Dream and reality
My return flight landed, and there was Ethan
Pierce, leaving his sick wife, Maya, at home to
greet me. At the airport, his gaze was intense,
his eyes full of what looked like deep affection.
His son, Noah, with a cherubic face, looked up
at me adoringly. “You’re so pretty, Miss! Will
you be my mommy?”
Behind them, Maya, pale and fragile, swayed on her feet, her expression bewildered. I gave a tight–lipped smile and bent down. “Well, kiddo, I actually like your mom. How about I be your
daddy instead?”
01
I’d had the nightmare again. At my therapist’s office, her assistant, Sarah, offered me water,
her eyes full of concern. “The same dream?” she asked softly.
“I can’t take it anymore,” I said, my voice flat,
trying to control the simmering rage within.
Sarah sighed sympathetically. “Having that
dream every night, no wonder you’re on edge
even after your meds.”
I gripped the teacup, my gaze unfocused,
muttering, “One day, I’m going to kill them all.”
Sarah’s eyes widened in alarm. “Whoa, easy
there…”
The clock on the wall ticked, each second
echoing in the silence. When the chime finally
signaled the next hour, I seemed to snap back
to reality. “Sorry,” I mumbled to a still–shaken
Sarah.
I have a severe, untreatable form of aggressive
psychosis. But I rarely had homicidal thoughts,
even during episodes, until I started having this
recurring nightmare.
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The dream always played out the same. A man,
in love with someone else, marries a woman he
doesn’t love and has a son. The woman is
gentle and frail, her social standing far below
his. Both the man and his son treat her with
indifference. Then, the man’s “one true love”
returns, rekindling their old flame. The son,
influenced by his father, grows closer to her,
too. The heartbroken wife, already ill, gives up
on life and commits suicide.
Only then do the man and his son realize they
loved her all along. Consumed by grief, the
sociopathic jerk projects his pain onto the “one
true love.” The dream ends with her ruined and
tortured, meeting a gruesome end.
The “one true love” in the dream has my face.
Her backstory is similar to mine, too— a
wealthy heiress who lived abroad. Except I left
the States for treatment.
I was diagnosed with this bizarre psychosis in
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nign school. Doctors weren t quite sure what to
make of it. They labeled it a cocktail of mania,
bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Basically,
sometimes I get the urge to murder anyone who
annoys me. Sometimes I want company in my
madness and try to drive everyone else insane.
And sometimes, I just want to watch the world
burn. My parents, terrified I’d cause trouble
back home, sent me across the Atlantic to a
place where no one knew me. My symptoms
had been improving, until the nightmares
started.
I’m certain the woman in the dream is me, but I
can’t fathom why I’d be involved with a married
man. I wouldn’t touch a married man with a
ten–foot pole. I have zero interest in other
people’s property, especially men. I despise
almost all men. Actually, I despise almost all
humans.
And who back home would consider me their
“one true love“? Was it the mob boss whose
face I almost rearranged? The self–proclaimed
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guru I mocked into an existential crisis? Or the
entitled rich kid who threw up in my car? I
couldn’t remember their faces clearly. They
were all blurred, like pixelated images.
Otherwise, I would have flown back and wreaked havoc during my worst episodes.
02
I did have a few acquaintances back home, like Sylvia Hughes. She was my opposite, perpetually calm and cheerful, though a bit slow on the uptake. For example, I’d told her a week ago I was coming back. A week later, she calls, sounding like she just remembered. “Oh,” she says, as I’m smashing a batch of custom–made mosaic figurines of stick figures. Unfazed by the crashing sounds, she continues, her voice soft, “I just remembered… Everyone knows you’re coming back, Vivian.”
I’d been trying to figure out the identities of the family in my dream, but being abroad limited
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my access to information. My parents dodged my questions whenever I brought it up. That evening, I noticed suspicious searches on my online accounts: “Famous Family Massacre Case Details,” “Sentencing for Mass Murder,” “Inside the Mind of a Mass Murderer,” and, most alarmingly, “My Daughter Wants to Kill People. What Do I Do?”
I sighed. I could understand their concern; it wasn’t entirely unwarranted. Since that route was blocked, I turned to my network of “friends.” Finally, Sylvia, the sloth, delivered. “Ethan Pierce told everyone he’s picking you up from the airport,” she said slowly. “He has a
son. The boy really likes you.”
Ethan Pierce? I narrowed my eyes, surprised. I
barely remembered him. He was the bullied
lackey of some psycho kid back in high school.
After I got the psycho expelled, Ethan gave me
a gift. He was brooding and awkward, muttering
nonsense about how being near him would
<
bring misfortune. I finally deciphered that he
was trying to thank me. Since I was in a relatively good mood after my last episode
subsided, I told him I hadn’t helped him for his
sake and refused the gift. I didn’t want to be
associated with someone so…weird.
