Chapter 13: Running Out - A Dream of Waking Life

“Just a dream,” Matt felt his lips mouth of their own accord. He opened his eyes and picked up his head from its slump. Dr. Heron glared at him, and his void-black glare burned beneath Matt’s skin.

“You,” Dr. Heron snarled. “You just nodded off there, didn’t you?”

Matt shook his head instinctually, then he remembered that he was not actually this man in a therapist's office. This was just a dream.

It has to be. I proved it, Matt told himself resolutely. This world is just a dream. The old man is right...I mean...I’m right, Matt thought as his mind’s disposition turned to existential horror, then finally changed again, settling on a nearly perfect confidence that he was merely lucid in a dream of waking life.

Matt remembered that he had made changes to this world – May’s world – just to be sure of its unreality.

“This is just a dream,” Matt told his therapist with the tried-and-true wisdom of an old man on his deathbed.

Dr. Heron shook his head and sighed deeply, considering his words carefully.

Matt rose and pointed to the bottom drawer of Dr. Heron’s filing cabinet before the man could speak.

“There’s three Serotel bottles in that drawer. One of them has seven pills. Another has two pills. And the last one contains no pills. If I’m right –”

“Enough, Matthew!” Dr. Heron barked, and Matt was caught off guard by the harsh tone in his voice. The inkblot painting seemed to pulsate behind Dr. Heron, inducing a feeling of falling toward it.

“No!” Matt barked right back. “You listen. If I’m right…if that’s what I find in that drawer –”

“Do not touch my desk, Matthew Willish,” Dr. Heron warned, his voice like the edge of a sheathed blade ready to be drawn.

Fuck you, Matt thought, and Dr. Heron went wide-eyed as if he could read Matt’s mind. Matt strode to the desk and pushed away the man in all black, taking hold of the drawer’s handle. He tried to jerk it open, but it was locked.

“Matthew!” Dr. Heron shrieked. “How dare you!”

“Open it,” Matt told him resolutely.

“Sit down, Matthew.”

“Open it!” Matt shouted this time.

Dr. Heron didn’t seem phased by Matt’s threatening tone. “Just five minutes ago. You don’t remember just five minutes ago?” Dr. Heron offered with forced composure.

He’s stalling, Matt realized, and his heart ramped up with the expectation that he was right about the contents of the bottom drawer.

“Five minutes ago I was awake in reality. Now I’m in a dream. Open it,” Matt demanded.

“Five minutes ago you asked me how much Serotel I have on hand. I told you not much. You asked for specifics. And I told you that in my bottom drawer there are three bottles: One of them containing seven pills. Another containing two pills. And the last bottle empty.”

Matt shook his head, but already he was starting to feel mentally unstable rather than lucid.

“No,” Matt demanded. “That can’t be.”

Dr. Heron removed a key from his pocket and unlocked the drawer. Inside, Matt saw three bottles. Dr. Heron offered him all three.

“All yours,” he said, “just don’t invade my space like that again, Matthew.”

Matt licked his dry lips and took a cautious step backward.

“No,” Matt said again, his voice cracking and pleading. “This can’t be.”

Dr. Heron finally rose and put a stiff arm around Matt’s shoulder.

“Matthew, we need to increase your Serotel dosage. And I’m putting you on a new medication as well. But for now, I don’t think you’re even fit to be in public. You should be in a hospital. Do you understand?”

Of course, Matt confirmed to himself, remembering how resolute he had been about going to the hospital the previous night.

But May…

He could still feel May’s gyrations and groaning and gripping.

Did any of that even happen? Matt considered helplessly. He went weak in the knees and fell back onto the black leather couch, tearing away from Dr. Heron’s stiff embrace.

There was a sudden knock at the door, and both Matt and Dr. Heron turned their necks to investigate.

A man opened the door and poked his head through without asking for permission to enter.

“Sorry, Doctor, I just really need to get in here, you know?” The man smiled at them nervously, and Matt could see that there were others in the waiting room outside Dr. Heron’s door. They all looked like poor imitations of…someone else. Then Matt saw it: they were all imitations of himself.

“You...look like me...” Matt stammered. “And...so do those others…”

Imposters, Matt realized. It’s like Alice said.

“Get out!” Dr. Heron ordered.

The man clenched his teeth and pleaded, “I need more Serotel, Doctor. This guy’s been in here long enough!”

“I said out!” Dr. Heron bellowed, his voice like a frayed whip.

