Page 9 of Ex Somnis

“That was Lennon’s decision.” This Man smiles, and my neck prickles at the sight.

“Because she thought there was no other way to save her best friend.” I keep my voice level by considerable effort, hoping it doesn’t show. “Tessa has been deteriorating, and Lennon was scared out of her mind. Falling into this… this state with her was not an informed decision.”

“Tessa,” he says quietly. “Is the best she has ever been.”

So Tessa is with him.

I suspected it but never had it confirmed.

“Tessa’s body isn’t.” The clinical part of my brain, which is still on, lines the facts up in order. “Progressive respiratory compromise. Supplemental oxygen. Diminishing response. You cannot sustain someone at this depth indefinitely, no matter what your dreamscape offers⁠—”

He cuts me off with a laugh, and it’s genuine, almost warm, and fucking unsettling.

“Of course, you can, if you choose elsewhere. The body follows the mind, Paul. Come on. I know you’ve been studying this. Don’t act all dumb. You’re not.”

Right now, I feel dumb.

“Then why is she struggling?” My voice has acquired an edge I did not authorize. “If Tessa chose this and is there willingly, why is her body fighting? Why is her breathing…”

“Is it fighting?” There is something behind his eyes in that moment, not quite amusement. “Or are you the only one left fighting, Dr. Bennett?”

The mirrors crack.

The crack happens simultaneously in every panel, floor to ceiling, all around me, every surface splitting in the same direction. I take one step back, and a black spider comes through the fracture. It’s the size of my hand, moving fast. It is followed immediately by another, and then the mirrors are pouring them out.

All of them.

Every panel, every angle, every version of myself I’ve been staring at for the length of this nightmare, replaced in an instant by the sound of them, which is the sound from my childhood that I cannot name without it doing what it does to my chest right now.

I back up, but there is nowhere to go.

They descend over my shoes first. The weight of them is wrong, more than it should be, more than any single thing has the right to be. When the first one reaches my collar, it makes a sound I can feel in my back teeth, and I…

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Take control, Paul.

I try. God, I try, but I can’t.

My hands don’t feel attached to me.

He is watching me come apart in a room full of mirrors, standing exactly where he was, hands still in his pockets, when one of them climbs across my jaw.

They’re in my hair.

They’re down the back of my collar.

They’re everywhere. They are the floor, the walls. Every night I’ve lain awake with the light blazing because the dark does this to me. The dark does exactly this, and I cannot⁠—

I gasp as awareness slams back into my body, which has me pinned to where I’m sitting. The weight lands all at once. My arms and legs lock, and my chest is compressed like something is sitting directly on my sternum.

I go through the same steps I always use to get out of this.

You are awake. You are in the armchair. You can see the book you just read on the side table. You are safe.

I don’t fight it. Fighting extends it. You breathe, and you wait.

At least in this position, I can scan the room because my eyes can move, allowing me to find the clock, the book, the oxygen unit with its small green light, and then the bed.