​

The clock went off at 5 am and I hurried to shut it up. God I hated that sound.  It made my guts wrench. 

 

I tried not to think about the day ahead of me.  Everything filled me with anxiety, and my mornings went smother if I didn’t  dwell on it. 

 

The clinic was always hectic, and I hated doctors. Always thought they knew everything after glancing at a chart for five seconds.  Half the time they just throw painkillers at the problem anyway.  The other half of the time they were cock-blocked by insurance so..

 

Then on my days off I volunteered at a free clinic which was.. depressing. 

 

Ugh. Stop thinking about it. Stop it. Just make some tea, eat some food— well.. make the food, then see if you can eat it. 

 

I was sick a lot. 

 

I made tea first.  I sat in dim light and smoked weed while it cooled. I used to try to meditate in the mornings, but I usually just fell asleep again so I stopped doing that. Lately I just sat quietly with a glass pipe and tried to enjoy the silence before I had to be at work.  Sometimes I listened to some soft jazz piano. I found it soothing. 

 

It helped me breathe. 

 

The weed was slowly making food seem plausible, and then it struck me: 

 

This wasn’t real. 

 

Not in the Real sense. 

 

I stood up and everything vanished. A sigh escaped me and I was awash in relief.  I looked into the void around me and decided I wanted the jazz back. 

 

I felt unsettled. I was relieved, but in the way one is relieved to wake up from a bad dream. The dream was gone but I was still..

 

I started walking. 

 

I came to the core and.. something seemed wrong. The light was wrong, somehow. It was like obsidian. I touched the core with my fingertips and it felt like stone. 

 

I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.  Something went awry while nobody was watching. 

 

“Hey,” Marco’s voice came from behind me, and I spun to face him, “you get some good rest?”

 

I let out a frustrated breath. “I didn’t mean to be asleep.”

 

“You seem tense,” Marco said. He stepped toward me and I fought the urge to take a step back. I needed space when I was tense, but I didn’t want to push Marco away. I stood up straight and looked out over his head. 

 

Being tall had advantages. 

 

“I just woke up at home,” I said. 

 

“I’m sorry.”  He sounded sympathetic, and I knew what was waiting for Marco in *his* home. 

 

“No it’s not..” I started, then reconsidered, and started again. “It’s nothing so terrible. It’s just my job.”

 

“You hate your job?”

 

“No,” I said, “and yes. I’m a nurse, and.. I like helping people.”

 

“You’re an empath who picked a job where you gotta be around sick people all the time.”

 

“Maybe that’s why I feel sick all the time,” I muttered. 

 

“You feel sick all the time?” Marco asked. 

 

“...Well. Yes... I mean.. less when I’m here, but still kind of.. yes.”

 

Marco looked at me. He blinked.  He was annoyed that he hadn’t known. 

 

“well it’s not.. I mean it’s just IBS—“

 

“The fuck is that?”

 

“It’s..” I hesitated. I really did not feel comfortable discussing this with him. “Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The.. *sexiest* of all the syndromes.”  I shifted my weight and rolled my eyes. 

 

Marco pressed in a little closer and lowered his voice discreetly. “Hey you don’t gotta be sexy or nuthin all the time for me. You’re a person. People are gross. I, personally, am disgusting.”

 

“Yes well..” I huffed and adjusted my glasses.  “We aren’t technically bound by the laws of physics here so... mostly it’s just insanely uncomfortable.”

 

“Are you kidding me?”

 

“What?”

 

Marco laughed a little, “Are you telling me you don’t shit?”

 

“Can we please not talk about this!?”

 

“You’re right. I’m an asshole.” He said. “Wouldn’t you feel better, though, if you did?”

 

“Marco, please.”

 

“Alright Alright. So is this why it seems like you never take a break?  Because you don’t?  Because you don’t wanna wake up at home?”

 

“Yes,” I said, “If I’m working here, I’m not working *there*. “

 

“I get that. I woke up in Dante's closet the other day.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“I thought I was back home for a minute.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” I said. 

 

“So who’s Out right now?” Marco asked. 

 

“Um. Well... I just got here so...” 

 

I pressed my hand flat against the stone surface of the Core and closed my eyes.  There was nothing for a moment, and then there was *something* so suddenly that I couldn’t tell what it was. I snapped my hand away and looked at Marco. 