The man nodded apologetically and closed the door. The others in the waiting room looked just as impatient.

“They’re all imposters,” Matt said, wanting confirmation.

Dr. Heron nodded. “They all want to be you, Matthew. Even down to the Serotel.”

Dr. Heron looked nervous, darting his eyes from one area of the room to the next as if attempting to further conceal a cleverly hidden secret.

“Or,” Matt began, nodding with forlorn realization at the obvious possibility he had overlooked, “I’m one of them.”

Dr. Heron shook his head ardently. “No, Matthew. You are Matthew Willish. They aren’t. Do you understand?”

He’s worried. He’s hiding something. I...discovered something he doesn’t want revealed. Am I...not me?

“Or...you’re just saying that. I could be a particularly bad case. Why else would you be giving me Serotel along with them? You told me before that Serotel is custom made for me. But that’s not true. And when May looked it up, she couldn’t even find it!” Matt was working himself into a passionate fervor. “What are you not telling me? Am I not me? Am I an imposter of myself...of this man named Matthew Willish?”

“No!” Dr. Heron bellowed with stalwart certainty, cutting Matt off and rising to his feet. “Don’t start thinking that way. You are Matthew Willish. Say it, Matthew. And then I’ll have your bodyguards take you to the hospital. I’ll meet you there. But first say it. Say who you are.”

“I’m,” Matt began, and he felt the environment hum and vibrate. His hands began buzzing. He lifted them, palms up, and observed them, checking them for strangeness as a reality check, but they seemed perfectly normal.

“Say it,” Dr. Heron repeated, his black pupils aglow and consuming.Dr. Heron took on an air of anger, and at the same time, the inkblot began moving in slow undulations behind him.

Matt was frozen, locked to the surface of the couch like an animal cornered in its den.

“The hospital. Just take me to the hospital,” Matt pleaded.

“Say it!” Dr. Heron snapped. “Say your name!”

The inkblot slid off the canvas, leaving a pure white field on the wall. It tightened and formed limbs and a distinct body – like chromatin winding into chromosomes. The eldritch ink-creature injected raw terror into the very molecules of the air. Dr. Heron took no notice as the inkblot continued morphing into a lanky giant behind him. Now its final shape was obvious.

“Reaper!” Matt shrieked, pointing at the creature in helpless terror.

“That’s my name!” Dr. Heron seethed. “What is yours!”

The vibrating of the room intensified suddenly, and the ink-Reaper stretched its limbs, extending them like blades toward each of Matt’s pupils.

Matt opened his mouth wide to scream as reality itself fissured open along with him. The chrysanthemum portal curled its fractaling edges around Matt’s body and deposited him directly outside his apartment door.

The vibrating ceased, and everything seemed perfectly normal and still.

Matt gasped and bent at the knees, holding the door with one hand and the floor with the other for support.

“Fuck this nightmare,” he seethed.

There is no way out, the old man whispered in his head.

“Fuck you!” Matt lashed at his mind.

His bent knees stretched his jeans tight, and he could feel something small and hard in his pocket. He removed the item and inspected it in his palm. It was a small gray cat, exactly like the one May had described in the video game dream.

“Katsy,” Matt gasped.

The old man offered only silence.

“That’s right,” Matt said aloud to his mind. “You got no explanation for that, do you?”

He wiped away tears, stood, then checked his pockets for keys. He didn’t even have his wallet. The only thing on his person was the toy cat.

“You okay?” someone asked, making Matt jump back in shock.

“Sorry,” a large woman said from his right, “I didn't mean to scare you.”

It was the bus driver.

“Fernanda, right?” Matt checked, wiping his eyes and putting Katsy back inside his pocket to seem at least fractionally normal.

“That’s right,” she said, seeming grateful that he remembered. “Are you...okay?” she inquired again.

Why is she here? Matt wondered, and he found it odd that she was just casually asking him this question. Does she live in the same apartment building?

“Why are you...here? I mean –” Matt stopped himself, realizing too late how rude the question might sound.

She nodded with understanding. “Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. You just dropped your keys on your way in, I think.”

The keys were there in her hand, and she offered them to Matt with a demeanor and comfortability that seemed like more than mere familiarity.

It’s like she knows me...even outside of just being my bus driver. It’s like...

“We have the same therapist,” she admitted suddenly as if reading Matt’s mind. “Today’s my day off. I saw you at Dr. Heron’s office...when you stormed out. And I...it’s not that I followed you back to your apartment or anything, but I just –”

“I walked back here?” Matt checked, interrupting her struggle to explain herself.

