Galisi Institute Pt. 2

1

“Do I know you?” Allyson flitted from the hallway to a seating area in the foyer and drifted into the chair. She looked different than he remembered. When he last spoke to her, she was all dressed up at a press conference, but that was before everything. Now, she wore an unbranded sweat suit with a spaghetti stain on the pants and a messy bun. 

“Well,” Jarrod considered lying and running back to his room, but something about the moment felt right. As if his life had been leading to this interaction and he had to go through it to get to the next level of…well, everything. “Sort of. I’m Jarrod…Jarrod Harris.”

Allyson squinted, as if searching a cabinet somewhere behind her eyes for the Jarrod Harris file. It did not take her long to find it. “Ah, yes. How could I forget?” She took a long sip from her mug without breaking eye contact. 

“Hey, look. I’m sorry for everything that happened.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what exactly? For how I lost half my company? Or maybe for the death threats? Or maybe for my daughter’s middle school telling us we’d have to find a new place for her to go? What exactly are you sorry for, Jarrod?”

Jarrod shrugged as he took a seat amidst the leather cushions opposite her. The chair was stiff. “All of it I guess.” He didn’t look her in the eye, but he knew she was watching him. 

She examined him a bit longer than he was comfortable with and eventually sighed. “What can you do? Life goes on.” She tapped her fingers on her chair’s arm as she continued. “I’m not sure I mean this right now, but for the sake of conversation, I guess I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you too.”

“Thanks.” Jarrod looked at his knees. 

Allyson took another sip then set her mug down on a granite coffee table just a little too far away from the chairs to reach without half-standing. The hints of anger in her tone had disappeared when she spoke again. “So tell me about yourself, Jarrod.”

He looked up. “Are you serious? You really want to know anything about me?”

“Maybe not, but we’re here, aren’t we? It’s either that or go back to those little hellholes they keep us in.”

“Fair enough.” He sat up in his chair. “What do you want to know?”

“Do you have a family?”

“Mom and dad.”

“Wife? Kids? Girlfriend?” Jarrod shook his head. “I figured as much,” Allyson continued. “Career driven guy like you, probably don’t think you have the time? Too busy making a name for yourself out there in the world.”

“Were you not the same?”

“I was, for a time. But I came to realize there were things I valued more than having money in my pockets and people who recognized and respected me.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you feel that way?”

“I’m starting to.”

“I see,” Allyson kissed her teeth. “This whole thing’s got you feeling a little…introspective?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Re-evaluating?”

“Sure.” 

“Sad?”

Jarrod leaned back so his whole body slunk into the chair and his butt hung half out of the seat. “I don’t know if I would say that much,” he sighed, then followed it up with, “Maybe.”

“Either you are or you aren’t. And if you aren’t…well then what brings you here?”

“What do you mean ‘what brings you here?’” He threw his arms up. “This whole mess. Me. You. That’s what brings me here.”

“Yeah, but what about it? Are you depressed? Anxious? Something else?”

“I don’t know,” Jarrod folded his arms back in and crossed them over his chest. “Hell, this isn’t another session. I had enough of that already today.”

Allyson picked her tea back up off the table and took frequent sips as she spoke. “You’re right. I guess this whole place is just getting to me. I’ve got therapy on the mind you could say.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Week and a half in room 112. You?”

“Just a few days. 117.” Jarrod sat up, scooted to the edge of his seat, and looked around quickly as if making sure they were actually alone. He whispered just loud enough for her to hear. “Hey, have you noticed anything, I don’t know…strange here?”

The way she focused her gaze after the question made Jarrod uncomfortable, like she was looking past his body and into an x-ray, skeletal version of him. “Oh my gosh! You’re here for a story, aren’t you?”

“What?” Jarrod almost stood up. “No, like I said. I’m here because of everything that happened.”

“Well that’s clear enough, but you’re here for a story too, aren’t you? Or you’re looking for one at least.”

“No, no I’m not!”

“You’re sick. Aren’t you? You didn’t ruin my life enough, so now you’re looking for a way to ruin all these nice people here.”

“I’m not. I would never do that.” Jarrod buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe you.” 

He thought she was going to storm off, but she just stayed there. One leg crossed over the other, sipping her tea every few minutes.  It took her a while to break the silence. Jarrod still had his head in his hands when she finally did speak. “Well…I guess some stuff has been strange.”

He sat up again, perplexed by the rapid shift in tone but not questioning it. “Oh?”

“I must admit,” she said. “It is thrilling. The idea of taking someone down, investigating them and risking them catching you at any second. I can see why you became a journalist.”

“What’s been strange?”

“Well, you hardly see people out and about for one. But the other day I saw a doctor walking around, and they ran away from me.”

“Really? Jarrod edged closer in his seat. The same thing happened to me. I thought they were going to come back and scold me for being out past curfew, but they just disappeared.”

“That’s so strange. Almost like…I don’t know. They don’t want us to know they’re here. Or they have something to hide.”

“If that’s the case…” he tapped the camera in his satchel. “Hopefully we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Oh this is so exciting. Have you found anything else?”

“Well, there’s those awful drinks.”

Allyson slapped the arm of her chair and pointed at him. “Yes! They make you drink them too?”

“Did they tell you it’s ‘doctor’s orders’ too?”
“Tina told me…verbatim I think.”

“Well, I guess if they’re telling us both the same thing it’s not too suspicious. But that taste?”

Allyson pointed at her mouth and pretended to vomit. Jarrod laughed. 

“Hey…” his voice dropped a few decibels, “Have you seen the metal door with a camera on it?”

“No. Where?”

“Down in the basement. I stumbled upon it yesterday. Have you seen any other cameras here? It seems strange they’d have one only on the one door.”

“In the basement you said? Someone told me that’s where they keep the drugs. I assume they don’t have any other cameras so we can have our privacy, but they probably want to make sure no one’s messing around if they really do keep the drugs down there.”

Jarrod relaxed back into the chair again, dropping the invisible detective’s pad he had formed in his mind as he listened to Allyson. “I guess you’re right.”