 

“Marco, touch it. Something’s wrong.”

 

Marco’s brow creased, and he stepped forward. He pressed his hand to the Core and closed his eyes.  He was perfectly still for a long moment, then he opened his eyes and looked at me. 

 

“Fuck is that Jin?  Why’s he so mad?  Wasn’t he like a Buddhist monk or some shit?”

 

“Well,” I said with a shrug, “he wasn’t a very good one.”

 

“It’s like he’s a different person,” Marco said. He pressed his forehead to the hard surface of the Core. “Here, look,” he said, and held out his hand. 

 

Whatever I felt before when I touched the Core was like a jolt of hot electricity through my whole body.  I took his hand cautiously.

 

Through Marco’s hand I could see the Outside.  We were pacing back and forth in our living room. I could feel the fire in our belly. My body felt like it was boiling. It hurt to *not* hit something, to not scream, to not break things. Kate was sitting on the floor watching us. She looked nervous. 

 

She asked what was wrong, and Jin muttered that he didn’t know. Kate couldn’t hear, and she asked him to repeat himself— I felt the sting of annoyance and it made him slip. Jin bellowed at her, “I DON’T KNOW!”

 

I squeezed Marco’s hand. 

 

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

 

Marco stopped touching the Core, but he kept my hand. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this.”

 

“Nobody has!” I said. “This isn’t like him. He doesn’t get mad like this. This is hungry werewolf levels of rage!  What happened?”

 

Marco shook his head. “I couldn’t find anything. I don’t think anything triggered it. I think we’re just angry.”

 

“Maybe it’s Marcy,” I said. 

 

“Maybe..”

 

Marco let my hand go and tried to enter the Core. He pressed both hands and his forehead against its unyielding surface and pushed. 

 

“I can’t fuckin’ get in.  He can’t hear me at all.  JIN!!  JIN, LET ME IN!!”

 

He closed his eyes and focused. His feet slid on the floor but he didn’t get anywhere. He growled, quietly at first, then it grew into a full roar. 

 

He shoved himself away from the Core and panted. 

 

“Kate’s telling him to switch, but he can’t!  He said he can’t feel anyone. He can’t feel me trying to get in!  He’s stuck out there!”

 

Marco’s eyes were glowing black. He wasn’t just panting from the effort anymore. He was getting angry. 

 

“Marco,” I said his name and stepped carefully towards him, “it’s ok. He’s not in danger of hurting anyone. We have time to figure this out.”  I touched his shoulder and he pulled away from me.  My hand burned a little. 

 

“Don’t David!”  He barked. 

 

It was like he was infected with whatever Jin was dealing with Outside.  It was burning him from the inside. He could either smother it or burn it out.. Marco was an angry person. If he tried to burn it out he’d incapacitate himself for... too long. 

 

“Marco, look at me,” I said, and waited. 

 

He lifted his glare and met my eyes. He was shaking. 

 

“I know you don’t want to hurt me,” I said, “I know that hate in your eyes isn’t for me. I don’t know exactly what’s happening but.. I’m pretty sure I can—“

 

I reached for him quickly. I grabbed Marco’s face and kissed him.  I pulled it from him.  He reciprocated aggressively, and then I wasn’t pulling the anger out of him anymore, he was giving it to me.  When there was nothing left he became heavy in my arms.  His eyes were normal, I saw, as he stumbled back a few steps. 

 

I felt Ill. 

 

Marco used anger to fuel himself. He was used to controlling it, not smothering it. I was used to smothering it. Beating it back until it didn’t effect my decisions.

 

I breathed in deep and held it. 

 

“What did you do?” Marco asked in a tired voice. 

 

“I don’t know,” I said, and quickly pressed my hand to my mouth.  I could feel it trying to escape before I could kill it. 

 

Marco looked concerned. 

 

I tried to hear music in my head. I tried to breathe through the burning. 

 

I vomited black sludge, which promptly jumped into the core and disappeared. 

 

“Oh gross,” Marco murmured. 

 

“You’re telling me?” I wiped my mouth and caught my breath. 

 

“What the fuck was that?”

 

“I think that’s the same black goo that took Jack. 

 

“Well shit.”

 

“I think we need a werewolf,” I said. 

