[ CW ] `` I dream about you once in a while . You suppose that means anything ? ''

Thickly tocking, constant, the clock mocked me. It never ticked. The office was stuffy, stifling. I might have drowned in my own sweat had I not knocked out the window. Twinkling in the sunlight was the glass' job and it was about to get a raise. I listened to it shatter, then stuck my head out of the hole it left and watched it do its work. I smiled. The clock tocked again and I frowned. 
 
 `` Mr. Treadway?'' 
 
 I spun around to face the psychiatrist. She, perfection incarnate. She, unreachable glory. She, judge, jury, executioner. 
 
 `` Have you been taking your pills?'' I asked before she could. I often mimicked her. not out of jealousy or contempt but out of necessity and ease. `` Why, yes, of course I have. Do you think I want to go back to how it was? No, you do n't. That's why I've been taking the pills. It was just hot in here, that's all. I dream about you once in a while. You suppose that means anything?'' 
 
 It was her turn to talk now. `` You have a deep attachment, that much I know, but I'm not sure it's fixated on me alone. There have been more reports, Mr. Treadway. You've been --'' 
 
 `` Busy, I know, a busy buzzing bee.'' 
 
 `` You've been sleepwalking again. Which means you have n't been taking the pills.'' 
 
 `` I replaced them,'' my sinister secondary voice crept in, inaudibly. `` With vitamins. So you'd have the stamina for all of them.'' 
 
 `` This time I have to intervene, Mr. Treadway. It's becoming too well known.'' 
 
 `` They're catching up,'' the glass hissed in tinkling tones from its grave down below. `` Go to sleep and it will all be better when you wake up.'' 
 
 `` I do n't believe you!'' I said loudly, trying to block out the incendiary voices. Even hers. I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I thought my eyelids would rip in two, and when I opened them, she was dead. 
 
 `` I dream about you once in a while,'' I sobbed, plunging my hands into the space where her heart should have been. `` You suppose that means anything?''
