Beneath Hypnos

⚠️ Content Warning: This story contains themes of addiction,

depression, and psychological distress. Reader discretion is advised.

It was a ritual by then. The daily drowning.

I was submerged in the bitter morass of self-pity, slipping beneath the surface with less resistance each time.

Sinking in the quicksand.

Johnny Walker stood victorious.

I didn’t fight.

I was too tired to remember how.

My doctor, once brisk and clinical, now seemed despondent. Almost mournful.“You’re a hopeless case,” he muttered—not without pity, but as though reading from a script he’d grown tired of.

Then he handed me a trifold brochure. Its edges were curled, its ink faded with age.

The Hypnos Restorative Centre.

Printed in unimpressive lettering.

The name sounded like something from a dream I once tried to forget.

—whispered in the dark by someone who no longer exists.

I stared at the brochure for a long time. The letters seemed to shift slightly, like they didn’t want to be read.

On the last page, in red ink, were the words: “Remember When,” in rushed bold lettering. Was that my handwriting? I wasn’t sure. I rubbed my blurry eyes. The words were gone.“

Don’t wait another day,” he added, almost like a warning.

Had no one required this brochure in years?Or had no one returned to speak of it? I didn’t ask questions. I just packed what I could, made the arrangements, and left before I could think too hard about what I was walking toward.

Or away from.

***

The next day, I arrived in the kind of town you don’t remember driving to.

It just… appeared.

A blur of sun-bleached signs, shuttered shops, and dust-thick air that clung to the skin.

The heat was relentless. August in its final stage.

The Dog Days of Summer, I mused.

Cicadas screamed from invisible places. Tumbleweeds rolled by, as if they were lost. Nothing moved unless it had to.

The bus dropped me at a bench weathered by the sun.

No station. No terminal. Just a bench.

Across the road, a man sat beneath a sagging awning, chewing a toothpick and watching me like he’d been expecting someone.

His dog lay motionless at his feet, eyes open. Watching something I couldn’t see.

I looked down at the brochure in my hand.

Hypnos.

The ink had faded further in the heat.

Or maybe I was imagining that.

Maybe it had never been printed clearly to begin with.

Where I stood, the ground felt soft beneath my feet, like it might give.

There was no going back.

I moved forward.

Toward whatever this place was.

The Restorative Centre sat on the edge of town, past a row of silent houses with drawn curtains and scorched lawns.

It looked too clean for its surroundings—whitewashed walls, symmetrical hedges trimmed with mathematical precision.

There were no signs of life, yet the grass had just been mowed. The air smelled like antiseptic… and something faintly metallic. Almost rust.

The lobby was spotless. An unmanned reception desk. Chairs aligned in perfect rows, all facing a blank wall.

A faint melody played overhead—something orchestral, but warped, like it had been recorded underwater. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

On the far wall, in soft stencilled lettering, a sign read:

“Rest is part of the process.”

The words were correct… but felt wrong. Like reading a familiar phrase in a dream and knowing instinctively that it meant something else.

Something unspoken.

A woman who hadn’t been there before now stood behind the desk, soundless in her arrival. Her smile was fixed, but not unkind.

She spoke my name before I could introduce myself. “Sanja,” she said. “We’ve been expecting you. Welcome back.”

Welcome back?

But I nodded anyway. I didn’t remember giving them my name.

She handed me a key. No number, just a faint engraving I couldn’t decipher.

She said, Room 217.

I knew how to get there but did not know why.

I climbed the narrow staircase, lined with paintings that didn’t seem finished. Faces with blurred eyes. Landscapes that stopped just short of the horizon. I kept glancing back, but the hallway behind me never seemed to get farther away.

The door opened without resistance.

It felt like I had been here before.

Inside, the air was still and stale, like no one had breathed it in for years.

The walls were pale blue.

Everything was in order: a bed tucked tight enough to bounce a coin, a single chair by the window, a dresser with no mirror.

It felt untouched.