She shrugged. He shrugged. She sipped her tea. He picked at his fingernails. Even in silence her presence was somehow calming. Maybe just from knowing he wasn’t alone in that big building anymore, or maybe knowing he wasn’t alone in his struggle. He didn’t want the moment to end.  “So, what are ya in for?” He asked.

She had to finish swallowing. “Like you said. Mental health.”

“Yeah, but like you said, there’s more to it than that.”

She smiled and looked at her watch. “That is a story for another time.” She stood. “Why don’t we continue this tomorrow, and maybe I can tell you. Meet in your room?”

“Um…” Jarrod almost tripped as he stood up. “Sure.”

“Great.” Allyson cuffed her hand around his shoulder and smiled heading back to her room.

She was almost back to the hallway by the time Jarrod called out, “Goodnight!” She floated out of sight. 

Jarrod returned to his room and fell asleep instantly. When he woke up the next morning, he was drenched in sweat again. This time, however, it was thicker. More prevalent. Head to toe over his body. Like what he imagined swimming in the Dead Sea felt like. A strange soup just shy of oil covering your body. It left damp spots on his sheets, and not even a long shower could fully erase the feeling from his skin. 

2

Jarrod found Marlena in her office after breakfast. He went to sit down, but she stopped him. “I have something different in mind for today,” she said. “Follow me.”

She led him to the basement. His heart rate spiked, imagining she was leading him to the door, both titillated and nervous at the prospect of uncovering the secrets hidden behind it. The adrenaline in his blood evaporated as she stopped a hallway short of his hopes and coerced a much less interesting wooden door open with one of the many keys on her chain. She closed it behind them once they were both inside.

  “Is this where you lock me in with the padded gloves?” he joked as she flicked on the light to reveal a space no bigger than a couple closets smushed together. 

“No. Not yet at least,” she laughed. Jarrod laughed too, but it was more compulsory than natural for him.

“We’re much more interested in that,” she nodded to what looked like a high-tech dental chair with a beauty-salon hair dryer attached to the top filling most of the room.

“What is that?” Jarrod rubbed his arms, suddenly feeling a little cold. 

“That is some of the ‘cutting-edge’ technology you’ve been asking about.” Jarrod inspected it as Marlena continued. “It’s rather simple really. Take a seat.”

Jarrod looked at her like she had a stroke mid sentence. Her stagnant, stoic lower lip told him quite the opposite. He eased himself into the chair slowly, having to duck under the dome and stick his head up inside. It completely blocked his vision. “Hey, hey, what the hell is that?” He retracted his arm faster than a scared turtle as Marlena folded an icy strap over his bicep. 

“Relax,” she said, coaxing his arm back into place. “These are just monitors. You can take your arm out at any point. See?” she flapped the strap back and forth over his arm to show how little strength it required to move it. Jarrod took a deep breath. 

“Okay, but monitors for what? Is this some sort of polygraph?”

“I wish,” Jarrod heard a faint smirk escape her lips. “This machine is for enhanced therapy. It monitors your breathing and heart rate sort of how I imagine a polygraph would, but it allows us to see your brain as well. We’ll have a session like normal, but I get to see a sort of…reflexive map if you will. It helps me get to the root of your symptoms.”

“Enhanced therapy? Sounds like it belongs in Guantanamo.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” Marlena wrapped two straps just over his ankles. 

“You know, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this.” Jarrod had a thing about being trapped into small spaces. But then again, who wouldn’t?

“You want to get better, don’t you?”

“Yes…but –”

“Well this is one of the best ways for me to be able to help you.” She closed another strap across his chest. He felt his breaths become significantly shallower. “I’m going to have to ask you some uncomfortable questions, Jarrod. Some…odd questions. You might wonder why I’m asking them. But trust me, it’s all to help you.” She flipped a switch on the outside of the dome around his head. “Do you hear that?” She asked. 

“Yeah, barely.” He answered as a whirring sound came from the dome, or outside the dome, or…somewhere. 

“Alright, Jarrod. I’m looking at your map now. You look tense.”

“You think?”

“Try to take a deep breath. Remember, this is all to help you.”

He breathed deep, but the breath bounced off the dome and back to sting his eyes. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah…let’s just get this over with.”

“I’ll try, Jarrod. I don’t know how long this will take, but the more honest you are with me and with yourself, the sooner I’ll get the information I need.”

“Ok.”

“Now just close your eyes, and pretend this dome isn’t here. Pretend you’re in a tree, or maybe cradled in a giant leaf, looking out over the valley. I’m not your therapist. Remember, I’m just a friend. Can you imagine that for me, Jarrod?”

His chest pushed against the strap as he breathed deep. “Yes.”

“Good. Now tell me, Jarrod. Why are you here?”

His eyes shot open in the dome. This IS a polygraph his mind screamed. 

“Your anxiety levels jumped through the roof, Jarrod. Is everything okay?”

He bit his lower lip and breathed deeper. “Yes.”

“Good. Now tell me, why are you here?”

“I’m here to get help because of some professional turmoil.”

“Thank you, Jarrod. I can tell that was hard. We’ll get through this soon enough. Trust me. Do you trust me, Jarrod?”

“I trust you.” He took another breath. 

“Then why are you lying to me, Jarrod?” 

He almost jumped out of the seat and crashed his head into the dome. “I’m not. I’m…well, what do you mean?”

“You’re not here just because of this ‘professional turmoil.’” 

For a second, he questioned if she knew about his secret assignment. He breathed deep, preparing a line of lies to throw her off the trail, and started to open his mouth. But before he could speak, Marlena interrupted him. “You’re here because of Allyson Richards, aren’t you?”

The question seemed uncanny in its timing. Had she seen them together? She couldn’t have. But why, then, was she asking it? A dozen responses bounced through his head. He settled on, “What do you mean?”

“You’re here because of what you did to her.”

He thought. “Well, no. Or maybe. I mean…do you know?”

