As the last sliver of the outside world disappeared, the pain behind her eyes returned. This time, it was a sudden, draining snap.

​Jenna stumbled back, hitting a chair—a cheap, rolling office chair. The smell of antiseptic was gone. The rhythmic rain was gone. The silence was gone.

​The humming of the fluorescent light and the faint smell of burnt popcorn rushed back in. Her manager was looking at her, a slight frown creasing his brow. "I asked if you could put the quarterly reports together by tomorrow," he repeated, sounding annoyed.

​Jenna’s hands were shaking violently now, her steady posture dissolved, and her heart was racing. The heavy glass mug was a lightweight ceramic again. She had been gone less than ten seconds, but she felt like she had run a marathon.

​"Y-yes," she whispered, her voice rough. "By tomorrow. I… I understand."

​She sank onto the chair, burying her cold hands in her lap, utterly bewildered. She was still in the breakroom, but she knew, with terrifying certainty, that she had just been in The Labyrinth. And Alex was furious that she had left the blinds open.

​Jenna had spent the past two days in a state of hyper-awareness, jumpy at every sound, scrutinizing her own handwriting, trying to catch herself "slipping." Alex’s icy vigilance had left a residual chill in her bones, and a constant, low-level anxiety buzzed beneath her skin. She was exhausted, but sleep felt impossible.

​She lay in her bed, staring at the familiar cracks in her ceiling, trying to conjure the images of her childhood room, a room she barely remembered. She was doing a grounding exercise her therapist had suggested, focusing on a safe memory.

​The sun. My favorite stuffed animal. My mother's…

​The memory dissolved before she could grasp it. A wave of profound sadness, not her own, washed over her, thick and cloying like cotton candy. It was a sweet, sugary melancholy.

​A familiar wrenching sensation, less violent than the last time but no less disorienting, pulled at her. This time, it felt like she was being gently, yet firmly, lifted and spun.

​She blinked.

​Her ceiling was gone. Above her was an impossibly blue sky, dotted with fluffy, cartoonish clouds. The air smelled of freshly cut grass, bubblegum, and something else… something metallic and vaguely threatening, like the distant scent of a forgotten fire.

​She was no longer in her bed. She was sitting on a patch of perfectly green, impossibly springy grass. Before her stretched a playground that seemed to defy the laws of physics.

​A slide, painted in stripes of red and yellow, spiraled higher than any slide she'd ever seen, disappearing into the clouds. Swings made of rainbow-colored plastic soared back and forth by themselves, their chains clinking a cheerful, repetitive tune. A giant, grinning merry-go-round spun slowly, its painted horses rearing in eternal joy. Everything was bright, saturated, almost overwhelmingly joyful.

​This is… impossible.

​A giggle, light and airy, bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her. Not her giggle. It was full of innocent delight, a sound she hadn't made since she was a small child.

​She tried to stand, but her legs felt shorter, clumsy, and full of restless energy. Her hands, when she looked at them, were smaller, pudgier. Her clothes had transformed into a bright, floral sundress.

​This was Lily.

Jenna felt Lily's immense, innocent joy at the sight of the playground, a pure, unadulterated happiness that was almost painful in its intensity. But beneath it, like the metallic scent in the air, was a thin, shimmering veil of fear.

A large, gnarled oak tree stood at the edge of the playground, its branches stretching out like grasping fingers. It wasn't menacing at first glance; it was just a tree. But as Lily, Jenna felt an immediate, primal dread toward it. The shadows beneath its canopy were thicker, darker, moving with a subtle, predatory grace.

​"Don't go near the big tree," Lily's inner voice, a soft, high whisper, echoed in Jenna's mind. "The monster lives there."

​Jenna swallowed, feeling a knot of cold fear in Lily’s small stomach. She knew Lily was talking about the traumatic event, the source of their fracture. To Lily, it wasn't a memory, a series of actions, or a person. It was a monster that lived under the big, dark tree.

​Suddenly, a loud, jarring CRACK echoed from somewhere far beyond the playground's borders. The perfectly blue sky rippled, like water disturbed by a stone. The rainbow swings stopped, mid-air. The merry-go-round creaked to a halt.

​Lily's childlike joy instantly evaporated, replaced by wide-eyed, trembling terror. Her small hands clamped over her ears.

​"The sad man is coming!" Lily's voice shrieked, no longer a whisper, but a cry of pure, unadulterated panic. "He's coming for the little girl!"

​The shadows under the oak tree deepened, stretching long and distorted across the bright green grass, reaching for the innocent, frozen playground. Jenna, as Lily, could only stare, paralyzed by the overwhelming, all-consuming fear of the looming darkness.