Page 15 of Dreamscape Therapies

I stare into the darkness, thinking about Vincent and his suffering. About how he’s probably across town right now, trying and failing to sleep. Having another night without any real rest. How tomorrow, he’ll have another morning wondering how much longer he can keep doing this.

The poor man is suffering, and he doesn’t know why.

My being concerned is one thing, but this feels like something else. Something more personal than I can logically brush off as me being a concerned therapist.

Something inside me keeps insisting that Vincent’s problem is my problem. That his nightmares are mine to soothe. That whatever is hurting him is mine to find.

I’m staring into the darkness when the thought comes, quiet and instinctive and completely uninvited.

Mine.

I bolt upright in bed, my heart beating a fucking drumroll in my chest.

“What the fuck?”

Chapter Seven

My neighbor is vacuuming his yard.

I'm drinking orange juice in front of my kitchen window, watching him drag a full-sized vacuum cleaner back and forth across his lawn. Every few seconds, he stops to clear some invisible debris.

What the hell?

I set my glass down and head outside to get a closer look.

The second my bare feet touch the lawn, I freeze.

The grass isn't grass. The entire yard is made of thick, fuzzy yarn in stripes of green, lime, and mustard yellow. Like someone crocheted a massive rug and laid it across the neighborhood.

I crouch down, running my hand over the soft material.

It purrs.

"Nope." I jerk my hand back and scramble onto the sidewalk. My heart is pounding. Grass shouldn't purr. Grass shouldn't be made of yarn.

Across the street, Mrs. Julie waters her flowerbeds with a giant bottle of fabric softener. The roses are knitted. The birds in her bird bath have beaks made of zippers.

This is wrong. All of it.

I turn to go back inside, but my house is gone.

In its place stands a gigantic crochet cottage with doilies for windows. A cheerful sign in the yard reads LIVE, LAUGH, LOOP.

My stomach drops.

Behind the house, a man in cargo shorts comes sprinting out of the shed, hedge clippers still in hand.

"IT'S RIGHT BEHIND ME!"

The shed explodes.

Not with fire. With yarn. An absolutely unbelievable amount of yarn. Skeins launch into the sky like fireworks as the neighbors ooh and ahh like this is some sort of celebration.

The ground shifts beneath me.

I look down just in time to see the yarn grass slowly knitting itself around my shoes. Tiny loops climb my ankles with horrifying determination.

Shit. Shit.