“Well...yeah,” she hesitated, looking at Matt with greater scrutiny. “You don’t remember?”

Matt shook his head, and he couldn’t help a deep sigh of helplessness. He let his back fall against the hallway wall, and he slid down, bending at the knees again.

“I need to go to a hospital,” Matt told her bluntly.

“Do you trust Dr. Heron?” she volleyed just as directly.

“What?” Matt checked, caught off guard by her question.

“Do you trust him?” she repeated, locking eyes with Matt. She removed a pill bottle from her pocket. “Serotel,” she groaned. “Does he have you on the same stuff?”

Matt nodded, and she nodded back.

“You ever think maybe it’s this shit that’s fucking us up?” she offered grimly, and her breathing increased as Matt’s heartbeat intensified, filling his ears with the haunting drumbeat of his own life.

“Yes,” Matt answered, simply and honestly. “But it seems like I’m fucked even when I don’t take it,” he said, remembering the first time he woke and realized that he hadn’t taken his pills for months.

She nodded, seeming to understand.

“Do you trust him?” she asked again, and her eyes welled with quivering fluid.

“No,” Matt nearly whispered, and he felt the old man shaking his head pityingly at Matt’s despair and confusion. “But I can’t even trust my own mind. And I feel like...there’s no fucking way out of this...this madness.”

“There’s no way out,” Fernanda repeated hollowly, as if it were some terrible lesson she had learned over and over again through a lifetime of suffering. She groaned in despair, then she threw the Serotel bottle down the hallway. It bounced against the floor and walls, finally settling near the entrance to the building. The keys hit the floor, and when Matt turned to look, Fernanda was suddenly gone, as if she had just disappeared through her own chrysanthemum portal.

Matt gulped hard, then exhausted a deep breath. He narrowed his lips and slowed his breathing the best he could.

The world…this place…everything is too unstable. Everything is madness here.

Because it isn’t the real world, came the sorrowful voice of the old man.

Matt nodded in sullen acceptance.

“There is no way out,” Matt said, and he felt the old man nod in agreement. “And May is all that matters,” Matt continued, but the old man disagreed.

She’s a dream.

Matt shrugged in horrible resignation.

“Whatever,” he said, “dream or not, she is all that matters to me.”

You’re a slave to an illusion – slave to your dreams, the old man warned.

“Leave me alone,” Matt told him, and he visualized the explosion of light that had overtaken his body during his time with May.

Simultaneously, Matt felt the old man retreat deep inside his mind just as he heard a ringtone coming from somewhere in his apartment.

He picked up his keys, opened the door, and saw his phone lying haphazardly on the floor of his small kitchen. He picked it up and answered it without even checking who it was.

“Matt?” May said with incredible urgency and worry in her voice.

“May,” Matt nearly yelped, and though he couldn’t help smiling, he also felt a pang of dread that his memory of their time together might very well be a fabrication of his madness.

“I sent you so many fucking texts, Matt. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Matt practically whimpered with relief. “So last night did happen. We were together?”

“Matt...that was two weeks ago. Are you...where are you?”

Two weeks.

The words battered his brain with more maddening fodder.

She thinks I’ve been avoiding her, Matt thought, but another part of his brain warned him that was the least of his worries.

No, Matt told the logical pathways of his mind pleading with him to call an ambulance. She is all that matters.

Everything seemed perfectly normal at the moment just as it did the entire night he was with May.

“Everything’s fine as long as you’re with me, May.”

“Did you go to a hospital, Matt? Did you see your therapist? I can go with you. Chike and Souvik can handle things.”

The ink-Reaper filled Matt’s mind at the mention of his therapist, and he was also reminded of what Fernanda had said to him in the hallway.

“I can’t trust him,” Matt said.

“Okay,” May said, accepting his words without the need for further explanation. “But you can trust me. So let me come pick you up. Okay?”

He remembered the toy cat in his pocket.

“I have Katsy,” he said without context; he wanted to see if it would elicit the type of profound reaction he was hoping for. The May in the video game dream had said that it was a memory only she could possibly know.

“What?” May checked, her tone shifting to utter surprise.

“Katsy. Your toy cat as a child,” Matt explained, and he stared into the alluring eyes of Mu on the Room Reaper poster as he waited for May’s answer.

“Why would you say that, Matthew?” she said, sounding almost disdainful.