 

“Which one, Conner or Kasey?”

 

“Why not both?”

 

We split up. 

 

I went to find Kasey.  I hoped he was somewhere near adulthood because he was much more useful when he had control over himself. 

 

Slowly the void turned to forest.  

 

I found Kasey on the ground, naked and unconscious.  He was face down, clutching a dead rabbit. 

 

“Kasey?” I said, approaching him carefully. “Or is it still Davy?”

 

His eyes snapped open. 

 

“Davy?”

 

He glared at me, then scrambled to his feet, still gripping the rabbit corpse in his left hand.  “Hey man,” he said in a thicker southern accent than I was used to,  “I dunno who y’are but I got a lotta *bullshit* happenin’ in my life ri’ now.”  He took a labored breath and his fingernails started to become claws. “So y’ might wanna FUCK OFF before some’n BAD happen t’y!”  His ears started to grow pointy and his skull began to change shape. 

 

“Davy! Please remember where you are. We need your help!  I’m David!  I’m not some random guy in the woods! You *know* me!”  He looked the way Marco had. Overcome with rage, trembling with the effort to hold it back. Davy was holding onto his humanity, for the moment. 

 

“What do you WANT?!” He roared, clearly pained by the effort of not allowing himself to maul me. 

 

“I want you to wake up!”  I shouted.  “Jin is in trouble!  He’s stuck Outside and the Core has been infected with.. something! I don’t know Davy!  I need you to snap out of whatever this is!  Marco tried to go Out and handle it, but it just infected him too!  I had to suck it out of him, and I think there’s still a little bit of it inside me and I can’t *fucking* handle this right now!  What I *want* is for you to stop throwing a fucking tantrum in the goddamn woods and come help me!”

 

I felt like I was on fire. 

 

Davy’s eyes lit up. He stopped transforming. “Oh my god!  David!  You’re eyes are..” He stepped toward me and grabbed my face. “Shh,” he uttered as he pressed his forehead against mine. Our noses touched. “Show me what’s happenin’.”

 

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I tried to replay the events in my head.  I couldn’t make them go in the right order.  Everything came flooding in a jumble, and Davy took a deep breath. 

 

“Ok,” he said as he let go of me. He was clothed now, and he looked older. “I’m sorry. I was 15.  I knew somethin’ bad was goinna happen, But I let Katya stay late at school by herself anyway.  Some jock raped her because she was different.. and then the Romani didn’t want her back...  So that’s what you walked in on here.  It was a real angry period in my life.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Maybe whatever’s going on is effecting you too.”

 

“Wouldn’t be surprised.”

 

“Are you Kasey, now?”

 

“Yea,” He said.  “The name change happens after I do shrooms in the woods with Katya and Two Rivers. His name changed too, by the way.”

 

“Who, Two Rivers?”

 

“Mm-hmm. It’s Three Rivers now.”

 

“What about Katya,” I asked. 

 

“Nah, her name stayed the same.”

 

We returned to the Core, where Marco and Conner were already waiting. 

 

“Aw, What?!  You brought this clown?” Kasey said, grinning. 

 

“No time for pleasantries, boys!” Marco interrupted the shit-talking before it could gain wings.  “We’re in the middle of a fucking crisis here.”

 

Conner and Kasey looked up at the Core. 

 

“That ain’t what it’s supposed to look like, right?” Kasey said, and Conner shook his head. 

 

The two looked at each other. 

 

“Have we ever..?”  Conner started. 

 

“Actually met?” Kasey finished. “No. We haven’t.  I’m Kasey.” He extended a hand.  Conner shook it. “I’m your run of the mill, turns on the full moon type of werewolf. Until y’ learn to control it. Then it don’t matter what the moon’s doin’, you better hope some prick don’t piss y’ off real good.”

 

“Guys,” Marco interrupted, “what’d I say about pleasantries?”

 

“It’s important.”  Conner raised a hand to silence Marco without even bothering to look at him.  Marco huffed a little, and lit a cigarette. “We cannot work together if we do not know what the other can do. I am from a different place.  *My* wolf is not an infection to be spread.  I was born with it, like everyone else in my clan.”

 

“Oh shit I think I remember this from Out There!  You got some kinda super useful spirit wolf thing!”  Kasey said excitedly. 