“Do I know what, Jarrod?”

“That I saw Allyson last night.”

“You…saw her last night?”

“Yeah. I guess she’s a patient here.”

“I see.”

He heard the scribbling across her notepad as she went quiet. It ignited another anxiety spike in his reflexive map. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I just did not realize she was a patient here as well. It’s fine.” More scribbles, followed by a pause. “But I guess it would make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“That she’s a patient here. It makes sense.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well…you caused her significant professional embarrassment. I imagine that wasn’t easy on her.”

“Yeah, but it all worked out for her in the end. She came out looking like an angel while everyone sees me as the big bad monster.”

“Are you kidding?” The instant indignation in her tone made Jarrod jump a little. “Maybe it’s gotten a bit better, but do you know how many people just read the initial headline? No one follows the story through to the end. People’s opinions were probably formed long ago. And no offense, but I’m sure the ‘Famous CEO Allyson Richards is Evil’ headlines got a lot more attention than the ‘star journalist falls from grace’ stuff. And even if people did hear the rest of the story, they are going to believe what they want to believe. They ‘know’ she did something wrong, whether it’s true or not.”

Jarrod thought. “I suppose it’s funny,” he finally answered. “One of us was in the right. One of us was in the wrong. But here we both are in the same place.”

“Funny?”

“Well, maybe funny isn’t the best word. Perhaps ironic.”

“Perhaps un-fair.”

“Perhaps.” The whirring noise grew a little louder. He imagined Allyson in her house when he first broke the story. How much stress it probably caused her. Her husband trying to console her. Both of them pretending like everything was normal for their kids when they knew it was not. The image made him grimace. “You’re right.”

“I know I am, Jarrod. And you’re the one who dragged her through the mud, aren’t you?”

He had to swallow before he could answer. “I guess I am.”

“You’re the reason she’s in here, aren’t you?” 

The strap felt much tighter across his chest all of a sudden. “I am.”

“You ruined her life, didn’t you?”

“I…I don’t know if I would say that.”

“Your map says something different. But it doesn’t matter if you admit it to yourself. Everyone knows you ruined her life.”

“But, I –”

“You enjoyed ruining her life. Didn’t you, Jarrod?”

“No! What? Of course not!” 

“You really are awful, aren’t you?” A sound started to fill the dome, almost like the indistinct murmur of an audience before a show.

“No…I’m! What is this anyway?” He snapped back at her. He tried to stand, but the straps felt strong all of a sudden, or did he just feel weak?

“Relax, Jarrod. I told you, I’m going to have to ask you some tough questions. Say some odd things. It’s all part of the enhanced therapy, however unpleasant it may be. Just try to relax and listen to me.”

He breathed deep. It was hard. He felt like a scuba diver two hundred feet under water with only a few sips of air left. Still, Marlena continued. “Are you happy, Jarrod?”

“Happy how?” The word hurt coming out of his mouth. Happy.

“In general.”

“Well,” he felt his body sink deeper into the chair. But there was no softness or comfort like a couch, it just felt hard, almost painful against his skin. “No. I don’t think I am.”

“Do you deserve happiness?”

“What in the world does that mean?”

“Think about it. Your map is full of activity. We’re getting somewhere.”

“I guess…doesn’t everyone?”

Marlena didn’t entertain the question. She just pounced with another of her own. “Do you think other people believe you deserve happiness?” The murmur stirring in the dome grew louder. He looked around for a speaker but saw none. “Do you?” Marlena asked again.
He closed his eyes, but images flashed through his mind faster than the frames in a video. Box after box filled with hateful words in Hellvetica font. His eyes dampened as he answered. “I don’t think they do.”

“I think you may be right about that.” For the first time in their sessions, Marlena resorted to the most basic arrow in the therapist’s quiver. Jarrod had heard it a thousand times in shows or satire, but he had never expected it to hurt so much in person. “And how does that make you feel?”

The corners of his eyes felt a bit more than damp now. It took all his strength to sip that last breath of air out of his oxygen tank and bring his one word answer to his lips. “Awful.”

Marlena scratched away at the notepad for a minute before abruptly stopping and saying, “Thank you, Jarrod. That’s all for today.” The machine stopped, but the rumbling in his ears did not. Marlena tossed the straps open one by one until he was completely unencumbered again. He stayed seated in the chair. 

“Wait, that’s it?” He asked as Marlena lifted the dome away from his head.

“That’s it.” 

“But,” he protested. He had no desire to leave, a first for his sessions. “You can’t leave me like this. I feel terrible.”

Marlena cupped her hand around his shoulder. Her lips bent in a way that resembled sympathy, but the closer Jarrod looked, he could see something else hiding beneath it. “I know, Jarrod. But trust me, this is necessary. It’s all part of the process. You understand, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

Marlena headed to the door.“Don’t worry, Jarrod. By the time we’re through with you here, you’ll be the version of yourself you were always meant to be.”

3

Three knocks reverberated through the deep knots of an oak door. It opened to reveal Jarrod on one side. “Oh, Allyson. Sorry. I was expecting Tina.”

“Dinner in bed?” She asked, pointing to the plate clad tray in his hands, replete with barely nibbled entrees. 

Jarrod set the tray back on the desk. “Didn’t really feel like going out, I guess. I actually wasn’t hungry at all, but Tina swung by with that.”

“She probably just wanted to make sure you drank your vitamins I’d bet.”

“Maybe.” He sat on the edge of his bed. 

“Eh-hem,” Allyson cleared her throat as he seemed to forget about her. “Are you going to invite me in?” 

Jarrod looked up like she had just woken him from a trance. “What? Oh, sorry. Come on in.”

“Are you alright, Jarrod?”

“Knock, knock.” Tina peaked around the door frame just as soon as Allyson had left it and stepped inside. “Everything taste alright tonight, Jarrod?”

He nodded. Tina inspected it. Everything must have been to her liking because she didn’t stay to chat or scold him on anything. She just left the room and shut the door. 