Or reset.

I set down my bag, sat on the edge of the bed, and exhaled—for what felt like the first time in days.

Then, without thinking, I crossed the room and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser.

Not the top. Not the middle.

The bottom.

I didn’t know why.

Inside was a folded piece of paper—. creased, yellowing at the edges.

Nothing else.

I unfolded it with slow fingers. My vision blurred slightly—it was hard to focus—but after a few attempts, I made out the words:

DON’T SLEEP.

I stared at it.

The words didn’t make sense. But something inside me recoiled.

My voice barely broke the silence.

“I can’t sleep?”

The question hung in the air too long. Like it had been waiting for me to ask it.

Time passed—quickly or slowly, I couldn’t tell.

No one came to check on me.

No one checked my bags.

That was strange.

I unzipped my carry-on with deliberate hands and pulled out the bottle.

My old friend.

I took a long swig.

Nothing.

Not even warmth.

After a few more gulps, I tucked the bottle and the folded note under a pile of haphazard clothes in the bottom drawer.

That’s when he appeared.

A man drifted into the room, unannounced. His eyes didn’t meet mine—just hovered past me like I wasn’t really there. His name badge flickered under the light—or maybe it was the alcohol.

It read: Thanatos.

Such a strange name.

I blinked, confused.

He looked familiar.

Almost like… .Dušan

And just like that, a hollowness opened inside me.

Dušan.

The years we had spent together were core memories I could never forget.

Now it was love lost.

He used to lie in bed beside me, his warm body entwined in mine. “Hold me forever,” he used to whisper in my ear.

It sent shivers through me.

That was before. Before.

He was why I drank.

And even drinking didn’t numb the pain.

It worked—until it didn’t.

A shuffle of Thanatos’s feet brought me out of my thoughts. He moved like a shadow being dragged by light.

He checked nothing.

Spoke nothing.

But motioned for me to follow.

Somehow, I knew to obey.

He led me into a dim room where five people sat on fold-up chairs in a half-moon circle. Their heads turned in unison as I entered.

I sat in the last remaining seat.

“Welcome, Sanja,” the facilitator said—emotionless.

“How did you sleep?”

Sleep?

Did I sleep?

I wasn’t sure.

“Fine,” I answered.

A person to my right with undefined features mumbled something like,

“Not ready to wake up yet?”

—or was it—

“You’re not ready to wake up yet?”

I couldn’t tell.

The ambiance seeped into me.

Lethargy filled my limbs.

Lifting my arm felt like a struggle, though there was no reason it should.

I touched my face.

My skin felt foreign—too hot in places, too cold in others.

My fingertips buzzed like they were full of static.

Then I heard it.

A whisper.

Not from outside, but from somewhere inside the silence:

Don’t trust the mirrors.

You’ve already done this.

The voice wasn’t mine.

It sounded like someone had spoken just loud enough to leave an imprint.

“Who said that?”

Everyone looked at the facilitator. Blankly.

No one looked at me.

The facilitator began speaking about death.

“Death is a mirror. It only reflects what you refuse to see.”

And just like that…

The room, the five others, the fold- up chairs disappeared.

***

It was late July.

The fan in the window of our flat spun uselessly, stirring hot air in slow circles, barely touched by the faint breeze.

Sweat pooled in the hollow of my back.

Dušan lay sprawled across the sheets, half-asleep, half-something else.

His skin was clammy. Pale.

His mouth hung half open, whispering things I couldn’t hear. Or wouldn’t.

The power had gone out earlier that night.

No AC. No lights.

Just shadows and heat.

The room smelled of whatever I’d been drinking.

I remember pacing—barefoot on the kitchen tile, slick with condensation. Opening the fridge out of habit, forgetting it was dead. Thinking something felt… wrong.

But I didn’t do anything.

When I finally came back to the bedroom, his chest had stopped rising.

I shook him once.

Then again.

“Dušan?”

His body was still warm.