“So then it does mean something to you?” Matt checked desperately.

“Should I pick you up, or will you be coming to me?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“May, please,” Matt begged. “Am I talking nonsense, or am I saying something that only you could know?”

“Are you toying with me, Matt?” May asked, choosing her words carefully and methodically.

“No! Of course not!” Matt pleaded. “May...I love you…”

“I’ll come and pick you up, Matt. Then we can talk.”

“Okay,” Matt said with a sense of resolve.

If it meant nothing, she would have just shrugged it off, Matt considered. But it means something to her. How else could I have this toy cat if I didn’t change things in the video game dream? Matt winced. So this is...this is for sure all a dream, then. This is all in my own head.

“Just stay at your apartment, okay?” May reassured him.

“Okay,” Matt confirmed, and as he turned away from Mu’s seductive smile to close his apartment door, the doorway’s edges unfurled with the chrysanthemum pattern. The doorway shimmered with an ethereal fog, obscuring the hallway outside. Then the fog cleared, revealing that the hallway had been replaced by the sidewalk and trees and road outside of May’s house. Matt peered out the window in his living room and saw that it was late afternoon, yet the sky through the doorway carried the ebony hue of late night.

“Actually,” Matt said, almost grateful for the madness in this moment, “I’ll be there in just a sec.”

“No,” May said urgently. “I’ll come to you, Matt, you just –”

He walked through the doorway, unintentionally cutting May off. The temperature of the air plunged around him, dropping from room temperature to a brisk fifty degrees as he stepped from his apartment directly onto May’s street some unknown number of blocks away.

“What if there is a way out?” came a woman’s voice with a Brazilian accent.

Matt turned to look behind himself and found that it was Fernanda who had asked the question. She stood beside the shrinking chrysanthemum portal, taking no notice of it.

“What?” Matt asked. “I mean, what are you doing here now? You...followed me?”

“You told me to,” Fernanda said in defense against Matt’s admonishing tone. “Do you want me to leave?”

Either she’s lying or I’m fully losing all sense of time and space or…

“You think there’s a way out?” Matt pressed.

Fernanda looked caught off guard.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but you said it with such certainty back at your apartment. I just...I don’t want to think like that.”

Fernanda went wide-eyed and peered at the pavement below her, and Matt saw her indelible gaze of madness. It was a look of confusion and helplessness and anger and awe all at once.

She’s insane. Like me, Matt realized.

“Have you ever looked into the Serotel?” Matt asked.

Fernanda shrugged and shook her head.

“I did,” Matt said. “It doesn’t exist. Go ahead. Look it up.”

“Dr. Heron said that it’s custom made for me,” Fernanda explained tepidly.

“He said the same to me.” The pair stood on the sidewalk, neither of them sure where to go or how to move on with their lives.

“Maybe if we stop taking the Serotel –” Fernanda offered sadly, clearly not able to believe her own words.

“I tried that,” Matt interjected. “The only thing that seems to keep me sane is being around May. She’s my...coworker.”

Fernanda cocked her head. “You said a few months ago that you’re him. You think you’re Matthew Willish, don’t you? And May...you’re talking about May Willish?”

“May Anh,” Matt corrected.

“No,” Fernanda interrupted with certainty. “The news said they married before he disappeared. Matthew Willish, I mean. May Willish controls his whole company – I mean, her company, now.”

“My company,” Matt corrected her, and he felt for Katsy in his pocket. It was still there – his floundering proof of sanity in a rudderless and insane world.

Fernanda nodded and shrugged. “You really think you’re him?”

A surge of anger filled Matt, but it was only fair for her to ask that. Even he wasn’t sure.

“Matthew!” May called urgently from her doorway.

Matt turned suddenly and took the whole of her in. She wore a loose, crimson silk robe, and her hair was pulled back and held in place with several chopsticks. The streetlight several houses down reflected off her facial piercings, making them sparkle radiantly. She lifted her robe and ran barefoot down her front steps to meet him.

“Matthew!” she repeated, this time with a mixture of worry and anger. “I told you to stay put. I went to your apartment and you weren’t there. And you haven’t been answering my calls or texts!” She gave Matt time to respond, but he wasn’t sure what to say first. He turned to introduce Fernanda, trying to stall his explanation, but she had disappeared once more.

“Did you see someone out here with me?” Matt checked, becoming less certain of Fernanda’s reality.

What’s one more hallucination in an endless series of hallucinated realities? Matt considered despondently.