“I can’t stand her,” Allyson mentioned from her seat in the corner. “She pretends to be so nice, but you can just tell she’s faking it. I think she secretly hates us.” Jarrod didn’t answer, he just kept staring at the wall. Allyson went to the minibar and retrieved two small bottles. “I think you need something to wash your dinner down.” She handed him one of the bottles and sat back in the chair in the corner of the room. Jarrod took it and sipped away, hardly lightening the bottle each time it touched his lips. 

“Have they tried ‘enhanced therapy’ on you yet?”

“Enhanced therapy? No. What is that?”

“Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.”

“Didn’t like it, huh?”

“I said forget it.”

Allyson looked at Jarrod, looked at her bottle, finished it in two large gulps, and looked back to Jarrod. “I don’t know exactly what happened today, Jarrod. But, trust me, it’s going to get better.”

“Has it gotten better for you?” 

“Of course. The first few days are hard. You’re doing really difficult things just being here. But you will get through it.”

“Maybe.” He stared at the wall as he spoke. “Can I ask you something?” She nodded, and Jarrod asked in a tone best described as morose, “Do you hate me?” 

“What? Of course not. Why?” She crumpled her left eyebrow as she answered. 

“I was just thinking about everything. I mean…I  ruined your life. You’re in here because of me. If I were you, I’d hate me.”

“Trust me, Jarrod. I’m not in here because of you.”

“No? Then why are you in here?”

She went to the fridge, grabbed another bottle, and sat back down as she unscrewed the cap. “Jarrod, I need to tell you something.”

“What’s that?”

“You were right.”

“About?”

“The factory.”

The bed squeaked as Jarrod turned towards her, looking away from the wall for the first time in their conversation. “What?”

Allyson was smiling, but he could tell the smile was only there so she wouldn’t cry. “We were fixing it. It wasn’t supposed to all happen like this.”

“Fixing what, Allyson?”

She took a deep breath. Now was her turn to avert her gaze. “Like I said, you were right. Just not in the way you thought you were. Nothing was poisoned. At least, not that I know of. Honestly, when your article first came out, I figured it was God, or karma, or some sort of divine justice making things right for what actually happened.”

Jarrod’s journalistic senses stirred. He felt the urge to push further, to ask the next question, to extract information. But his empathetic senses rose as well and told him to listen and let her divulge the information on her own terms. 

“I was eager to get the factory up and running, more eager than I was for any factory before. So, in the process, I may have cut some safety corners. We had some shelving units, giant units, installed. They stored everything while it awaited shipping. One day, I guess a screw was loose, or a board was weak, or something. All I know was an internal investigation said it was our fault for rushing construction. It broke. A few workers were nearby.” The bottle had started to shake in Allyson’s hand.  

“Did they…?”

“No, but they were in the hospital so long. We paid them of course. They signed NDA’s so it wouldn’t get out. But…I don’t know. I never got over it.”

Jarrod let the revelation marinate for a minute. At least his mind wasn’t on his session from the day. He felt good, but he didn’t know why. Something about seeing Allyson in pain had brought him a type of peace. Was it as simple as knowing he was not alone? Or was it that pointing the finger at someone else’s flaws allowed him to forget about his own?

“Why did you cut corners?”

Allyson rubbed her finger under her nose in unison with a loud, crackling sniffle. “I’ve always kept this part of me hidden. I didn’t want anyone thinking I didn’t belong. But I grew up there, Jarrod. In Brisbury. I hated it. The poverty was awful. Drugs were all over. So I left as soon as I could. I got my family out too, but my mother wasn’t so ready to leave. She used to lead a homeless shelter there, and she kept telling me how she felt she had abandoned the town. Every now and then, she would tell me I had abandoned it and should help more, but I never listened.”

Allyson paused so long Jarrod didn’t know if she was going to continue. He gave her a gentle push. “What changed?”

“My mother passed. And, I don’t know, I just felt like she was right all of a sudden. I wanted nothing more than to carry out what had been her life’s mission. Building that factory and bringing those people jobs became my only goal.”

“And now you feel like you failed them.” Jarrod said. Allyson nodded. “Well,” he continued. “I don’t think so at all. Just because you made some mistakes doesn’t mean you failed them. It’s the thought that counts.”

Allyson shook her head slowly. “Oh please, Jarrod. You don’t believe that.”

“I do. Absolutely I do.”

“Is that the way you feel? You thought you were helping those people when you went after me.”

Jarrod felt like his body was suddenly glued to the bed. Even if he wanted to move, he couldn’t. All he could do was think. He wanted to give a simple answer and make Allyson feel better, but he did not feel so well himself anymore. “I don’t know, Allyson,” he said once they had both stopped looking at each other for a bit. “I guess I do feel that way a little, but no one else sees it that way. So, what does it matter?”

“It doesn’t…” Allyson muttered. 

They fell silent. It gave Jarrod just enough time for his mind to wander back to the beginning of their conversation. “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends.”

Jarrod took a deep breath. “Are you really not in here because of me?”

She shook her head real slow. “Not at all, Jarrod. At first, I might have thought it was because of what you did and all the hate it brought on me. But now? You know, I don’t think it has anything to do with you. I think it has everything to do with this accident, and maybe I was just using you as an excuse to get pity and feel a bit sorry for myself.”

Jarrod sat up a bit taller. “I can’t tell you how good that feels to hear.”

Allyson put her bottle down. “You might not believe this, but it feels great to say.”

Their conversation the rest of the night changed entirely. They talked a little more about their pasts, but mostly they talked about their futures. What they wanted to do, the things that gave them hope, who they wanted to be. The clock read 1:34 AM when exhaustion became the predominant feeling in the room and Allyson finally left. She promised to return so they could continue their conversation the next night. Jarrod crawled under his sheets, and for the first time in many nights, he had good dreams as he slept. 