But something was missing. Time stuttered after that.

Calls. Sirens. Blinding lights.

Questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Had he taken anything?

Was I in fit condition?

Why didn’t you call sooner?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t remember.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to.

They said it was inconclusive. Which is another way of saying suspicious.

They looked at me like I knew something I wasn’t telling them.

Like maybe I’d helped him die.

Or maybe I just watched.

“…Sanja?”

The voice pierced through, thin and metallic—like a microphone left on too long.

I blinked.

The room had returned. Blue walls. Fold-up chairs.

The others were sitting stiffly in their places like mannequins waiting for instructions.

But something was wrong.

The man sitting across from me—

His posture.

His eyes.

The slope of his jaw.

It was Dušan.

Or it was Thanatos.

Or maybe it was neither.

Maybe it was both.

He looked at me with that same vacant stare.

Not malicious. Not kind.

Just… present.

Like he knew something I didn’t.

I couldn’t breathe.

The air was too heavy.

My skin felt too small.

“I—”

I stood too fast.

My chair scraped the floor like a scream.

“I need a minute.”

No one stopped me.

No one even reacted.

The facilitator blinked once, then turned to the next person—As if I hadn’t existed at all.

I walked—too quickly—out of the room and down the hall.

The walls felt closer than before.

The air tasted like copper.

Had I seen Dušan?

Was I losing my mind?

Or had I finally started to remember something I’d buried too deep?

I walked fast, head down, trying not to look at the walls.

They shimmered—just slightly—like heat waves rising off asphalt.

My breath was shallow.

Too quick.

Each inhale felt thinner than the last.

My heart began to pound.

Not just in my chest—but in my throat, my ears, my fingertips. A pulsing echo inside my skull.

I told myself I was fine.

That it was the heat.

Or the hangover.

Or the grief.

Or all three stacked on top of each other, pressing down until I cracked.

The hallway stretched longer than it should have.

Too many doors.

Too few windows.

No people.

I found the bathroom at the end of the corridor—a narrow door with peeling paint and no handle.

It opened with a soft creak, like it had been waiting.

Inside:

Dim light.

Flickering overhead bulb.

Pale green tiles with cracked grout.

A faint, chemical lemon scent that didn’t

hide the mold.

I stepped to the sink and looked up—And froze.

There was no reflection. The mirror was there.

But my reflection wasn’t.

Just the pale green tiles behind me. The flickering bulb above. The empty space where I should have been.

And written across the glass, in smeared red lipstick:

DON’T SLEEP

My mouth went dry.

My hands trembled at my sides.

I reached up—slowly—and touched the mirror.

It was solid.

Cold.

And it didn’t recognize me.

The message was unmistakable.

DON’T SLEEP.

The letters were jagged, uneven—written in haste, or rage, or panic. But what made my stomach drop wasn’t the message.

It was the lipstick.

Sitting neatly on the edge of the sink. The cap rolled just slightly toward the drain.

Shade 09 – “Mauve Mirage.”

My favourite.

A discontinued brand I hadn’t seen in years. The one I used to wear every day.

The one Dušan always said looked beautiful on me.

Where had I gone?

I had lost me.

I was merely a shell of myself now.

I’d lived so long in the echo of things that I forgot what it was like to feel.

To feel whole.

I reached for it, slowly. My fingers brushed the tube.

It was warm.

Not room temperature.

Warm.

Like someone had just used it.

I looked back up at the mirror.

Still no reflection.

Only the empty space where I should have been.

If I wasn’t in the mirror, what did that make me? A ghost? A coward?

The thoughts pressed in, thick and fast.

And now the letters— they were starting to drip.

“I can’t sleep?”

Why can’t I sleep?

I racked my brain, but everything was hazy and disjointed—

Fragments of thought slipping through like water through cracked hands.

I had to get out of here.

I left everything behind.

The lipstick.

The bottle.

The note.

My luggage.

The silence.

I ran.

