Nightmares

 “And.. the door creaked open. I went to see what it was. I thought.. I thought it might be a rat, or the wind. But..” The woman broke down into tears, sobbing hysterically. Through her hiccuping breaths, Maria could see the wild fear in her eyes.

There was silence for a few moments, the only sounds in the room were her choked gasps and the soft scratch of a pen against paper. Then, Maria finally spoke.

“It’s alright, Janet. It wasn’t real, it was just a dream.” She comforted, telling her patient exactly what she needed to hear. “Would you like to tell me more, or would you rather we speak about something else instead?” She said kindly, offering a way out of the difficult conversation.

It took a minute or so, but Janet managed to calm down. Wiping away her tears, she continued her story, albeit in a softer tone. “A kid stood there, knife in hand. I was so confused. I remember thinking, ‘How did he get here? We’re in the middle of the woods’.” Here, Janet almost begins to panic again. “How did I know that? I hadn’t even seen what the outside of the cabin looked like!”

Maria decided to stop this panic attack in its tracks, before it got out of hand again. It was good to vent out emotions, but it would only exhaust her patient to keep going through tumultuous shifts in moods. “Perhaps the atmosphere of the cabin made you assume the location? Have you recently watched any shows or movies, or maybe read any books, where the story is set in a cabin in the woods?”

This clearly was something Janet hadn’t considered. Her eyes widened. “I mean.. I had been reading this thriller about a serial killer in the woods. It wasn’t a kid in that book, but..”

The therapist felt a flash of satisfaction at alleviating some of her patient’s stress. She continued her explanation. “Our minds tend to subconsciously create images of things that linger in our minds, and that manifests in our dreams.”

“Oh..” The woman said, lost for words. “But how did I even manage to conjure up the next part of the dream then? Is my mind so twisted as to show me such things?”

Ah. She hadn’t wanted to go over that part of the dream. In their first session together, Janet had told her about that scene. Maria knew that she wouldn’t be ready to properly face that yet, or talk about it. They had to build up to such conversations, and today had been emotionally exhausting enough for her patient.

But the description she had heard all those weeks ago still haunted her. The look in the woman’s eyes as she had described a gruesome murder scene, where she was the one being stabbed to death, was indescribable. It wasn’t just a vague, hazy recollection from a dream. The way she spoke of it was like she was actually there, feeling the agony from each and every stab, made her believe that it had actually happened, rather than being a simple nightmare.

That isn’t possible, though, no matter how much it seemed so. If that was the case, then Janet wouldn’t be with her in this room in her clinic, sitting across from her at her desk, injury-free. She’d probably be at the hospital, and that was the best-case scenario.

Strangely, she had been fixated on the knife when she spoke of her dream-death. The color of the metal, the sheen, the unique gold-embossed eagle on the hilt, and the small ruby that made up its eye. Maria guessed that it was a way of distracting herself from the traumatic memory.

Anyways, she decided to stop the session for the day, before it could head into territory she knew her patient wasn’t quite ready for just yet. Janet quickly headed out, and the therapist could finally get a moment’s break before her next appointment.

Luck wasn’t on her side, sadly. Nina, her assistant, poked her head through the door, and Maria knew she wouldn’t get any rest. “Your next patient is here, Frederick Sanchez.”

With a groan that she didn’t voice aloud, she gestured vaguely at the girl to let him in. Maria took a moment to adjust her desk, fixing the alignment of the pens, while she waited for him to enter.

This would be her first session with the man. Whether or not he would continue to see her would be up to the success of this first meeting, and whether he felt that she was compatible for helping him work through his problems.

As he sat across from her, she couldn’t help but analyse him. Frederick had a haunted look in his eyes, and a slight tremble in his hands. Might be suffering from PTSD, she guessed, not willing to come to any conclusions without more concrete evidence.

She gave her usual introduction, making it clear to him that she would be a safe space for him to talk about anything. Then, she let him speak.

“I had a dream. No.. a nightmare.” He began, and Maria felt a shiver run down her spine. Janet had begun their very first session with the same line. And the look in his eyes.. It was the same as hers on that day.

Perhaps it was because she had just spoken to the woman that drew her to make the comparison, but she couldn’t help but feel it was accurate.

“I was standing at the door to a house. I couldn’t see anything but the door in my field of vision, but I knew I was in the woods.” Frederick recited, voice dull. He spoke calmly, but Maria recognized signs of detachment.

“I nudged the door open, but didn’t open it all the way. I wonder why I did that?” The man asked, but it seemed he didn’t expect a reply just yet, so she remained silent. “A man opened the door. His eyes seemed so cruel. I.. I can’t really explain it.. But it felt like he had done something unforgivable.”

Finally, some emotion broke through Frederick’s blank facade. Fear filled his eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was fear of the dream, or fear of himself.

“Rage filled me, all of a sudden. One moment I was calm, the next I was just boiling with anger.” His eyes were downcast. His hands were clutched tightly in his lap, shaking.

“I suddenly realised.. I had a knife in my hand.” He choked up here, tears filling his eyes. A hand moved up to cover his mouth, and he looked like he would puke at any moment. “There was.. There was so much blood. It covered the floor, my hands, the knife, everything. I felt myself stabbing him until he stopped moving, and then continuing to stab him.”

There was a short silence, before Frederick brought his tear-filled eyes up to meet Maria’s. “Am I a bad person? What kind of thoughts are running through my head to create such images?” He asked hysterically, as though she had all the answers in the world. “I have a daughter at home, she’s just five years old. Am I a danger to her? I don’t want to hurt her..”

Maria should comfort him. She should assess his mental state, and make sure he was safe to be living around young children, and safe to live in his own mind. But her mind was oddly fixated on the story she had just heard, and how much it resembled what she had been hearing from Janet over the past few weeks.

So, she did something no professional therapist should do. “What did the knife look like?” She asked, her curiosity trumping over her professionalism, filling her with shame.

The man seemed equally taken aback by her question. “The.. the knife?” Frederick repeated dully, as though in disbelief of what he was hearing. “Well.. I suppose it was rather small and light. Custom-made, probably. There was a gold-embossed eagle on the hilt, and a small ruby in its eye.”