4

“Jarrod? Jarrod!” The shouts were interspersed between frantic knocks. He felt disgusting as he rolled out of bed. However thick the sweat stew over his skin felt the day before, now it felt like someone had added a gallon of flour to the mix. He was sticky too. He had to get creative to pull the sheets off his body as he meandered, still half asleep, to open the door. Both Marlena and Tina were on the other side.

“Jarrod! Is everything alright? We were worried about you.” Tina said in that motherly, half scolding, half relieved tone. 

He looked back at the clock to see it read 2:21 PM. When he looked back at them he seemed just as shocked, but not so concerned. “Wow, sorry. I…I guess I just had a late night last night.” 

“Well, I’m glad everything is alright.” Tina continued. “But this really is –

“It’s alright,” Marlena interrupted her. “You’re an adult. I figured you probably just slept in. Tina just got concerned when I told her you still hadn’t shown up to your session because she said you seemed ‘off’ last night. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Jarrod rubbed an excessive amount of gunk out of his eyes. “I felt out of it last night, but I’m feeling better.”

“I’m glad,” Marlena cracked a half smile. Tina still looked concerned. “Do you still want to do your session today?”

“It’s not more ‘enhanced therapy,’ is it?” 

“No, don’t worry. I’ll use what I learned from your map yesterday, but we will have a rather normal session today.”

“Alright,” Jarrod massaged his neck. “Just give me a bit to get dressed and I’ll meet you in your office.”

Marlena led Tina away and shut the door as Jarrod trudged into the bathroom. His skin glistened in the mirror, but not in any sort of good way like a model or after a hard workout. His lips contorted in a snarl like a dog’s, disgusted by himself. He ran his hands across his skin and watched as a thin glob of the stew accumulated against his fingers. He pulled his hand away, and a droopy strand clung both to his skin and fingers like mucus. “What the –” he mouthed silently to himself. 

He tucked his head down to check that he didn’t smell as disgusting as he felt. His pits smelled nothing besides the ordinary, fixable with a swipe or two of deodorant, but they looked different than he remembered. He held his arm out in front of the mirror. The skin seemed…excessive. He stretched out his fingers and toes. The repulsed snarl on his lips only grew as he noticed a similar sort of increased webbing between each of his digits. As he wriggled them, the disgust on his face turned to confusion, then mesmerization. He knew he couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. It must have been some strange illusion from the slime across his body. So, he hopped in the shower and scrubbed his body clean of the muck as best he could. When he finished, he kept his eyes straight ahead, too nervous to check if the webbed skin was still there.  He just tried his best to ignore the uncomfortable sensations from the thin coat of slime that remained on his skin as he dressed and went to meet Marlena. 

“Are you sure everything is alright, Jarrod?” Marlena asked as he crept into her office and took a seat on the couch. “You seem…different today.”

“Yes, sorry. Everything is fine.”

“Are you feeling alright health-wise? Nothing is off? From what Tina tells me, you’ve missed dinner a few times since you’ve been here.”

For a second, he thought about mentioning the sweat. But just for a second. “No. I’m alright. Really.”

“How about emotionally? Was something keeping you up last night? I know our session yesterday was hard.”

“It was, but that’s not what kept me up actually. It was Allyson.”

“Oh? And what about Allyson? Were you thinking about her?” Marlena looked around for her notepad, eventually finding it under some folders on her desk.

“Actually, I was with her. We talked for quite a while.”

“You were?” Allyson scribbled so fast Jarrod thought she might tear the page. “And what did you and Allyson talk about?” 

“Well, I don’t want to divulge too much about her personal business, but it turns out she did do something wrong at the factory. So I was right, but just in the wrong way.”

“Well congratulations. That must have made you feel pretty good.”

Jarrod smiled. “It did. But I think what really helped was finding out that I’m not the reason she’s in here.”

“You aren’t?”

“No. It turns out dealing with the hate she had been receiving and blaming me was just an excuse. She’s in here because of her own guilt.”

“Well,” Marlena raised her eyebrows. She jotted down a few more lines that were illegible from Jarrod’s vantage point and then closed the notepad and set it down altogether. “Tell me, Jarrod. How did this interaction with Allyson come about?”

“She came to my room –”

“To your room?”

“Yeah. To my room.”

“And how did it come about that she told you all this?”

“Well…” Jarrod squinted and looked towards the ceiling. “That’s a good question actually. She just kind of told me.”

“Let me ask you, Jarrod. I know you were feeling down when we finished our session. Were you still feeling down last night?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. 

“Did Allyson notice that you were still feeling down?”

“I mean, she did mention it, yeah.”

Marlena clicked her tongue and pointed at Jarrod. “That’s what I was looking for. So let me get this straight. You were feeling down last night. Allyson mentioned you were feeling down. And then she told you this intimate stuff about herself and you ended up feeling better?”

“I guess. That’s kind of a simplified version of it, but sure.”

“Jarrod,” Marlena put her hands on her lap. “Do you think there’s any chance that Allyson just told you what she told you because she wanted you to feel better?” 

“What? No, of course not. She was so sincere.”

“Did she tell you she forgives you? That it wasn’t your fault?”

“No. Or, I guess, in a way.”

“Do you think everyone else has forgiven you? Everyone saying those awful things about you and dragging your name through the dirt?”

Jarrod tossed his arms to the side and shook his head, exasperated. “Of course not. But it’s not their thing to forgive.”

Marlena followed up with another point of her finger. “Bingo. So if no one else who is separate from the situation has forgiven you, how could the person who you actually hurt forgive you?”

“Well,” he kept shaking his head. “I don’t know. But she did.”

“No she didn’t, Jarrod. She was lying to you to get you to feel better in the moment.”

“That’s not true. She wouldn’t! She’s too honest.”

“You believe this woman you’ve only had two whole interactions with is that honest? The same woman that actually was up to something bad at her own factory.”

“Yes! Or…I don’t know.” Jarrod dug his fingernails into the couch so hard the leather started to tear. “But why are you telling me all this? I thought you were supposed to help me feel better.”

“That is not my job Jarrod.”

