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Drugged. Restrained.

The lights overhead were blinding. The array of them shone down at her, almost like a honeycomb. Her vision was blurry, and it was hard to see anything else. They had heavily sedated her.

Her wrists were tied to the table. There was a strap over her forehead, keeping her head still.

Moving at the wrong time would be fatal, after all. Or so they said. She wasn’t so certain she cared. In the strange, fluffy and hyper-real world that the sedation left her in, she felt too much and not enough at the same time. She was all at once trapped in her body and floating nearby all at once.

The operation table was clean. Pristine. The whole room was of the highest quality—this was a place of science, after all. Of medical breakthroughs and cutting-edge technology. This wasn’t like the bedlams of the past. This wasn’t a dirty asylum. This was a beautiful place on the California coast where patients could go to get well. That was why she had come here.

Maggie had always felt drawn to the coast. Especially where the waves crashed on the rocks. Something about it called to her. And when she saw the brochure that advertised the hospital, situated perfectly up on the cliffs over the ocean, she had felt hope.

Maybe they could help her.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

A leather handle was tied into her mouth, pinning her tongue beneath it, making sure she didn’t scream, or talk, or bite herself.

The man next to her was talking. She could hear his words, but they seemed to flow through her like a river. Never stopping for a second for her to process what they were. He was lecturing the crowd—telling them about the procedure he was about to perform.

One that would cure her of her hallucinations.

One that would make her sane again.

No more dreams of a strange man with white hair. No more dreams of a monster murdering her in the dead of night over, and over, and over again. No more false memories of past lives.

This procedure would give her peace. She could stop flinching at shadows. She could stop being terrified that every moment the man in the white hair with the silver cane would come for her. Her personal Grim Reaper would no longer stalk her nightmares.

This would bring calm.

And calm was what she needed.

A flash of metal over her stole her focus away from her nightmares. It was thin and sharp—like an ice pick. The metal handle at the back was perfectly formed to fit in the man’s palm.

The sliver of stainless steel hovered close to her face.

Fear crept up her spine. She wanted to move. Wanted to struggle. Wanted to cry out “wait!” or “stop!” or “I changed my mind!”

But she was sedated. Drugged. Restrained.

She was weak.

That was the problem with her. Weakness.

Weak, and helpless, and a pawn.

The impossibly sharp metal point pressed to her tear duct, close to her eye. Please, no. Please, no! She cried out in her mind, but there was no stopping it. It was too late.

A pawn.

Helpless.

Weak.

The light overhead was so blinding. So bright. It was too much.

The pain was overwhelming. It flowed through her like the man’s words. A river of it. But now it was searing. It split her in two. She felt bone and tissue. She felt it all—visceral and terrible—as she was impaled. As her very soul seemed cleaved and invaded.