I turned to the left. Left was supposed to take me back to the staircase.

Back to the lobby.

To light.

To air.

But the corridor twisted.

Narrower now.

The walls pressed in like they were breathing.

Ahead stood a door I hadn’t seen before. Thick, blackened oak. It was bloated with age. Cracked and splintered.

Iron bands stretched across it like restraints. At its center hung a rust-choked padlock—Heavy and unmoving.

I turned around. But the hallway behind me was gone. And panic—real, bodily panic—slammed into me.

My chest tightened. Collapsed. As if my ribs were folding inward.

I gasped, but the air came too shallow.

Too fast.

My throat closed with the taste of metal.

My heart hammered against my sternum—each beat sharper, louder, unbearable.

I clutched at the wall but couldn’t feel it.

My hands were numb.

Fingers tingling, then disappearing.

My skin flushed hot, then icy.

Sweat soaked through the fabric of my clothes in seconds.

My vision was tunnelled.

Black at the edges, flickering with white sparks.

Sound stretched and warped. A low hum rising behind my ears like a scream swallowed underwater.

I’m dying.

No. Not dying. Dissolving.

I’m dying.

No. Not dying. Dissolving.

And then—

I saw her.

Standing in front of the oak door was a woman made entirely of water.

Her body shimmered like a reflection fractured by ripples.

She held a glass in one hand, filled with something clear and swirling.

“You’ve been here before,” she said, voice like liquid glass.

“You always return.”

My breath caught.

I stepped back.

“What is this?” I asked.

She lifted the glass.

“I am Lethe,” she said.

“One sip and it all fades. The pain. The memory. Even him.”

I thought of Dušan.

His voice. His skin. The way he said my name when he was still whole.

“No,” I whispered.

I will not let go of the memories of him.

She tilted her head.

The water of her body trembling at the edges.

The glass shattered.

Gone.

And suddenly—so was everything.

Something is not right.

I know it. I feel it.

I’ve been here before.

What is it?

The mirror.

It’s a dream.

Another dream.

I can’t see my reflection because…

I’m not awake.

The Hypnos Restorative Centre. It’s not a place.

It’s a state.

A loop.

Wake up. Wake up!

I screamed.

But nothing moved.

This is sleep paralysis.

Again.

My heart thrashed against my ribs.

What if I stay like this?

Trapped in the in-between.

Aware, but unable.

Awake, but not free.

Wiggle your fingers.

Wiggle your toes.

Breathe.

Focus on the small things.

Count.

One… two… three… four

I screamed again, silently this time, from somewhere deep inside myself.

And then—

A gasp.

A violent intake of air.

***

Sunlight filtered through the blinds in slanted golden stripes.

The ceiling fan hummed above.

No blue walls.

No mirrors.

No dripping words.

Just the quiet rhythm of morning.

On a hot summer day.

I lay still for a moment, my heart slowly remembering how to beat in a body that was mine again.

I sat up.

Ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair.

Swung my legs over the edge of the bed.

“I hate when that happens.”

It’s been happening more since Dušan was diagnosed with cancer.

Since he passed away. Earlier than expected.

It wasn’t like the dreams. But the grief stayed just the same.

I stood up.

Moved through the morning motions like it was muscle memory.

Put the kettle on to make some tea.

Grabbed some fruit salad from the fridge.

Washed yesterday’s coffee cup.

Listened to the birds outside, just to remind myself that I could.

Pinched myself.

I felt the squeeze.

It hurt.

Two years sober today. A hard-fought battle. I thought about skipping the meeting this afternoon.

Poured my tea.

Scrolled through my phone.

Responded to a few texts.

Sat for a moment.

Breathed.

And whispered to myself, like I always did:

“You’re awake. You’re safe. You’re still here.”

My phone pinged. I reached for it with one hand, still cradling the warm mug in the other.

A single message lit up the screen:

From: The Hypnos Restorative Centre

Subject: Your personal belongings are

waiting at reception to be picked up.