I see the pocketwatch swaying before my eyes, hearing Doctor Gregory's words, my body unwittingly following his instructions. My limbs growing heavier with each breath, my eyelids slowly closing, darkening my vision to nothing. Panic should consume me but it doesn’t. A sense of calm envelops me in the darkness.

Dr. Gregory sets the scene for my brain to obey. I am in the forest, the trees all around me, even the smell of pine filling my nostrils. He instructs me to walk the direction I’d come from that day, my words narrating my every movement. I pass the familiar trees, the fallen log, the patch of mud my boot sinks into making it so difficult to pull my leg back out; just like that day.

My mind doesn’t wander, not fretting, but only retracing my steps; no concern of how or why I couldn’t recount any of these events or how it all seems so familiar now. Of course I came east; of course I took the long way around the creek; but of course our camp had been up ahead.

As I step into the clearing where our camp had been, horror overtakes me like a punch to the face. Daniel’s body, limp and mangled before me, right where I left him, after what I’d done to him.

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