 

“Yes.  The spirit wolf was granted to me when I joined The Pack. They defend the forest and our clan from evil spirits.   And other things. But mostly evil spirits.”

 

“That is so fuckin cool.”  Kasey looked at Marco and me. “Oh shit can I bum a smoke, man?”

 

Marco rolled his eyes and fished his cigarettes out of his jacket.  

 

I felt unwell and unfocused.  My insides roiled. 

 

“Oh my god!”  Kasey scrunched up his face and breathed out a lung full of smoke. “You smoke menthols?”

 

“What?  Am I the *only* one or something?!”

 

I wanted to sit down. I felt like gremlins were stabbing me from the inside.  Kasey was starting to irritate me with his constant chatter. I knew I was annoyed because I felt sick, so I bit my tongue.  

 

A particularly painful stab in my gut doubled me over, and everyone stopped to look at me. 

 

“Fuck,” Kasey said, and I bristled, “you ok man?”

 

“I’m fine!”  I snapped. “It’ll pass!  Would you all a just fucking get back to work?!”  I stepped back and bumped into something. I scowled behind me and saw a chair. 

 

“Look.”  I heard Conner’s voice. He was standing in front of me now. “look at me,” he said. I did, and he pressed his thumb between my eyes. I felt..

 

Still. 

 

“Sit,” He said, “rest.”

 

I sank into the chair behind me. Marco knelt down beside it. 

 

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

 

“Marco, our bodies aren’t real. I’m fine.”

 

He furrowed his brow at me, but he went back to the problem at hand. 

 

I slipped into a strange sort of trance.  I felt heavy. Like I’d just smoked a strong indica. I wondered if it was because of Conner. 

 

Weird magical wolf man. 

 

I let my eyelids hang mostly closed. I could still see the bottom half of Marco, Kasey, and Conner as they conversed.  Their voices sounded far away. Like I was hearing them through a wall. Then I realized I was seeing them through some kind of smokey haze. 

 

No not smoke. Something else. I was seeing them from inside the Core. I could still feel my body sitting in the chair.. and I could see it too. 

 

God I looked like shit. 

 

I could feel the anger that infected us. I could see the Outside. I couldn’t move. All I could do was sit there and seethe as Jin seethed. 

 

His vision was unfocused.  He wasn’t seeing what was in front of him.  Not really. Everything that passed our vision was blur of color. 

 

I tried to communicate with him, but he was completely isolated. 

 

Marco and the others were all pressed against the Core, watching and waiting for an opening. 

 

There was a knock at the door. We stopped dead and looked toward the sound. This was not a great time for visitors. 

 

Kate and Susan stood by us and ushered Jin toward the door.  I felt panic prickling through the rage. I felt us begin to sweat.  We did not want to answer the door. Angie always answered the door. 

 

“Now!” I heard Marco give the order, and they all fought their way through. 

 

The rage still gripped us but our mind was blank with terror. 

 

We opened the door to a woman, and a man standing behind her.  She was our landlady or building manager or something. I don’t know who the man was. The woman spoke. Our interaction with her was stilted. Her words washed over us like a wave.  I could barely hear what she was telling us. 

 

She had a paper in her hand, and she gave it to us. Susan said that we understood and shut the door. 

 

Then I heard this screaming. No.  More like roaring?

​

I opened my eyes. 

 

The Core was red. Marco was gone, and Jin was dragging himself out of the Core. There were black sticky ropes of goo following him, tethering him to the Core.  He was wrapped in them.  His eyes glowed black, and he roared senselessly as he struggled to free himself. 

 

Jin looked like a wild animal caught in a trap.  Conner and Kasey were trying to pull it off of him to no avail. The goo clung to them wherever they touched it. 

 

I stood up suddenly and walked briskly toward them. “Pull it the other way!” I shouted and waved my arms.

 

They were trying to pull the gunk off of Jin, but they should have been pulling it out of the Core. 

 

I got Conner’s attention. He grunted at Kasey, and they changed direction. 

 

I went to Jin. He looked crazed. I’m not even sure he could see me. 

 

“Jin,” I said, “Jin!  Can you hear me?”

 

He didn’t respond to me, and in the next moment a giant knot of goo came crashing out of the Core.  It flailed, and screamed.   Sticky tentacles whipped through the air. 