He rubbed his temple furiously. Leather fragments from the couch had burrowed under his fingernails. “Yes it is! Why else am I here?”

“My job is to help you face the truth, but you seem unwilling to do that.”

“I’m not! But – gah!” He held his head in his hands and rocked back and forth, taking more shallow breaths. They felt slimy. To make matters worse, that faint whirring, whispering sound in his ears had returned, the same one from the “enhanced therapy.” He started to shake, trying to find something to yell at Marlena. A dozen options tumbled through his mind, but he settled on, “Well it isn’t working! I feel worse than ever. I can’t think straight. I’m waking up sweating. I don’t want to eat.”

“So you are having physical symptoms.”

“Yes I’m having physical symptoms! How could I not be? I’m going to lose my mind.”

“We’re working on that Jarrod.”

“Well it’s not working! I need something faster. Just give me some Zoloft or something.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not! I clearly meet all the symptoms. Just tell Tina to run and grab us some from the basement and then we can end these stupid sessions and get me out of here.”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, Jarrod. We don’t store any drugs here.”

“You don’t?” Jarrod stopped shaking for just a second and looked at her. 

“No. We pride ourselves on treatment without medication.”

He thought. “Well your treatment sucks. So if you don’t have any medication for me, then what the hell good are you?” He stood and stomped out of the room. Fast and loud. Loud enough that the whole building would be able to hear how he slammed the door and the exact route he took back to his room. 

5

Jarrod collapsed against the door when he got back to his room. Ripples of anger and sadness cycled through his body. His fists clenched and pulsing one second and open and weak the next. He wanted to move, but even mustering all his strength, he couldn’t. Marlena came to his door after letting him sit for an hour. She knocked and tried to talk him out with sweet tones and promises of progress, but her voice only strengthened his resolve to stay barricaded inside. 

Next was Tina’s turn to try and talk him out. Then Marlena again. Then Tina and Marlena together. And then some in-house, “crisis intervention worker” who Jarrod shut his hands over his ears for. He only wanted to see one person: Allyson. And as the sun set and the fading natural light darkened the room, he knew she would stop by any time now. 

He could almost see the stars from where he sat. The wall length window gave him a perfect view outside when the sun was up. Since it had fallen, however, even with the main light off in his room, reflections of little lights here and there bounced off the glass, leaving his view of nature muddled at best. At worst, it illuminated the pane just enough for him to catch contorted reflections of his oily, disgusted sense of self staring back at him.

Where is Allyson? He thought when he couldn’t take looking in the mirror anymore. He needed to talk to her, perhaps more than anything he had ever needed before. Was she lying? The more he thought about it, the more he realized he might not believe her answer. If she said yes? He wasn’t sure he could take her saying yes. But if she said no? How could he be certain Marlena was wrong? How could he know Allyson wasn’t just lying to make him feel better. 

He heard a knock at the door and jumped to his feet to look through the peephole. No one was there, but he heard something. A voice. Or…no. Voices. He opened the door and looked around to make sure no one was there. The hallway was empty. The building was silent. Not even a hint of a footstep creaked through the building. But those voices. He slammed the door and covered his ears. The voices only grew louder. You ruined Allyson’s life. You ruined everyone’s life – they hissed. Images of text boxes with terrible formations of words filled his mind. 

Jarrod couldn’t take it anymore. He burst into the hall. The voices stopped, or maybe just got quieter as he looked at his watch and a new train of thought began to fill his mind: 11:48 PM. What? He asked himself. Where was Allyson? Why hadn’t she come? Something was wrong. He could feel it. He grabbed his camera, his laptop, every important piece of luggage he could carry and trudged through the halls towards her room. He was getting out of that awful building once and for all, and Allyson was coming with him before they could drive her crazy too. 

Not a peep stirred in the halls, but he wouldn’t have cared anyway. He paved his way through the hall and pounded on the door to room 112. No answer. He pounded again, then again, and then threw in some shouts on the 4th try. Still, no one answered. He figured she must have gone out, or maybe even gone to see him and somehow they missed each other. So, he did a lap around the main floor, looking for her in her cafeteria, every coffee and lobby space, the gym, and even the foyer where they had their first conversation. Allyson was nowhere to be found. A grumbling of nerves and intuition churned in his stomach, that feeling you get as you realize something terrible has happened.

He returned to her door and resumed his pounding and shouting. The silence left him no choice. Five hearty kicks later, he had smashed the locked door wide open. The room was a near replica of his, but it was completely empty. Jarrod looked around. 

The room was not just uninhabited at the moment. There were no sheets. The floor was pristine. An industrial chemical smell still lingered in the bathroom. It looked like no one had lived there for any period of time, ever, and certainly not in the last week. 

Jarrod’s knees felt weak, on the verge of buckling with each step. He went to the doors closest to Allyson’s and knocked to see if any of her neighbors had seen where she went. Again, no answer. A new feeling bubbled to the surface of his emotions: fear. As it did, an overwhelming protective instinct grabbed ahold of his nervous system. His fists clenched as his mind flashed to the metal door with a camera on it. And then he remembered, Marlena said they had no drugs at the institute. So if it was not a room for storing drugs, what was it? What had they done to her? 

Jarrod stormed to Marlena’s office. He knocked. Then yelled. Then kicked. She was not there. But then again, why would she be in her office so late anyway? Her absence did give him the unique opportunity to snoop, however. Removing his camera and setting his luggage down, he headed to her desk and found the manila folder with Jarrod Harris written on it. 

It was thin. He flipped through the pages and found his initial application along with a few sheets of lined yellow paper with her illegible notes on them. Nothing out of the ordinary. The same proved true for the rest of her office. Bookshelves filled with the latest psychology literature. Drawers filled with office supplies. But as he went to open one drawer, it fought back. Locked. He found the keys easily on top of her desk and took a deep breath before opening the mystery drawer. 

It was deep, but it only contained one file. A thick one with tears and creases and pages spilling out. The name on the file? Jarrod Harris. 

