"That day… that accursed day. I lost the world."
Dick was a slender, middle-aged man with long, tangled black hair and a patchy, unkempt beard. His body sank into the oddly comfortable couch, as though it were trying to swallow him whole, yet he found no comfort there. Shadows clung beneath his eyes, etched deep from sleepless nights, and his chest rose and fell with the heavy rhythm of a man who had forgotten what peace felt like.
"Go on," his therapist said quietly, pen scratching against his notepad.
The overhead light buzzed faintly, its flicker casting uneven pulses of pale yellow on the walls. Each stutter of brightness clawed at Dick's memory, dragging jagged fragments of the past back to the surface. His skin grew clammy, and his body jolted as though invisible wires had been yanked taut.
Something about the office felt wrong.
No windows.
Dick had noticed that the first session—four walls, one door, and that relentless buzzing light. The therapist's nameplate sat on the desk, but the engraving seemed to shift when Dick looked away, the letters never quite settling into focus.
"I… I don't want to talk about it." His voice cracked. "I can't talk about it."
The therapist exhaled softly, setting his notepad aside on the desk. He leaned forward, folding his hands, his tone steady but firm.
"Dick, you've been coming here for a week now, and I still have no idea what this 'world' is. I think it's time you shared."
Silence pressed in, heavy and suffocating. Dick's shoulders curled inward, his hands twisted, and his gaze remained hollow.
"Let's try this," the therapist said gently. "Three deep breaths with me. Then tell me why you're here."
"Okay."
He shut his eyes. Inhale. Exhale. The faint bite of antiseptic clung to the air, sharp against his tongue.
With each breath, something shifted. The iron band squeezing his chest loosened. A ripple of calmness moved through him, and for the first time in ten years, the storm inside stilled.
"That's it." His therapist's voice washed over him, warm and steady. "Find peace within yourself… and share what troubles you."
Suddenly, a searing, unbearable heat tore through him. As if a thousand needles were piercing his organs, each one dipped in the sun.
But it wasn't real. He knew it wasn't real.
He was only being dragged back.
Back to that day.
That accursed day.
"It was… ten years ago. The day I lost everything."
The office faded, the couch beneath him vanished, and the faint antiseptic smell dissolved into smoke and ash.
And suddenly, he was standing in the ruins of his world.
"Hey, honey, can you tuck Alice into bed? She asked for you."
A petite woman with long blonde hair and a gentle smile rested her hand on a younger, clean-shaven Dick.
He didn't return the smile. Instead, he raised a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's to his lips and took a long, sloppy swig.
"No." His words slurred. He shoved her hand aside and staggered up from the recliner. "I'm going out."
Her smile withered. She glanced toward the hallway, toward Alice's room, then back to him. Her fingers twisted together.
Once, their marriage had been perfect. Dick had been the kind of man who tucked Alice in with silly voices and kissed Mary goodnight without fail. But after his mother's death, the bottle had claimed him. Piece by piece, it had devoured the man she loved.
"You really shouldn't drive," she said, voice trembling.
But he was already at the door, car keys jingling in his hand.
"Don't tell me what to do, woman."
Those were his last words before walking out of the house.
Some time later, Dick somehow managed to drag himself to the liquor store. The neon sign buzzed faintly overhead, its harsh glow stabbing at his tired eyes.
He wandered the aisles, scanning the rows of bottles until his gaze settled on one that promised only oblivion—Everclear. With a shaky hand, he grabbed it and staggered to the counter.
"This all for you tonight?" the clerk asked. His tone was flat, as if he were unsurprised at the return of his most loyal customer.
"Yeah, that's all, Jim." Dick's voice was hoarse. Then his eyes flicked to the small display behind the counter. "Actually… throw in one of those lotto tickets."
A sharp throb pulsed in his skull, pounding like a war drum.
He winced.
The hours of drinking had worn off. He had passed out in the parking lot before coming inside, and now he was paying for it, with a hangover settling in like a punishment.
Fuck sobriety.
"Here you are." Jim handed over the paper bag. "Make sure you get home safe."
Before Dick could reply, a siren screamed outside. The sound tore through the night, followed by the flashing blur of ambulances and fire trucks racing past the store, down the very road he had just come from.
His eyes widened.
That's…
The bag slipped from his hands as he shoved through the door and sprinted across the lot. He dove into his car, fumbling with the keys. The engine coughed, sputtered, and refused, but on the third try, it roared to life.
He sped after the lights, tires shrieking on the asphalt. His skull pounded, vision swimming, but he pressed on. There was only one house at the end of that road.
His house.
Please be okay. Please, God, don't take them.
Minutes dragged like hours. Then, at last, he arrived, only to be met with horror.
The small, warm home he had built for his family was engulfed in flames, devoured by fire.
He stumbled forward, desperate, but officers caught him and held him back. Their words cut deeper than any flame.
"I'm sorry, sir. They're both dead."
Dick's voice trembled in the present as the memory swallowed him whole.
"My wife had told me earlier that day she smelled gas, but I was so drunk I thought it was my cigarettes."
His fist clenched, nails digging into his palm until they drew blood.
"I see." The therapist's voice cut in. "Since then, you've been completely sober?"
Dick stared at the blinking overhead light. "Yeah."
The scratch of a pen against paper filled the silence.
"And now," the therapist said slowly, "you feel you have no ties to this world?"
"Correct."
"Perfect."
The word hung in the air, twisted and wrong. His therapist's tone had shifted, no longer soothing but sharp and unsettling. A chill crawled up Dick's spine.
He turned his head and froze.
The therapist's eyes had changed. They gleamed with something ancient and hungry, pupils dilating until they consumed the whites entirely. A manic smile stretched across his dark features, too wide, too knowing.
Dick's breath caught. "What—"
"What if I told you," the therapist said, rising from his chair, "that I could send you someplace else? Another world."
The words should have sounded insane. They should have triggered alarm bells, sent Dick running for the door.
But as he stared into those impossible eyes, feeling the wrongness radiating from this windowless room, from that flickering light, from the nameplate that never stayed still—he found he wasn't surprised at all.
"I'd say you're crazy," Dick whispered, but his voice lacked conviction.
The therapist sighed, almost disappointed. He pressed a palm to his own forehead. "They never believe me."
Then he thrust his other hand out.
The air behind his chair shimmered, distorting like heat waves rising from summer asphalt. A circular portal bloomed into existence, glowing blue and humming with a power that made Dick's teeth ache. He could feel it pulling at him, whispering promises of escape, of forgetting, of somewhere far away from the flames that still haunted his dreams.
"Wait—" Dick tried to stand, to back away, but his legs wouldn't obey. "What are you doing?"
"I'll send you to a world where you can find peace!" The therapist's voice rose, a mix of ecstasy and terror. "A place where—"
He froze mid-sentence. His eyes widened, fixed on something within the portal's depths that Dick couldn't see.
"No," the therapist breathed. "No, that's not—"
But the portal had already begun to move.
It surged forward like a living tide, sweeping across the room, swallowing desk and chairs and that eternally flickering light.
"WAIT—!" Dick threw himself sideways, but the mass caught him.
It clung to his skin, liquid yet electric, every nerve in his body screaming as though he were dissolving into light. The world stretched and compressed, colors bleeding into sounds, sounds crystallizing into sensations he had no name for.
Through the chaos, fragmented and distant, he heard his therapist's voice one last time.
"Shit… that's the wrong world."
Then Dick was falling, falling into somewhere else entirely, and the last thing he felt before consciousness fled was certainty that wherever he was going, there would be no coming back.