May ignored his question and latched onto him, squeezing him in her embrace.

“Matthew!” she heaved with equal relief and anguish. “I was fucking worried about you. All I fucking do is worry about you.”

Her warmth enveloped his cold mind, and he breathed her in as if for sustenance.

I have to explain to her just how bad I am. I have to tell her somehow. But first thing’s first.

Matt gently broke their embrace, then he reached into his pocket and removed Katsy, presenting the toy cat to May as if it were the world’s greatest treasure.

May took two horrified steps back, her eyes never leaving the toy cat.

“But why? How?” she gawked, unable to avert her awe-struck gaze.

“Take it,” Matt told her, wanting her to hold it to further confirm its reality. She hesitated a moment, then took it from Matt’s palm and inspected it with incredible consternation.

“How?” she repeated breathlessly.

“That’s what we need to talk about,” Matt confirmed, and he felt a wave of relief at her reaction.

This is it. For better or worse, there’s no way I could have this toy. The way she’s reacting is proof alone. She might even...believe me if I’m honest about what I’m going through.

“Come on,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Let’s go inside.”

She took hold of Matt’s hand and squeezed it lovingly. He could see that she was squeezing Katsy tightly in her other hand, probably in continued disbelief.

“You didn’t see anyone else out here with me?” Matt asked as they entered May’s home.

“No,” May said. “I saw you talking to yourself, which isn’t exactly unusual for you,” she offered gently. “Who...who were you talking to?”

“Maybe no one,” Matt admitted, accepting May’s words as the most likely truth. “But I thought I was talking to my bus driver, the one I based the character Putch’s design on.”

The hulking metal wall swung closed behind them. May allowed herself a shallow huff of laughter at Matt’s words.

“You going to take credit for everything now?” she said with a jesting tone. She looked Matt over and saw that he was being serious.

“I designed Putch,” May said. “You’re right that you designed the others, but Putch was my design. I’m quite proud of her, thank you.”

It wasn’t a total surprise that May had designed Putch, but that didn’t explain the uncanny similarity between Putch and Fernanda.

May must have based Putch on Fernanda.

“You’ve seen her then?” Matt asked. “My bus driver? She’s practically identical to Putch, even down to the scar across her face.”

May shook her head. “I’ve never seen a bus driver who looks like Putch. I just free-formed her design.”

Matt sighed deeply and fell back onto the ochre couch, allowing his body and mind to sink further into the madness of it all.

What does it matter? This must all be a dream.

He felt the old man nod in approval.

“What about Katsy?” Matt urged.

May nodded. “Yes. What about her? I would love an explanation.”

“An explanation,” Matt repeated, marveling at the simplicity and hollowness of the word.

“Or you can just ignore me and disappear again like you always do,” May lashed suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said almost out of habit, but he really was sorry for everything, even his own mind.

“Just...just,” May stammered, searching for the right words. “Just talk to me, Matt. Just...tell me what’s really going on.”

She’ll think you’re crazy, the old man offered.

“She already thinks I’m crazy,” Matt told his mind aloud.

May nodded and easily shrugged off Matt’s words. “Your mind is like an intricate, beautiful origami maze, and right now it’s raining for you, sopping all that paper into a big mess. But maybe if you talk to me, Matt…maybe if you talk to me we can dry up that rain...together.”

Her shoulders were huddled tightly together, and her eyes looked as though they might well with more tears. She held Katsy close to her heart.

“How is this possible, Matt?”

I have to tell her. Everything. For better or worse. I have to tell her now before everything melts back to madness again.

“You told me about Katsy. In a dream,” Matt admitted, shaking his head at how ludicrous he sounded. “A dream that I keep having every time I go to sleep. And then there’s another dream. And maybe...I think maybe this is really the dream world and the other dream world is the real world. Or maybe they’re all dreams. Maybe –”

“Matt,” May urged. “Just...just start from the beginning. Just...try to explain, okay?”

She sat beside him on the couch and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing his temple tenderly as she placed Katsy on the table.

“You can tell me everything, okay? I’ll suspend my disbelief for now. Okay?”

Matt sighed heavily. Where do I even begin?

He thought back as far as he could remember, back to the first time he woke naked in the cell with Mu and the others.

“Okay,” Matt breathed. “I’ll tell you everything I remember.”

He told her everything. Every little detail and strangeness and impossibility. She listened the whole time, never asking questions or demanding further explanation. She just listened.