“What the…” he muttered, picking up the file and thumbing through the contents. It had the initial report he had written about Allyson’s factory. Then several articles written in response to his article, tearing him apart. He figured the articles could have been explained away as basic research to find out what he had gone through, but the deeper he combed through the file, the more inexplicable each page became. He found pages and pages of printed out hate comments from social media, pictures of his parents, his closest friends, his boss. Each picture had a detailed profile with it explaining how he knew them, what they were like, and thoughts he had about them he had never even told anyone. And the articles…they were all marked up. Notes written in the margins and key phrases and words highlighted like they were study guides for a test. 

When he arrived at the last document in the folder, his fingers started to shake so much he could barely read it. It was a printed out draft of an article, like many he had written before. The headline? LOCAL JOURNALIST JARROD HARRIS DISAPPEARS. It went on to describe how he had recently experienced some professional turmoil and allegations of corruption after a hit piece he wrote against beloved CEO Allyson Richards. It said that Jarrod was currently missing and was suspected to have taken his own life during a vacation. The draft was covered in red ink, like someone had been reading and revising it. When he noticed the date, goosebumps ran down his spine. It was set for publication one month from the day. 

He jumped as a breeze caused the door to utter a high-pitched whine. “Allyson?” he yelled. This time, he was relieved when no one answered. “That’s it…” he mumbled under his breath, shoving the folder into his bag. He paused at the door before he left and grabbed an umbrella Marlena kept by it. 

He tiptoed his way through the rest of the building keeping the umbrella pointed ahead of him like a sword and pausing the second he thought he heard anything besides absolute silence. He made his way to the foyer and glanced with longing at the world just outside the wide glass doors, but he could not leave yet. Allyson. He had to save her. If not for her family or all those who loved her, then for his own peace of mind. 

Jarrod crawled down the staircase and made his way to the metal door. His knees felt weaker with each step towards the door until he was practically dragging himself across the fray of the carpets. He had never shaken so much.

At last, he made the turn into the hallway with the door. It stared at him like a blackhole, mysterious yet impossible to ignore, pulling him in. His grip tightened around the umbrella, but he still shook like a knight confronting his first dragon. To make matters worse, the voices started to yell again, but the blood pulsed so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear them. He paused for a second behind the camera, wary of the repercussions should he enter its field of view, but he broke that plane nonetheless. 

He poked the door with the tip of the umbrella, half expecting the metal monster to explode, or jump at him, or both. It stayed anticlimactically still, only emitting a faint tap as the tip of the umbrella came into contact with it. Once he confirmed the door itself was harmless, he tried the handle. Locked. He shook it, then used his legs to push against the wall and try and pry it open. Still nothing. He pressed his ear to it and listened. “Jarrod?”

He whipped around to find Marlena standing behind him in the hallway. “Stay back!” He pointed the umbrella at her and backed into the door until he had nowhere to go. 

Marlena’s brow contorted so convincingly that Jarrod almost believed she was genuinely worried for him. “Jarrod, what’s wrong?” 

“Where is she? Tell me now!” He punctuated his sentences with thrusts of the umbrella. 

“Where is who, Jarrod? What’s going on?” She stuck her hand out and took a step towards him. 

“Allyson! I know she’s back here. Let her go. Now!”

“Jarrod, what are you talking about?”

“I know! I know everything you’re up to.”

“Jarrod, just put down the umbrella.” She took another step forward. Jarrod wiped his brow with his sleeve. The sweat clung to the fabric. He was slimier than ever. 

“No!”

“Jarrod, we’re here to help.” Tina stepped around the corner. For the first time, she wasn’t wearing her business casual blouse and pants. Instead, she wore blue scrubs with shoe covers and gloves on. Jarrod noticed she was holding something in her right hand, gripping it tight. 

“Please, Jarrod.” Tina begged. 

“This isn’t you, Jarrod.”Marlena took another step forward. She was only a few feet from him now. Tina was close behind, walking slowly as if trying to approach a deer without scaring it away.

“Bring. Me. Allyson!” 

Marlena and Tina looked at each other. “Jarrod,” Marlena said. “There is no, Allyson.”

“What?” He rubbed his hand over his face to wipe away the slime. It was starting to seep into his eyes. 

  “Allyson Richards has never been a patient here. I checked all our files. I asked around. I even called her company. They say she’s still in Brisbury, recovering from the mess you made.” 

“You’re lying! I saw her. Tina saw us together in my room two nights ago.” He jabbed the umbrella to point towards Tina.”

“I didn’t, Jarrod. You were by yourself. And you really didn’t look good.” He caught a glimpse of what she held in her right hand. The tip of a needle. 

“Jarrod, I and the other doctors here have discussed your visions of Allyson. We think you’ve been having delusions where she forgives you in order to feel better.”

“You’re lying! You’re both lying.”

“We’re not, Jarrod. It’s not uncommon for people who have screwed up as awfully as you to invent scenarios to make themselves feel better. We’ve seen it in many of our patients.”

“Stop that! Back up!” He swung the umbrella at them, but it felt almost impossible to move. His clothes felt like a weighted blanket weighing him down. 

“But you didn’t help, Jarrod. You ruined so many lives,” Marlena said. 

“You’re a terrible person,” Tina continued. 

He couldn’t ignore the voices anymore. They chimed in, hurling insult after insult upon him. 

“Stop, stop, stop!” He shook his head then slipped on his own slime and fell to the floor.

“Have you been feeling strange, Jarrod?”

“Sweaty? Slimy? Gross?”

“Hearing things?”

He looked at his hand. Now there was no denying that the webs between fingers were larger. “What’s happening? What did you do to me?” he shouted. 

In a masterfully fluid motion, Tina swept his umbrella to the side and plunged her needle deep into the side of his neck. Jarrod tried to fight her, but it was no use. Whatever she pumped him with acted quick. It left him with his consciousness, but he felt his limbs go weak. 

“The drinks, Jarrod,” Tina told him. “It was the drinks. They have a special blend in them. They help manifest what you’re feeling inside into your physical reality.”

