Unraveling

I’d always prided myself on being able to navigate the labyrinth of an individual’s mind. There are always so many layers, so many things to uncover, so many things hidden away. I became a psychologist because of how I loved to peel back those layers, bringing the darkness into the light, and bringing my patients the peace they so longed for. When Elizabeth Thompson walked into my office, I could tell there would be so much to unravel, and almost felt excited to take on the challenge of helping this girl who looked so fragile and small in the chair across from me. I don’t know where I went wrong.

Our sessions began innocuously enough, Elizabeth was quiet and shy. She would sink into the chair so deeply that at times I thought it might swallow her whole. There was something about her eyes, how they looked so haunted. She looked as if she had lived a thousand lifetimes and spoken about none of them. I could feel the darkness that accompanied her when she walked into my office, her little shoulders hunched over as if it physically weighed on her. It was like her own demons called to me, begged me to unravel the ties they were bound in, and I was eager to oblige. I was curious about this unsettling trauma and it’s relentless hold on this poor girl.

I think she reminded me of myself at first. I was once nothing more than a ghost of my own past. It took me years to overcome my demons, and even so they stayed with me as I grew into this new person. That’s what I mean when I say that her demons called to mine, like they were familiar somehow. I should have referred her elsewhere; I shouldn’t have let my own morbid curiosities dictate how I handled her as a client. Perhaps in some way, I can at least take some solace in having taken away some of the burden she carried. But even now, as I rot away in this room, I know I cannot take the weight off my own shoulders. I must carry it to the end.

If you’re reading this, I am Dr. Sarah Morgan, and this is all I have to leave behind. I took on a patient, and unraveled her until I became the patient myself. They won’t tell me what became of Elizabeth, so I can only hope that when I took on these demons, they left her to live her life. It started subtly, as things like this often do. Dreams of vivid images of shadowy figures lurking in the corners of my mind, whispering indiscernible words that sent shivers down my spine and woke me in such a violent fit that I couldn’t go back to sleep.

I’d had dreams of this sort before, especially as a child, so I dismissed them as mere products of a weary mind, attributing them to the toll my profession took on my subconscious. I didn’t connect them to her, Elizabeth, but as the dreams grew more frequent, and in tandem with our sessions, I couldn’t shake the idea that maybe it had something to do with her. Even then, I thought it only because she reminded me so much of my younger self. They became even more frequent the more she spoke in our sessions, and I stopped sleeping altogether. She was all I could focus on, all I could hear, and our sessions consumed me.

The lines between my personal and professional life began to blur, and I found myself increasingly preoccupied with Elizabeth’s dark past. It was as if her demons had seeped into my own psyche, invading my thoughts during the day and haunting my dreams at night, intermingling with my own. I’m sure it sounds rather worrisome, that I didn’t end the sessions sooner, and that the weariness of my own mind was taking a toll on my ability to provide the care she needed. It would become so intertwined with my reality that there were days I was sitting in my office at home, and then suddenly sitting in my office at work, looking into Elizabeth’s deep brown eyes as she poured her heart out. She spoke of the malevolence of these beings that tormented her, leaving her unable to sleep, or eat, or do anything she wanted.

I pried for details on these “beings,” I had wanted to know what they looked like, and how they kept her trapped within herself. She recoiled, I remember, she pulled back so sharply that it felt as if the room was lighter. I was almost able to see clearly, and I think she knew that if she let go, she would be free, and I would not. I don’t blame the poor girl; she was just a link in a chain that led to me. She held eye contact with me as I continued to push her to let it out, and I can recall so clearly how her pupils dilated as she spoke. The weight of her body shifted in the chair as she leaned forward, words tumbling from her mouth.

It was that night, a sudden chill crept through the room as I sat in my office going over her case as I did every night. The air grew thick with a heavy silence, broken only by the distant hum of traffic outside. The room was so dark even with my lamp on that I knew before even having to look, that there would be something there. When I glanced up, my heart pounding, and saw a figure standing in the doorway—it was a figure mirrored the apparitions from my nightmares, and looked just as Elizabeth has described in our sessions.

My breath caught in my throat as the figure slowly advanced toward me. The features were blurred, distorted, as if they were fragments of a broken mirror. I blinked, hoping to dispel the illusion, but it persisted. I tried pinching myself, sure that I was once again being sucked into the vividness of my own nightmares. Panic surged through my veins as I realized that this was no hallucination, no trick of my tired mind. It was real, and there was no escape.

"What do you want?" I managed to stammer, my voice trembling with fear. I didn’t sound like myself at all. I sounded instead like I had when I was just a girl.

The figure loomed closer, its presence suffocating as it became clearer and clearer. I felt the weight on my shoulders increase, and my own body faulter under the weight of this darkness.

I recoiled, to no use, my mind racing with a thousand questions. How could this be happening? Was it Elizabeth? Had I unleashed something when I pushed her to speak of her demons? Or was it something more sinister, something beyond the realms of human understanding? I even went to far as to question if it could be me, if I had fallen back into the realm that had once paralyzed me as a child. With every thought, the figure took on a new shape, a new fear, a new identity.

I lost sense of time as I stayed curled up in that little chair in my office, unsure of where to turn. Ever so often, an alarm would go off in the background to remind me of an upcoming appointment with my client, but I was never able to leave. Elizabeth never called in all those days, never seemed to wonder why our sessions stopped so suddenly. I watched in silence as the figure took hold of my house, in all its many forms. It burrowed into my mind, searching for my fears and exposing them. I pushed back when I could, trying to shake it from my mind, trying to push myself up from the chair in which I was wasting away in.

It wasn’t until it had finally reached my most dreaded nightmare that I was left running through the streets of my neighborhood. I don’t recall running, just as I don’t recall the attack I launched on the man who tried to help me as I screamed. All I remember is the figure of my father as he lumbered around the corner and towards the chair where I sat. That unleashed a terror so deep that my body revolted against it, leading me to break free from that room. That is all I can remember, and now I sit in another room, one that I can’t break free from.

The doctor comes, asking about the darkness. He implores from every angle in a bid for me to tell him what it is that holds me hostage. He asks how I cannot remember my own unraveling. I tell him nothing, not even when the darkness itches beneath my skin, begging to be spread. He tells me about Elizabeth, that she never was.