After moving abroad, I kept getting messages
on social media. I blocked the persistent ones. But one guy, “Messenger,” kept sending cryptic messages that occasionally amused me. He was like a digital pet Sylvia had recommended.
Messenger: Saw you staring at the Heart of the Ocean at the auction. Couldn’t afford it? I’ll buy
it for you.
Me: ? I donated it.
(And then I donated it again.)
Messenger: You looked great on the cover of that magazine at the fashion show. Bought 20,000 copies for my collection.
Me: I didn’t authorize any photos. Which
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(And then I sued the magazine for copyright infringement.)
He also posted selfies. He was objectively attractive, but the shirtless gym pics and the “catch me if you can” vibe were too much. I blocked him. Only recently, when he revealed his identity, did I realize he was Ethan Pierce. So, he’d evolved from Mr. Cryptic to Mr.
Clueless.
“Okay, thanks,” I said to Sylvia, already plotting.
“Gotta go. Sent your gifts back.”
Sylvia sounded pleased. “Okay!” Then she
asked, “Need me to, you know, lock down the
airport?” The airport was owned by her family.
She was offering to help me dispose of any…
evidence.
Honestly, I had considered assaulting someone,
but I had a different plan now. “No, thanks,” |
said. “Not into violence these days.”
く
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73747
A
100
The plane landed on time. Ethan Pierce,
surrounded by a gaggle of preppy, bouquet- wielding guys, waited for me with a little boy who shared his features. A quick glance revealed a pale, delicate woman trailing behind them. Ah, Maya Pierce, Ethan’s wife.
I’d discovered that Ethan had made a fortune after marrying Maya, the heiress of the
reclusive Hughes family. He’d leveraged his marriage to absorb most of the Hughes‘ assets after Maya’s grandmother, the last of the
Hughes elders, passed away. Maya, sheltered
and naive, had apparently fallen head over heels for Ethan. The “head over heels” part seemed
suspiciously manufactured, though. The story
went that he’d “rescued” her
–
a classic,
predictable male tactic. Maya had transformed
herself into the perfect homemaker, learning
everything from cooking to etiquette. Yet, she
remained an unappreciated ghost, known in
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Ethan and Noah were clearly unaware of Maya’s clumsy attempt to follow them. It was almost comical. My interest piqued. I decided to switch gears, put on a friendly face, and approached
them.
Ethan, who’d been talking about picking me up for weeks, looked at me with what he probably thought was smoldering intensity. “Long time
no see,” he said. His son, apparently taking
cues from his father, latched onto my hand,
calling me “Miss” sweetly. After some pointless
small talk, Noah, holding my hand in one and
his father’s in the other, looked up at me with a
hopeful expression. “You’re so pretty, Miss!
Will you be my mommy?”
Ethan’s friends exchanged knowing glances,
elbows nudging elbows, ready to join in the
“fun.” I paused, staring at the seemingly
harmless child, a mixture of morbid fascination
and disgust churning in my stomach. Maya,
witnessing this, stumbled, her face crumbling.
The wave of nausea hit me hard. Even a
psychopath like me understands the primal
bond between a child and their mother. Noah
seemed perfectly healthy and intelligent. He couldn’t have come up with this on his own.
Someone had been feeding him these ideas.
My smile didn’t falter. I bent down, my voice gentle, “But, Noah, honey, I actually like your mom-” I paused for effect, a mischievous glint
in my eye. “How about I be your daddy
instead?”
The boisterous reception area went silent. The
grinning faces of Ethan’s entourage froze.
Noah’s wide eyes filled with confusion; he was
too young to grasp the implications. Ethan’s
expression stiffened. Even Maya, seconds away from a complete meltdown, stared at me with
bewildered eyes.
“Vivian?” Ethan’s voice, smooth and deep, held
a hint of playful reproach. “You haven’t
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“I don’t joke,” I said, my smile unwavering.
The Pierce family drama was none of my business. But they had the audacity to drag me into it, forcing me to play the villain in their twisted little game. I didn’t mind being the
villain, but not this kind of villain. Their story was destined for a disastrous end. I might as
well be the one to tear it apart.
I reached out to pat Noah’s head, about to
deliver another dose of carefully crafted chaos,
when a sharp pain pierced my skull. My face
paled, my fingers digging into the protective
leather of my gloves. This was bad. It was a
precursor to a full–blown episode. I could lose
control any second.
Ethan reached out to steady me, his eyes
softening with what he mistook for concern. “I
know you’re upset about Maya, but there’s
nothing between us. It was just a business
arrangement. You’ve always been the only one for me, ever since we were sixteen…”
My stomach churned. Nothing between us? So,
sleeping with her, having a child with her…