 

It lifted Jin off the ground.  I grabbed his legs and pulled, but it just lifted me too. 

 

“Guys!” I shouted, “a little help!?”

 

I heard Conner’s heavy footsteps, then I felt his claws in my thighs. He held on tight, and when the goo lifted his feet from the ground he began to climb.  He clawed his way past me, and past Jin, and onto the goo itself.  He chewed through it until Jin and I were falling back to the ground. 

 

I squeezed my eyes shut. “My body’s not real. My body’s not real.” I whispered to myself as we plummeted. 

 

Jin and I landed in what felt like a pile of fur.  

 

Conner leaped down beside us. Kasey lowered us gently from his arms to the ground. 

 

The giant goo monster didn’t advance on us. It just continued to flail and scream. 

 

Jin was on his hands and knees, breathing heavy, gripping the ground hard with his fingers. He vomited black goo, which began to crawl its way back to the.. Mother Goo?  It was coming out of him faster and faster.  I saw tendrils of the stuff shoot out of Jin’s mouth and cling to the ground, pulling and dragging itself out of him. 

 

The werewolves and I exchanged nervous glances. 

 

The sheer quantity was concerning. It was like a river of thick, sticky tar.  When the last of it was out of him, Jin collapsed.  

 

The Mother Goo collected itself and screeched as it flew away.

 

I dropped to Jin’s side. 

 

“Help me turn him over!” I ordered the wolves.

 

They came to my side, human-shaped again, and rolled Jin onto his back.  I checked everything I could think to check, knowing that our bodies weren’t real and it didn’t mean anything.  He seemed alright, just unconscious.  

 

Kasey and Conner both put their hands on him.  After a short moment Jin gasped and sat up. 

 

“It’s alright!” Kasey said. “It’s gone!  It’s over!”

 

Jin let out a breath and pulled his knees to his forehead.  I felt the anxiety radiating from him as though it were my own.  I wanted to comfort him, but the idea of getting any closer twisted my insides. 

 

Kasey was the one who put an arm across Jin’s shoulders and held him close. He murmured quietly in his ear words that I couldn’t hear. 

 

“How do you feel?” Conner asked me, and I startled a little. 

 

“Oh um.. good. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

 

Conner stared at me. 

 

“Look I don’t know. Okay? I’m tired.  And I’m *always* sick, so I just edit that out when people ask me how I’m feeling.”  My words came out harsher than I wanted them to be. 

 

No. No they didn't. I just didn’t like how I felt after I said something harsh to someone. Or rather, I didn’t like how *they* felt. The more angry I was the less I could feel other people, but annoyed wasn’t nearly enough. 

 

Conner wasn’t hurt, though.  He just kept staring at me. 

 

I shifted uncomfortably. 

 

“I feel like trash. Alright?  Is that what you want?  I feel like trash all the time. That’s my base level. So it’s fine. And I’ve got black gunk residue on my insides.. that’ll probably never come off so I guess that’s gonna have to be normal now too. Same for Jin, probably. So everything’s fine!”

 

Conner wrapped his arms around me tightly. He pinned my arms to my sides, so I couldn’t even hug him back I just had to stand there and let him squeeze me. 

 

“Healers need healing too,” he grunted as he let go of me. 

 

I shook my head. “No I’m not.. I’m just a nurse.”

 

“I know what you are,” Conner said, “but healing *here* is healing with the spirit.”

 

“Well obviously being a nurse means nothing here.”

 

“Shh.  You think too concrete. Be more flexible.”

 

I laughed. 

 

Conner pressed his hand flat against my chest. I felt a warm tingling spread from beneath it. 

 

“You can do it,” he said, “you already have. Isn’t that how it got inside you in the first place?”

 

I thought about how I took the goo from Marco like sucking poison from a wound. I don’t know how I knew I could do that. I just did it. It just seemed right. 

 

“Your memories don’t define what you can do,” Conner said. “You remember being a nurse,” he shrugged and scoffed quietly. “I remember being a baby. Doesn’t make me one.  It’s a *part* of me. One of many, many parts.  You’re identity is tied to nursing, *but*—“ Conner leaned close to me and lowered his voice. “You hate doctors because you wanted to *be* one. Isn’t that right?”

