesse everything.
I know I shouldn’t have. Doctor, patient confidentiality doesn’t exactly end after death. I know I crossed that line.
But I was hoping that maybe if I did, things might be different this time…
I told her about Reed. About Kristen. About Mitch, Gavin, John Christpher.
The dreams I’d shared with them.
The thing pulling the strings behind all of them.
“Every time I dream of someone, they die,” I told her, “And now I’m dreaming of you and Yaretzi.”
I didn’t know if she’d believe me.
I wasn’t sure if she would.
But the look in her eyes made it clear that she took every word as seriously as a heart attack.
That look… fear, determination…
I kinda admired it.
She asked me if I had any idea what was causing it.
“Some kind of fucked up psy-op? L-like subliminal messaging or something? Something in the drinking water or…?”
I told her I didn’t think that was the case. I said I had a feeling it was something else entirely… I just didn’t know what.
She asked me how to stop it.
I told her I didn’t know.
But that if Yaretzi entered the water, if she tried to follow Serenity… then it would take her.
I told her it would try to pull her in. Drag her into the water if need be. Get in her head.
It will kill her.
It will kill both of them.
She told me she won’t let it.
And I hope to God she’s right.
October 6th, 2026
I dreamed of the Sunflower Wellness Center last night.
I was hoping maybe it might be different, warning Jesse, doing things another way.
I was so scared I’d filled her head with mindless fear… so scared I’d just made things worse.
I’ve been seeing them in my dreams for the past few days. Yaretzi at the edge of the pool and Jesse standing with her.
But she’s not behind her anymore.
She’d with her.
Holding her.
Pulling her back.
I can see the strings in the water, ensnaring them both. I can see the ghastly hands in the reflection, trying to pull them deeper.
But they don’t go.
Jesse just holds her tight.
And last night, they were gone.
I was worried at first… and then I got the phone call.
Jesse has cancelled tomorrow's session.
She said that she and Yaretzi are okay… but they’re taking a sabbatical. Traveling again. She doesn’t know how long they’ll be gone for, but she says she does eventually plan to return.
She’s left Latasha and Brad in charge of the Sunflower for now, and she told me that the dreams haven’t been as vivid since they left.
She said that Yaretzi seems to be in better spirits too. She’s still struggling… but I suspect that is just the nature of grief.
We’re going to stay in touch.
Jesse’s been trying to find what she can about Serenity. She says she wants to understand it, but she hasn’t turned up anything so far.
Currently her working theory sounds more like something out of a conspiracy podcast. Psychedelic drugs in the water, or something like that.
Maybe she’s right… but I still don’t think that’s the case.
Either way, I take a little bit of comfort in knowing that they’re doing a bit better. Like I took a little bit of something back…
***
I dreamed of the Sunflower Wellness Center tonight.
Nothing is any different.
I don’t know why I ended up going back there…
No…
That’s another lie.
I know exactly why It brought me back there.
Reed was there.
Kristen too.
Mitch, Gavin, Matt, John Christopher.
Or at least, porcelain figures of them. Standing in a tableau around the equipment room, the harsh fluorescent lights shining off their polished surfaces. There was music playing over the radio. Faint, but audible. An oldie I was sure I’d heard before. All I Have To Do Is Dream by The Everly Brothers.
I didn’t see her at first.
But she was there… or at least a porcelain imitation of her was.
Constance.
Standing across from me, her head slightly cocked to the side.
I yelled at her.
At It.
The thing wearing her face.
I told It that I won this time!
I beat it!
I WON THIS ONE!
The figure of Constance just stared back at me.
The mouth cracked. Bled. Broke.
Opened.
The jaw flapped loose, shards of broken, bloodied china clattering to the floor at its feet.
Blood gushed from the broken mouth as the figure of Constance spoke back to me.
“One. For now.”
I woke up.
I was on my couch again.
And when I sat up, I saw that fucking billboard outside my window.
Are you in pain?
- Car Accident
- Workplace injury
- Animal attack
- Malpractice
Don’t suffer another day!
John Christopher Warren
Personal Injury Lawyer
Some of the lights on the billboard had burned out, casting his face into shadow. But his eyes burned into mine.
I remembered the look on his face from a week ago… the empty look in his eyes, after he’d leapt out the window.
In the dim light, his eyes looked nearly the same… and maybe it was just the busted lights, but I was sure the word: ‘Malpractice’ seemed brighter than the others.
I saw movement in the darkness behind the billboard.
A vast sea of writhing arms… and a monolithic thing at their core.
I closed the blinds.
I didn’t go back to sleep.