Work Text:
You’re sitting on a red sofa in a room significantly smaller than your own.
The room isn’t dingy or uncomfortable by any means; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Dim lights from multiple lamps illuminate the space and scatter light through the air, making thin rainbows reflect through the office.
A thin layer of fog veils the face of the man sitting across the room from you. You know him; there’s not a doubt in your mind about his identity behind the haze. It’s strange, you think, that you’re not able to see someone’s face that lies only a few small feet away from your own. You try to reach out your hands to feel out his features, but you feel as if your bones are composed entirely of gelatin. Your arms fall uselessly to your sides, too weak to hold up. Eyelids falling heavily, you lean your head back and sink deeply into the sofa’s fabric.
“Darling,” a voice cuts sweetly through the haze, “What’s been on your mind?”
The fog seems to thicken and you find yourself struggling to breathe with the sudden heat and humidity. You take deep breaths like the man has taught you to do when you feel like you can’t get any air in your lungs, but they only make you gag and sputter. Your eyes flutter open as you get lightheaded, and you sink even deeper into the sofa as the world around you spins.
Storm clouds swirl above you and spin impossibly high, seeming to reach beyond the ceiling and touch the atmosphere. The light in the room still cuts through the fog, though it’s become significantly stuffier. The vortex of dark clouds drapes the chandelier, which is now floating free in the air with a few other fixtures. The lamps rattle and are periodically covered, though never all at once. It’s disorienting as all hell, having every source of light moving slowly around the room. Your head spins even faster.
“Now, love,” the man starts, flipping a page over in his clipboard, “What’s troubling you today?”
The clouds begin to drizzle. The rain is hot and sticky and it clings to your skin uncomfortably. Heart beating faster, you grab at your pant seams and fidget with them, trying not to scream. Your teeth grind together and your sneakers scrape against each other. Every nerve in your body feels like a stripped wire and your veins have hot blood coursing through them and you can’t make your heart shut the fuck up.
You desperately try to conjure up an answer. Nothing comes to mind. Every thought gets swirled somewhere unreachable and are lost to the fog crowding the room. It hurts to think and everything feels either numb or burning hot and your synapses aren’t firing correctly and you can’t fucking breathe.
A dull pain spreads across the crown of your head. It seeps into the folds of your brain and enters your nervous system, igniting your body with dread. This is it, you think. Is it a tumor? Is it brain cancer? There’s a pain in your head that won’t go away and painkillers don’t touch it. That’s the first symptom. A headache.
The clouds begin to rain harder, progressing beyond a drizzle. Hot water pools on the floor and begins to seep into your shoes and soak your socks. It hits your eyes and you shut them yet again.
Your hand twitches. Are you having a seizure? There’s a weird smell in your nose. The world feels fuzzy. Your senses don’t seem right and there’s an imminent sense of dread in your abdominal cavity. Aren’t those symptoms of a seizure?
You’re confused. You’re disoriented. You can’t conjure up a sentence. Your body is twitching and your head hurts and there’s dread in your veins. Your eyes aren’t working right either. There’s pins and needles in your hands and feet and you’re dizzy. Is it a prion disease? Most cases are sporadic. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease isn’t out of the picture. You’ve been having trouble sleeping, too. Fatal familial insomnia? The proteins in your brain can’t be right.
“I- uh… I’m…” you manage, barely audible through the storm.
A pen clicks loudly and scribbles something down.
“Wait, that wasn’t… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
Your thoughts tangle up in your frontal lobe and fumble half-baked out of your mouth. It’s spongiform encephalopathy, no doubt. Your brain probably looks like swiss cheese with how rotted it must be. Your whole head feels like it’s filled with mush.
“Oh, love, don’t worry about words. Just show me what’s on your mind.”
A searing pain erupts in your head. You throw your hands up to grab your scalp in shock, and you realize that the top of your skull is missing along with the rest of your head. Your fingers jab into the folds of your brain, breaking through the dura with ease.
Hands trembling, you reach further into your broken skull and find your brain stem. Your nails sever the cord with a fair amount of effort, and it comes loose from your nervous system. Despite being cut off from blood supply, it still pulsates and throbs in your hands.
A crack of thunder rumbles the room. Your brain is heavy in your gelatinous hands. All the dread in your body dissipates into the clouds with nowhere else to go, and a numbing, drowsy feeling floods your senses.
The man taps his pen on his paper. “Have you been working on setting boundaries, like we talked about last session?”
Your fingertips trace the folds and crevices of your left hemisphere. The rain above you turns red, and you realize, without dread, that it’s blood. It soaks the sofa and every movement you make causes the fabric to squelch.
“Talk to me, my love. Have you been taking your medicine? How about meditating? Have you been journaling your feelings like we were working on?”
Your fingers find a hard lump in the wrinkles of your brain matter.
“Are you keeping up with your hygiene? Practicing grounding? Do you take time for yourself? Are you maintaining a healthy work-life balance? Overworking yourself? You’re not responsible for anybody else’s emotions.”
“There’s a tumor.”
“Is that so?” He asks, humming delightedly. “Is that the only thing you can find?”
The man rises from his seat and sloshes through the blood flooding the room. His hair is still perfectly set, and his smile rips ear to ear across his face like always. He crouches in front of you, holding his hands out expectantly.
“May I take a look?”
You place your brain in his hands and look up to see, now in clear sight, Adam’s face grinning like a kid. He takes your brain and, without a second thought, jabs his nails into the folds. Your leg starts to shake uncontrollably.
Adam’s expression suddenly lights up. “Darling, have a look at this,” he purrs.
His hands hold either side of your brain open, and there’s misfolded proteins making up the whole center region of your brain. Every wrinkle in your brain seems strange, like you’re an alien trying to describe what chewed bubblegum loks like. You breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that you’re not going crazy.
“I was right,” you whisper, half to yourself, the other to Adam.
“No, love. It was all in your head.”
Your brain drips through his hands like the rain. He rakes his nails gently against your now-present scalp and cards through your sticky hair, comforting you through your delusion.
“But— I thought…”
“Looks can be deceiving, darling. You have to trust your gut!”
“I don’t understand…” You tilt your head to the side.
“Are you setting boundaries?” His nails graze your cheek.
“Yes, I thought that—“
“Then you’ll tell me if this is okay, right?” Adam’s other hand touches your face, cupping either side.
“I think I’m dying.” You go limp in his embrace.
“No, love, you’ve never been more alive.” He leans in.
Just before his lips meet yours, your vision goes black.