“Here, help me,” Marlena told Tina as she grabbed Jarrod’s legs and hoisted them under her arms. He felt Tina reach under his armpits. 

“Yuck. Even through the gloves the slime is gross.” 

“Let me go!” Jarrod demanded. “I’m not really a patient. I’m here undercover with Westham. They’re tracking my every move and will come looking for me.” Tina and Marlena glanced at each other. “Ah-ha, see? Not so tough now. Just let me go, and I swear I won’t run my piece on what’s really going on here.”

“Oh, Jarrod,” Marlena shook her head. “Do you think Westham doesn’t know what’s going on here already? They sent you here for a reason. They put us up to this.”

“What? No, no, no. They would never.” He tried to shake free, but the only thing he could move was his head.

“You told me yourself. They don’t want you there. This was their way to get rid of a problem and save face for the paper.”

“They hate you, Jarrod. They all hate you. Everyone.” 

Jarrod couldn’t tell if the moisture around his eyes was the slimy sweat or tears anymore. Under the effects of whatever Tina injected him with, he couldn’t even tell if he was crying, but he knew he felt like it. 

“What are you going to do to me?” He asked. Tina propped him up with her knee and used her free hand to unlock the door. She kicked it open and steered him in. 

“Like I told you from the beginning,” Marlena said. “We’re going to help you become who you really are.” 

They carried Jarrod into the room beyond the door. The space was massive and brighter than any other room in the castle. White tile lined the floors and walls.  Along one side of the room he saw what looked like cells, small rooms with a glass wall to see inside. 

Each cell had what looked like varying levels of a human in them. In the first cell was clearly a naked man lying on the floor, but his feet were mush, as if they had combined into one amorphous blob of goo. The rest of his skin drooped like melted plastic. In the second cell was a woman with similar symptoms to the man, but her whole lower body had morphed, looking more like a long tail stuck to the floor. The third prisoner was not on the floor. Their body was well above the ground stuck to the glass. They looked more like a slug than human. The only sense of humanity that remained to them was a head.

Each of the creatures had dozens of tubes stuck to them. Jarrod had never seen something more hideous in his life. All three of them looked at Jarrod and began to wail, but their voices were no longer human either. They were dull, animalistic moans.

The slug man continued wailing, shaking his head and banging it against the glass as he looked at Jarrod. Jarrod looked at the man, then at his webbed fingers and the slime covering his body. He began to scream and shake his head, trying to free himself with every muscle that remained active.

Tina dropped him for a second, but she picked him up right away and continued carrying him to the center of the room. They laid him on a shiny silver operating table as a team of lab coated, gloved, and masked individuals surrounded him with scissors. They removed his shoes and cut his clothes away, tossing them in a hazardous waste basket. 

“Relax, Jarrod,” Marlena told him, putting her gloved hand on his shoulder. “This is just the prep. The bad part will come soon enough.” 

Jarrod looked up as he lay on the table. A glass wall all around the room interrupted the tile to form a viewing room, like box suites at a sporting event. Dozens of people filled the room, all looking down at him. Some wore lab coats. Most wore fancy suits and dresses. A few even wore decorated military uniforms. “Help!” Jarrod screamed, but they just stared down, taking sips of their colorful drinks and munching on appetizers.

Their eyes followed his body as the lab coats picked him up and carried him to what looked like an MRI machine at the center of the room. They placed him on the table just outside the mechanical tube. The doctors stepped away and Marlena took up her post at his side. By now, Jarrod could hardly move his neck. All he could see was the ceiling and the people staring down at him. Marlena had to bend over his face to enter his field of vision. 

“Marlena? Stop! What’s happening?” He asked as his body stiffened and his temperature increased. 

“Now this is the bad part.” She smiled and pressed a button by his head.

The ceiling turned into a giant screen, projecting headline after headline, comment after comment tearing him apart. His ears rung as the whispers turned into full blown yelling, shouting horrors from within his ears deeper into his mind. The table came alive and began pulling him through the tube slowly. The last thing he saw was textbox after textbox of snappy, hateful opinions and everyone looking down at him. When the machine finally spit him out on the other side, a few members in the viewing section, even a few of the operating doctors, ran to wastebaskets and bathrooms to empty their stomachs. But when they returned, they joined a round of vicious applause, all inspired by what they, along with the help of myriad others, had created. 

6

The library was almost as dark as the outside. No one cared. The grandchildren were all too interested, confused, and terrified, clinging to each one of George’s words. 

“Of course, Marlena had been lying,” he continued. “We went looking for Jarrod, especially after that bogus story was published about him disappearing. It took awhile, but we finally got the police to look around. What they found was nothing short of evil. Some sort of operation attempting to weaponize what he had gone through. Their experimenting had more success on Jarrod than anyone else it seemed. By the time they found him, he was unrecognizable. His body, his head, even his face molded into one ugly blob like a slug and covered in slime. If it weren’t for their records, they wouldn’t have even been able to tell it was Jarrod.

“He’s still alive, though. If you can call that living. He gets full time care, passed around from hospital to hospital while people run different tests on him, trying to figure out if there’s any way to reverse whatever it was they did to him. They haven’t had any luck, but we still hope.

“I used to go and visit him every now and then, but I stopped a long time ago. I couldn’t shake this feeling that it was all my fault. It…he, really is a terrible sight. I would just ramble on. Say how sorry I was. But he can’t talk. Or, at least he never did to me. He just laid there, whatever remained of his face staring hopeless at the ground, like he was hearing everything you were saying but not listening to any of it. 

“No one talks about him anymore. No one talks about Allyson Richards either. It all came and went so quickly. Now, I just wonder sometimes. I wonder a lot. If he could go back in his career, where would he have stopped? Would he have turned around just before Galisi Institute? Before Allyson Richards? Would he have continued chasing those high-profile stories all the time? I don’t know. But sometimes, I imagine. I imagine that if he could really go back, he would have liked to stay a nobody. Someone small. Not notable. naimless.”