“And then I stepped through the door of my apartment and arrived here all of a sudden,” Matt said, finishing the labyrinthine journey through his mind. “Time jumped again for the whole world, but only a second passed for me. Fernanda was outside. She said...she said that you and I are married. She said you took over the company. And then...then you came outside and found me. And...and here we are.”

May stared into Matt’s eyes with incredible compassion and sadness. After several long seconds, she finally said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Matt repeated, uncertain how to gauge her response.

May nodded and rose to her feet.

“The server logs. The Serotel. Katsy. Everything. It’s all...it’s all very overwhelming, isn’t it?” May offered with sincere understanding, though Matt still didn’t know if she believed him, or if it was even possible for anyone to believe him.

“But when I’m with you, everything is all right,” Matt reminded her. “Everything is so stable. Everything makes sense.”

“But you still need to go to the hospital, Matt.”

Matt nodded fervently. “Yes. Yes, I do. But every time I try to go, reality turns to mush and everything is insane...until I end up back with you somehow. Everything is all right when I’m with you, May.”

Matt felt astounded that his words were not hyperbole. Somehow, all of reality remained stable as long as May was by his side.

“I’m not going anywhere, Matt,” May assured him. “I don’t have an explanation for a lot of what you’re telling me, especially Katsy. But you have to understand, for all I know, this is all an incredible ruse. For all I know, this is the other you right now – the Matt that takes over when you...lose yourself. You said so yourself, right?”

Matt nodded, admitting that she was right.

“I don’t know what to believe for sure with you, Matt. You say so many different things and...well...you’re right about you seeming like a totally different person sometimes. I don’t know which one is the real you.”

“I don’t either,” Matt admitted pitifully. “But I can tell you that the Matt you’re talking to right now – this is the real me. I’m here now, May.”

“Until you aren’t,” May retorted, revealing the pain involved with loving a man like Matt.

“I’m sorry, May,” Matt said, pleading for forgiveness. “I’m sorry I’m like this. But I love you. I know that. I know that I love you.”

May’s shoulders sank in defeat, and she returned to the couch to sit beside Matt. He held her, and she allowed herself to sink into his chest.

“I love you too, Matt. I do...but…”

But, Matt repeated inwardly. There’s a but.

“What you said about Fernanda, your bus driver. She said we got married.”

Matt nodded.

“Maybe we should, Matt,” May said before hesitating then finally settling on, “I mean, I think we should.” May lowered her eyes and lifted them just as quickly to meet Matt’s stare.

Matt sat back in shock. “You want to get married?” he checked in disbelief, and he told himself that there could be no greater final destination than being married to this woman who was the only thing in the world that kept him sane.

May nodded. “Yes. But…”

“Go on,” Matt urged.

“I want you to quit,” May said finally.

Matt nodded in immediate agreement, but May went on, justifying her reasoning.

“Chike and Souvik and the others can handle day-to-day operations. And I’m already practically in charge – no offense, Matt. I just...there’s no need for you to be stretching your mind so thin when you’ve already accomplished so much. I just...I don’t want to see you go on like this. I don’t want you to –”

“Okay,” Matt offered, and he squeezed her to his chest again. “Okay, May. I quit. The company is yours. I don’t care about any of that. Let’s just get married,” he told her with the ecstatic, triumphant, fulfilling relief of having summited a mountain despite all the while knowing that the way back down the mountain is just as perilous as the summit, if not worse.

May laughed through bittersweet tears and wiped her eyes on Matt’s shirt. She raised her eyes to meet Matt’s gaze, and Matt felt almost shocked by her enchanting beauty.

She is so perfect. She is everything. She is all that matters.

She kissed him, and he reciprocated in full, pulling her hard against his lips.

She pulled away just as suddenly and said, “I’m going to smoke a bowl. And then we’re going to the hospital. But I won't leave your side. Okay?”

Matt nodded. “A bowl?” he checked.

“Cannabis,” May explained. “Just to get my mind right. Then we can go, okay?”

Matt nodded encouragingly. “I’m totally fine, May. I mean...not fine...but...just don’t let me fall asleep or leave here without you.”

May nodded seriously despite the content of Matt’s words.

“Deal,” she said, then disappeared through a doorway. She emerged just as quickly with a small glass pipe and a squat metal cylinder.

“I’ll just be a minute,” she assured him. “I just didn’t expect you. I never know what to expect with you, Matthew.”

The world felt lighter. Each moment was laden with synchronicity, and Matt felt deeply that this was all supposed to happen.

