The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Sylvia Brainerd hated sleeping. It hadn’t always been that way, of course. She remembered a time when she looked forward to slipping between her sheets at night and drifting off into peaceful slumber. Now, though, sweet dreams had been replaced by memories of flashing lights, the cacophony of metal and glass buckling under pressure, the tickle of blood snaking down her skin. It had been ages since Sylvia had slept through the night. Her therapist seemed confident that she would return to normal with just a little more work. Every week he smiled, bursting with optimism, and told her that he was sure she was getting better. That he could see improvement. Sylvia always left their sessions feeling more confused and discouraged than when she arrived.
And yet, she still came. Every Wednesday night, she sat in the waiting room, staring blankly at cheesy framed motivational posters and attempting to ignore the itch beneath her back brace. Eventually, Bruce Larson CSW would peek his beady-eyed face from behind his office door to summon her. His office was cluttered and bright, and it reminded Sylvia of an old-timey university professor. Bruce, however, looked more like a hippie burnout than an intellectual. He would begin their session with, “a moment of reflection,” which was two minutes in which they would stare at one another in awkward silence, so that Sylvia could “gather her thoughts.”
Never mind that any time spent in silence was torture for her, recently. Once outside sound died down, the internal noise took over. It was noise that she always heard, but quiet moments turned the whispers into shouts. Dozens of voices, battling for supremacy in her mind, but none of their words were clear. She could easily explain the voices away as PTSD. Most everything she didn’t like about herself these days she could explain with PTSD. What she truly struggled with were the whispers that she could understand, cutting through her consciousness like a hot knife, regardless of the level of sound around her. She shuddered to think about it.
Bruce cleared his throat gently and laced his fingers over his knee, startling Sylvia from her reverie. “So,” he began, “how was your week?”
It would be too easy to just tell him that her week had been fine. He would believe her. He would smile and tell her that he was so proud of her progress. He would really be proud of himself. She didn’t have to tell him that she’d had a panic attack on the bus three days in a row. That every time the vehicle rounded a corner, she felt like she would be sick. She didn’t have to tell him that she’d been having trouble breathing between panic attacks, like there was a weight on her chest and she couldn’t make her lungs expand. She didn’t have to tell him that her coworkers and friends sometimes looked through her as though she weren’t there. Like they couldn’t see her or hear her.
Instead, she sighed, and shifted slowly in the chair, trying not to scratch the leather with her brace, “It’s been rough, Bruce.”
He cocked his head to one side, mousy brown hair falling over his shoulder like a dingy curtain. His eyes widened in sympathy and Sylvia had the fight the urge to groan. She had never felt such aversion for a therapist before. There was nothing wrong with Bruce, really. He was a perfectly nice guy. She just couldn’t stand him. Couldn’t stand anything anymore.
Sylvia bit down hard on her tongue. The resulting pain was distant, almost like it was happening to someone else. When she opened her mouth to speak, Bruce nodded encouragingly. She very nearly rolled her eyes. She knew that, as discouraged and jaded as she’d become, she wouldn’t make any progress unless she checked her attitude. Never mind that it had been months, and she only seemed to get worse.
“I’m still having panic attacks. Still having flashbacks.”
Bruce’s face fell only slightly, the tiniest crack in his upbeat façade. “Do you want to tell me about them?”
Sylvia looked down at her knees and rubbed her palms across her thighs, “Every time I go to sleep, I either don’t dream at all or I just replay the accident in my head over and over. The details always remain the same. It always happens the same way—”
“Tell me about the nights you don’t dream.” Bruce interrupted.
Sylvia blinked rapidly in confusion. She didn’t see how that was as important as reliving the greatest trauma of her life multiple times a week, but… “Um. Okay. It’s like… my whole body goes numb and there’s a huge black pit, and I can feel myself on the edge of the pit about to fall in. And I want to scream, but I can’t move my mouth and I can’t breathe. And then I fall into the pit and there’s just… nothing. And then I wake up.”
“Interesting.” Bruce whispered, and steepled his fingers in an uncharacteristically studious manner. The silence yawned into an uncomfortable length. Bruce studied Sylvia, and Sylvia avoided Bruce’s eyes. The voices crescendoed. As if he knew, Bruce suddenly asked, “Have the voices changed?”
“No. I still can’t understand them.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow as though he knew there was more to that story than she was letting on. Sylvia lowered her eyes again, uncomfortable with the intensity of his eyes. When had he become so observant?
“There’s one voice. On occasion. It’s not as loud as the other voices, but for some reason I understand it perfectly.”
“And what does it tell you?”
“’Wake up’ or ‘This isn’t real.’”
“And do you believe it?”
Sylvia swallowed hard and shuddered. Of course she didn’t believe it. It was just her mind trying to convince her that her pain wasn’t real. Her consciousness would rather believe that reality was a dream than accept that this was what her life had become. Isn’t that what Bruce had been telling her from the beginning? That she was “disassociating” to cope? Sylvia took a deep breath to respond that she wasn’t sick enough to believe that the voices in her head were telling her the truth, but Bruce spoke first.
“You should. Believe it, I mean.”
“Excuse me?”
Bruce’s smile widened. Not unfriendly. Not threatening. But she could see the pity in his eyes and it made her stomach drop. She hated that look. She hated everyone treating her as though she were made of glass. As though they lived in constant fear that she would have another of the “episodes” that lead her to drive her car into a tree in the first place.
As if to echo Bruce’s words, the voice in her head hissed, “Wake up, Sylvie. Wake UP.”
Sylvia shook her head roughly, which jarred her back and made her whimper at a sharp pain that lanced up her spine.
Bruce sighed and stood, stretching his back, “Think about it, Sylvia. Really think about it.”
Her mind raced. After the accident, she’d woken up in the hospital with no one around but a sour-faced nurse. She’d had no visitors. Seen no other patients in the halls. The only other faces she’d had were the doctors. She’d gotten a taxi home, but she couldn’t remember anything about the ride. When her family finally had come to see her, They’d seemed hollow. Like they weren’t sure how to behave. As if they weren’t sure who she was. Or who they were. The whole world had seemed hazy and dull. Like she was viewing everything through a shroud. Eventually, she’d just… gotten used to it. She’d gone back to work and resumed her life – still miserable, and with the added burden of heightened anxiety and terrible flashbacks.
Sylvia squeezed her eyes shut against a building headache. Bruce still stood in front of her, waiting for her response. She could feel the foggy black mist of anxiety drifting into the edges of her mind, and her breathing became shallower.
“No. That’s ridiculous. You’re supposed to tell me not to listen to the voices in my head.”
Bruce chuckled and knelt in front of her and rested a hand on her knee. His palm was sweaty.
“I’m supposed to help you get better. Right now, listening to that voice is going to help you get better. Wake up, Sylvie.”
Only her big brother called her Sylvie.
“Come back to us. Please.” Bruce’s voice changed. Became feminine.
Sylvia felt her chest grow tight, felt the muscles in her throat spasm as she started gagging.
“Wake up!”
Her finger twitched, and she heard a gasp that wasn’t her own. Saw Bruce’s eyes sparkle.
She opened her eyes. Slowly. So slowly. Her eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. Shapes swam in and out of focus. She heard the rhythmic chirp of a heart rate monitor. She heard her brother’s teary voice. “Welcome back, Sylvie.”