C2 The Therapist

It was just a bad dream at the start. In the dream, I was chased by a pale, swollen dead body. But today I canceled all my patients, because the last three patients all described the exact same dream to me.

I sat in my leather chair, the silence of my office pressing against my eardrums like deep-sea pressure. My hands were trembling, so I shoved them deep into the pockets of my cardigan. On my mahogany desk lay three folders: Mrs. Gable, Marcus, and Elena. They were disparate people—an elderly widow, a nineteen-year-old college student, and a middle-aged accountant. They had no social circles in common. They didn't live in the same neighborhood. They didn't even use the same pharmacy.

Yet, as I stared at the notes scribbled in my own handwriting, the consistency was undeniable.

It began with Mrs. Gable at 9:00 AM. She sat on the edge of the couch, twisting a silk handkerchief. Her eyes were bloodshot. "It’s the water, Doctor," she had whispered. "It’s always the water. I’m running down a hallway that smells like brine, and behind me, there’s this thing. It’s a man, I think, but he’s puffed up like a drowned dog. His skin is white and translucent, stretched so tight it looks like it might burst. The sound he makes... it’s the wettest sound I’ve ever heard. A rhythmic slap-thump, slap-thump."

I had dismissed it as a manifestation of her grief over her late husband. Grief often wears the face of the deceased.

Then came Marcus at 10:00 AM. A healthy, athletic boy. He didn't sit; he paced. "I can’t sleep, Doc. Every time I drift off, I’m in this office. I’m sitting in that chair you’re in. And the door opens, and it comes in. It’s so swollen, Doc. It looks like it’s been in the river for weeks. It’s just... bloated. And it's chasing me. I wake up right before it grabs me, and I can smell it. Rotten eggs and stagnant canal water."

My professional detachment had wavered then, but I held my ground. "Collective anxiety," I had told him, offering a prescription for a mild sedative. I felt like a fraud even as I said it.

By the time Elena arrived at 11:00 AM, the air in the office felt heavy, viscous. Elena was crying before she even sat down. She didn't wait for me to prompt her. She simply looked at the door behind me and shuddered. "I know it’s coming, Doctor. I can feel the humidity rising. It’s the same one. The pale thing. The one with the eyes that look like boiled marbles. It’s getting closer to me each time. Last night, it touched my shoulder. I woke up with a bruise there." She pulled down the strap of her shirt. I didn't want to look, but I did. A dark, purplish thumbprint, fresh and angry, sat on her pale skin.

I had canceled the rest of the day immediately after she left. I told my receptionist it was a family emergency. I told myself I needed to recalibrate.

Now, it was 4:00 PM. The sky outside the window was the color of a bruised plum, the light fading into an oppressive grey. The office was too quiet.

I opened Mrs. Gable’s file. Subject describes a wet, rhythmic sound.

I opened Marcus’s file. Subject describes the smell of stagnant water and the layout of this specific room.

I opened Elena’s file. Subject bears physical trauma consistent with a grasp.

I stood up, needing a drink of water, but stopped.

A scent drifted in from the hallway.

It wasn't a subtle smell. It was a violent, cloying stench—the unmistakable, sweet-rot odor of decay. It was the smell of something that had been pulled from a deep, dark place after being submerged for far too long.

Not the SAME d****e!

It was a relay. A progression. Each dreamer picking up exactly where the last one left off, passing the thing forward like a baton, each stage bringing it one step closer to…

Me.

I had four patients scheduled for the afternoon. Four more dreamers. Four more stages I would never hear, because I had sent them all home.

I would never know how close it had gotten. Unless —

Slap-thump.

The sound came from the corridor. Slow, deliberate, undeniably wet,

Slap-thump.

It was closer now. It was outside my office door.

I dialed 911.

"Help," I stammered, my voice breaking. "Please, someone, it’s outside—"

“911, what’s your emergency--”The voice on the other end was my own. It was a perfect, chilling mimicry of my own cadence, but hollowed out, vibrating with the rattle of a water-logged throat. “…that made you cancel your patients? All these years, have you actually cared about any of them…or just how much they could pay up?“

I dropped the phone.

There is no way out. What’s going to happen…next?

I have to know.

Locking myself in, I lay down on the chair, the chair I never sat in before. The chair that belonged to me, but only used for my patients.

I had to go back into the dream. I had to know.

I was back, in that slimy, wet, dark water.

You called me here, it said. You are the therapist. You are supposed to listen. So listen to this: You never cared, so they are not your patients anymore. You got rid of them. Congratulations.

Now I know what IT wanted.

IT wanted me. More accurately, it wanted my life.

Morning light through the curtains. My alarm clock said 7:00 AM. I reached for my phone to cancel my first appointment.

My hand brushed against something warm, something dry and nice and healthy and perfect. Unlike how I felt now: cold, and wet, and sick, and…

Dead.

What I felt was my own body.

And it was smiling to me, with my mouth.