Every moment of insanity was worth it if it brought me here, Matt thought as he smiled serenely through the existential clarity of May – his personal oasis.

She untwisted the metal cylinder and opened it to reveal freshly ground cannabis. She pinched a small amount between two fingers and packed it into the bowl in a single swift movement. Matt noticed a few small yellowish crystals among the ground herb that May had been careful to avoid, and he wondered what they might be.

“What’s the other stuff in there?” he asked as May sparked a lighter and brought a small corner of the pipe to ember. The glass pipe was dark with multiple coatings of resin and residue, but its deep crimson and gold filigree design still sparkled in the light of the room.

May exhausted a billow of skunky smoke and coughed a few times before answering. “It’s DMT.”

Matt wasn’t sure what she meant, but he shook his head and let her go on.

“Dimethyl Tryptamine. N,N-Dimethyl Tryptamine, really. It’s the most potent psychedelic known. They think it might be responsible for dreams in our own bodies, and there’s evidence that a large amount of it is released into the body during birth and death. But...anyway, that’s all just conjecture.”

Matt was certainly interested, but he was more intrigued at the passion and depth of knowledge May had for the subject than anything else.

“So, what’s it do?” Matt said, wanting her to continue.

“It lets you dive into the self,” May explained with an air of awe. “The effects are instant, and though it only lasts a few moments, it can feel like an eternity. When you smoke it as a crystal like this, it can make you die – I mean – not actually die. But you experience ego death.”

Matt shivered at her mention of death, and he remembered how he had concluded, as the old man, that the only way to know for sure whether or not reality is actually real is to die.

Death, Matt repeated the word in his head with dreadful trepidation.

“If it’s not death, then what is ego-death exactly?” Matt inquired as he attempted to stifle his nervous shaking.

“Ego-death is the loss of all anchoring to self,” May said, and as she took another hit of the bowl, she looked as though she were coming to some impossible realization. She spoke as if on autopilot while the rest of her seemed to contemplate the fringes of some great madness that had just clicked in her mind. “During ego-death, there is no more separation between the atoms composing the countless eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells of your body or the atoms composing the air exhausted by the eukaryotic bundles we call plants. There is just the field – the system itself. There is no more you. It’s...it’s not really possible to relate through language because it’s beyond language,” she said with a hint of sorrow, and as she turned to Matt, he noted that her eyes looked distant and afraid suddenly. “I’m sorry if this isn’t making sense,” she finished.

Though he felt entranced by both her beauty and intellect, he couldn’t help noticing the subtle change in her.

May put the bowl to her lips and looked wide-eyed at the ceiling. Matt imagined she might be recollecting one of her egoless DMT dives, but he wasn’t sure it was possible to recollect something that didn’t involve a thing to do the recollecting. She pulled hard at the bowl’s contents, burning far more of it than she had with the first hit. She held it for just a moment, then released it. This time she didn’t cough.

“It only lasts a few minutes when you smoke it, but time becomes irrelevant. Those few minutes feel like multiple eternities. It lets you really step outside yourself,” she said, and she seemed to sigh away a portion of whatever was irking her. “I think we all get the feeling sometimes of being trapped inside reality, you know? Of just...being stuck in something we can’t explain or understand or even question meaningfully. But the thing we’re really stuck in is ourselves. DMT lets you get outside yourself and the world and everything, even if just for a moment. It shows you that...there’s more. There’s...there’s more than just this...thing...this existence and this self that we will never and can never comprehend.” She lowered her head suddenly, seemingly in shame and said, “I don’t want you to see me as some kind of junkie, Matt. I just see substance as a tool for self-exploration and…much more. And these substances have served as exceptional tools throughout my life – maybe the only truly effective tools I know of.”

Her words about being able to step outside the self resounded in Matt’s mind. She said...it lets you get outside yourself. Like...like a way out. Matt nodded in an attempt to reassure her, but already his mind was considering how he might convince her to let him try it.

What could it possibly hurt? My mind is already shattered into a million pieces.

“I don’t see you as a junkie at all, May. Actually, you’re the most beautiful and intelligent person I’ve ever met.”

“Funny,” she told him with her slanted smile, “that’s exactly how I feel about you.”

Matt couldn’t help blushing, a reaction that only deepened when he realized how childishly he’d reacted.

Maybe she’ll just let me try some, Matt considered evenly.

“I could use a way outside myself,” Matt told her, and he pointed to the largest of the DMT crystals half-buried in cannabis.