 

My eyes widened. “Wow. Yes. I wasn’t good enough, but thank you *so* much for bringing that up. Why don’t you just give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?”

 

Jin laughed.  Loudly. 

 

We all looked at him. 

 

“What?!” I demanded. 

 

“You don’t even know!”  Jin laughed as he climbed to his feet. “You just referenced our favorite film and you didn’t even notice!”

 

I narrowed my eyes. 

 

Kasey clapped his hands together. “Oh shit!  It’s the Princess Bride!  That’s what Miracle Max says after they remind him that ‘the King’s stinking son’ fired him!”

 

“Oh.  yeah,” I said, trying not to sound irritated by the interruption, “it just fit perfectly in this context.”

 

Conner let out an exasperated breath. “This was not my point,” he said. 

 

“My apologies,” Jin said with a short bow.  He turned his gaze to me and said, “I wasn’t good enough either, you know. I was a terrible Buddhist.  I would have made a much better Shinto, but that’s not what people were doing when I was alive.  You might think a spiritual calling would fit into whatever religion is available, but it does not.  Your calling, healer, doesn’t fit into Western Medicine but you tried to make it, because that’s what was available to you.” 

 

I rolled my eyes. I felt skeptical, but also defensive.  I didn’t know these men well enough to be comfortable discussing my career failures with them. 

 

“Alright guys,” Kasey said, “let’s let ‘im be. He heard it. He’s not gonna digest it with y’all starin’ at ‘im.  Conner, take Jin home with you and make sure there’s nuthin.. weird still goin’ on.”

 

Conner nodded and touched Jin’s shoulder. They disappeared in a blink. 

 

“You should get some rest,” Kasey said to me.  “Imma stay here an’ hold down the fort.”

 

“I was *just* asleep for.. god I don’t know how long.”

 

Kasey was quiet for a brief, peaceful moment.

 

“Were you asleep when this whole deal started?”  He looked at me and I turned my head. “Ok. I get it.  I wouldn’t wanna leave neither.”

 

“Either,” I said. 

 

“What’d I say?”

 

“Never mind.”

 

Kasey snapped his fingers and a recliner appeared beside me. 

 

“Rest here then,” he said, “anything happens, I’ll wake you right up.”

 

I looked at the chair.

 

“Listen, man.”  Kasey ushered me into the chair. “Y’keep saying that your body ain’t real,” he shrugged, “Which is kind of true, I guess, but what you experience with it still matters, man. It’s still tellin’ you to take care of yourself, and -“ he put his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned down to look me in the eye. “You. Ain’t. Doin’. It.”  He stood and walked a few paces away from me. “Why are healers always the fuckin worst?  am I right?  You think everyone else is more important than you, but if *you* break, what then?”

 

“A different healer will do my job?”

 

“Because we have an endless supply of those?  Or something?”

 

“Sort of!”  I yelled from my ridiculously comfortable chair. “There are *so many* of us now!  I’m sure if we needed another healer, we’d miraculously come across one!”

 

“Ok so.. hold on.”  Kasey covered his face with his hand and breathed for a moment. “Are you telling me that you don’t have to take care of yourself because you’re replaceable?”

 

I didn’t respond. 

 

Is that the argument I was making?

 

“Look hon,” Kasey continued, “Your job could be done by another person, but they wouldn’t be you. We can’t replace you. Just like we can’t replace Todd. Have y’ seen him lately?  Cuz I haven’t!  *He* didn’t take care of himself neither.”

 

“Either!”  I shouted, gripping the arms of the chair.  I pulled myself up and strode over to Kasey. Fire burned through every part of me.  “It isn’t NEITHER,” I fumed, “it’s EITHER!  Learn how to *fucking talk*!!”

 

“Alright, Doc.”  Kasey raised his hands defensively, although he was clearly not threatened by me. 

 

“And I’m not a fucking DOCTOR!”

 

“Yer eyes are glowin’ again, man.”

 

I set my jaw and closed my eyes. 

 

“That’ll probably work for now,” Kasey said, “but I got a feelin’ after a minute it’s gonna take more than countin’ to ten to tame that thing.”

 

I let out a long slow breath.  Kasey was right, smothering it wasn’t working. 

 

“Well if you have any ideas...” I trailed off and went back to the recliner. 

 

I was tired, and everything was terrible.