Dan stood on the cracked sidewalk, his breath visible in the chill of the early evening air. The street was quiet, eerily so, as though the world had decided to hold its breath. Before him stood the house that had been his prison, his sanctuary, and his hell.
It was still beautiful, even now, its facade washed in the golden light of the setting sun. The ivy creeping up the stone walls gave it a timeless charm, and the freshly painted shutters framed the large bay windows perfectly. To an outsider, it was a dream home.
To Dan, it was a graveyard.
But something was different. The familiar brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head was gone, replaced with something simpler and less ornate. The curtains were new, a soft beige where heavy crimson drapes had once hung. He squinted at the mailbox by the gate and saw a name he didn’t recognize etched onto the brass plate.
Dan's twenty-something self clenched his fists, his nails biting into his palms. The anger surged in him like a storm, relentless and unyielding. This wasn’t his house anymore.
He could still hear her voice, smooth and saccharine, dripping with false concern.
“It’s just a house, Daniel. You can’t cling to the past forever.”
She had said that on the day she told him she was selling it. He’d barely been an adult then, just eighteen, too young and broken to stop her. She’d smiled that cold, practiced smile, the same one she wore at his father’s funeral. It made him sick.
He remembered the papers she had waved in front of him, the way she’d avoided his eyes.
“You’ll be fine,” she’d said. “You’re young. You’ll figure it out. Besides, I have debts to pay, and it’s not as though your father left us much.”
That had been a lie. His father had left everything. A fortune built over decades of hard work. But she had siphoned it all away—sold the company, liquidated the assets, drained the accounts. And then she’d sold the house, the last piece of his father’s legacy, and vanished with the money.
Dan stared at the house, his jaw tight, his chest heaving. The memory burned in his mind, sharper than it had ever been before. He could see her now, laughing with some faceless man as she clinked glasses of champagne, celebrating the sale. She had stolen everything.
The anger boiled over. Dan turned and kicked at the wrought-iron gate, the loud clang echoing down the empty street. His vision blurred with tears of rage and despair. He pressed his hands against the cold metal, his forehead resting against it as he struggled to breathe.
The warmth of the house mocked him. The laughter of the family now living inside it—a couple with a young child, their voices faint but clear—was like a dagger in his chest. This wasn’t his house anymore. It never really had been.
Dan’s hands trembled as he stepped back, his face contorted in pain. He was alone. He had always been alone.
In the distance, the shadows began to twist and stretch, creeping toward him like silent specters. The house dissolved into darkness, the laughter fading into an echo.
“Dan,” a voice called softly, breaking through the haze.
It was Dr. Lane’s voice, distant yet steady.
But Dan wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet. The memory still gripped him, pulling him deeper into the abyss of his own mind.
The scene shifted again.
He was in a dingy one-room apartment now, the paint peeling from the walls, the windows cracked and fogged with grime. The faint hum of a refrigerator in the corner was the only sound.
Dan sat on the edge of a worn mattress, his head in his hands. Bills and notices were scattered across the floor, their harsh red letters screaming at him: PAST DUE. FINAL NOTICE.
His stepmother was gone. She had taken everything—his inheritance, his future, his family. He was left with nothing but the clothes on his back and the crushing weight of betrayal.
Dan looked up, his face hollow, his eyes bloodshot. He saw himself in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall—a shadow of who he once was. The man staring back at him was gaunt, defeated.
“She took everything,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “She left me to rot.”
The memory began to blur again, the edges melting away as the darkness crept back in. Dan’s breathing quickened, his chest tightening as the shadows closed in around him.
“Dan,” Dr. Lane’s voice came again, sharper now, pulling at him. “What do you see? What do you feel?”
Dan gasped, his hands clawing at the darkness, trying to hold onto something—anything—but it was slipping away. The pain, the anger, the despair—it was all too much.
“I feel nothing,” he choked out, tears streaming down his face. “Nothing is real. Nothing was ever real.”
The shadows swallowed him whole, and the memory faded into silence.
Dan’s eyes fluttered open, his body trembling. The therapy room pulled him back to the present, but the weight of the memories lingered, pressing down on him like a suffocating blanket.
He stared at the ceiling, his vision blurry, his breath shallow.
Dr. Lane’s face appeared above him, her expression calm but intense. “Good,” she said softly, her eyes gleaming. “You’re starting to understand.”
Dan blinked, his lips parting as though to speak, but no words came. His body felt heavy, his mind a swirling storm of fragmented memories and emotions.
“Rest now,” Dr. Lane murmured, stepping back. “We’ve only just begun.”
The room fell silent as Dan drifted back into uneasy unconsciousness.
* * *
