I woke up late at night. It was 3am probably. Suddenly I felt the odd need to stand up, but not because I had to do something or go anywhere. As I got on my feet, I began to walk towards the main corridor leading to the living room. A white four-meters-long hall with nothing but the handle of the built-in-pantry sticking out from the wall on my right. Each step would normally make the wood floor crack, but this time it was different. The more I got closer to the end, the more the timber seemed to be succumbing beneath my feet, making me slowly sink deeper and deeper inside of it. Luckily, I still managed to keep half of me out from that eerie situation and made my way to the parlour. I told you I had no reason for getting up from my bed in the first place, but in reality I felt dragged to the living room, although I didn’t realise it until then.

As I was saying, I finally reached it. The floor went back to its solid state. I found myself lying down and facing the wood, but the sensation felt as if I had fallen to the floor. My face was hurt. I got on my knees in a midst of uncertainty, trying to figure out what had dragged me there, the living room. I looked around but couldn’t see nothing. It was too dark and I couldn’t find the switches. All of a sudden I heard a pair of cracks coming from the corridor I had just stepped out. Obviously I turned, hoping for it to be nothing but a mere breeze provoking the wood to cast that sound. Can you imagine it? Being awaken in the middle of the night and this happening?

That pair which I perfectly recognised but desired no to be, went on by, getting closer and leaving me petrified in front of the hall’s entrance. Some dread seconds after, the sound stopped and all I could hear was the pantry's door being opened and closed, with its squeak making my eyes wet. I was sure by then that all of it had to be a dream, nothing of what I had experienced that night could be true, right? So I went back in the hall and got in front of it, shaking and crying. I couldn’t help it, but that didn’t stop me from holding the handle and finally, open it. What I saw there, although it was dark, I could clearly distinguish it. My past self, standing in front of me as it was nothing but a lifeless shell. His face dead, rotten, somehow still breathing or simply throbbing and wet, as if I had left this world that same day they did. I jumped back bumping into the wall, but quickly understood what that visage meant.

The reason for me writing this letter to you today, Dr. Phillips, is to thank you for the time you’ve spent treating my case, these long five years. But now came to realise that not everything is possible to be treated through the point of view of science. My parents are calling me to meet them after what happened at Lake Tahoe, I bet for a second chance to enjoy the life we deserved as a family but which in the end, we couldn’t. In our last session I said I had no clue of where my life was leading me, now I know it wasn’t where but when what I needed to worry about.

Thanks for everything and live a happier life,

Max.