“Matt…” she hummed through a buzz of sorrow. “We should go to the hospital.”

“Okay,” he nodded, and he offered her a sheepish smile despite knowing what he had to do.

I have to try it. What the hell will the hospital do for me that hasn’t already been tried? What the hell do I possibly have to lose?

“Okay,” he lied. “I was just thinking out loud, that’s all,” he assured her.

May sighed, still wrestling with something inside herself, then she closed the gap between them. She pulled his head to her chest and stroked the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry, Matt, I –” she began, shaking her head at some great internal confusion. “I don’t understand…I…I’m going to use the bathroom,” she said as if suddenly many miles away. “What about you?”

Matt thought back in dread to the time in the bar bathroom, but he felt fine. Besides, this was his chance. All she had to do was put the pipe back on the table.

May bent down, kissed the top of his head tenderly, then set the pipe on the table, just as Matt had hoped. Appearing grief-stricken, she shook her head; she seemed to be attempting to process some still foggy realization at the front of her mind.

“I love you, Matthew Willish,” she said, still shaking her head. “I’ll be right back.”

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply in preparation for death, as May had called it.

“I love you too, May.”

She broke away and strode to the bathroom. He waited a moment after she closed the door, then jumped at his opportunity.

She just trusts me not to do it? he wondered as he grabbed the bowl. She doesn’t understand how bad off I am. But if she understood...if she really understood...I’m sure she would agree with me that this might be my only way out...my only chance at some level of understanding.

He unscrewed the metal cylinder and removed the largest DMT crystal. His fingers trembled with anxious trepidation as he placed it atop the remaining half-burnt cannabis in May’s bowl. He wasn’t sure how exactly it worked, but he had just watched May use it, and it seemed simple enough.

He picked up the lighter and brought the bowl to his lips. His heart pounded in terrible anticipation, and he had to breathe even deeper to try and bring it under control.

What if I have a heart attack? Matt considered, and his heart pounded even more forcefully, threatening him with his own reeling thoughts.

Then he felt it. The mounting vibration of reality that he had felt numerous times before losing himself to a dream within a dream. He realized that it had begun at the periphery of his mind just as he made contact with the DMT, but now the vibration was totally obvious.

I can’t lose this chance, Matt thought, demanding that his fingers and lips and lungs obey his inner mind’s desperate attempt at some semblance of self-understanding and self-stability.

He heard the bathroom door open, and May rushed out in tears.

Do it! he commanded his body.

“Matt –” May gasped, but she didn’t rush to stop him as he lit the lighter and pulled hard, sizzling the crystal with the open flame. The smoke was thick and tasted like burnt plastic, but he ignored his lungs pleading for air and flooded them with more and more DMT.

May shook her head finally and sprinted to him. She smacked the bowl out of his hand, jarring him backward, but he could barely feel her hit amidst the intensity of the vibrations.

“Matt, no! Let it out! I’m sorry, Matt,” she pleaded, looking him over from head to toe in directionless desperation.

The need for air became too much, and as Matt released the smoke from his lungs, he watched as the cloud merged with the background of May’s apartment. Just as quickly, the smoke began undulating and forming into chrysanthemum crests and folds, overtaking his entire field of vision.

He felt something tug at his chest, and he realized that it was the braided cord.

Am I going back to that other world? Matt considered with equal parts horror and exhilaration. His body was paralyzed and totally at the mercy of the DMT.

May grasped his hand and kissed it.

“I’m sorry, Matt. I’m sorry, sweetie. But everything will be all right,” she assured him unconvincingly despite her every attempt to remain calm.

The existential vibrations became more of a staticky buzz, and though the buzz nearly drowned out May’s voice, he could still hear her as if from miles away. She was humming one of Mu’s chants, and though it offered only a negligible softening of Matt’s panic, it was at least something.

“You took a lot, Matt. Way more than I ever have,” May said, her voice incredibly distant despite the pleasant feeling of her breath against the quivering skin of his neck. “But I’m right here. You’ll be all right. You just…you have to know – whatever that means. I don’t understand. But…but it’s such an overwhelming feeling. It’s like I had no choice, Matt…I’m sorry, sweetie…”

May…

All at once, the whole of his vision and his body and the room and May and everything solidified into a single chrysanthemum surging with hyper-real energy. The petals unfurled, and Matt’s consciousness was stretched at light speed into the infinite, fractaling center of itself.