DIE FOR YOU | MOON KNIGHT

zero. a faint memory

The clock ticked uncontrollably every second, there was so much silence in the room that could make a person go insane. Lucia Castro liked the silence, it gave her an opportunity to think clearly and read her patients boards before a session, she liked the distant sound of birds chirping out her window, and what she liked most of it was the feeling of peace.

Two knocks on the other side, a moment after the door opened and her young assistant peaked her head inside, a tiny nod indicated the brunette she could come inside.

"Your three pm session is here Dr. Castro." She said smiling before stepping aside and leaving the room.

A man with scruffy hair and eyes wide as if he didn't know where he was walked in, his hand gripping the bag on his side and the strap of it hugging his opposite shoulder. Lucia studied him from the moment he walked in, she visualized the way he walked and how he looked around, his dark brown eyes falling on her when he noticed her presence.

"Afternoon Sir, I have scheduled Steven Grant for three in the afternoon, is that you?" Lucia looked down at her clipboard with the names and hours of her future sessions, glancing up Lucia noticed the nod from Steven.

"Yes miss, or ma'am, Dr?" He mumbled, his hands caressing his thighs when he sat down on an open chair.

"Dr. Castro or Lucia is fine." The brunette sat down across from him, grabbing a new notebook opening the first page, her blue ink writing down his name before looking up at him. "Okay, so tell me, what brought you here today?"

The man shifted in his seat, clearing his throat he focused on the young woman across from him, he looked up as if he was searching for the words on the roof of the room.

"I can't seem to notice a difference between dreams and real life, I have dreams that feel like I am right there and everything is too real, but, I wake up in my bed and I chain myself because I think I might sleepwalk or something but." He stopped talking looking for a word to say but nothing came out of his mouth, he stayed quiet.

"You say your dreams feel too real, can you explain how real they are?" Lucia asked, writing down the words he said on her notebook.

"I can touch things, I can smell things as if I were awake, and they say that when you're dreaming you cannot see your feet, I can, I can see the shoes I'm wearing and I feel like I might go insane." Steven continued speaking. "For example, I had this dream I was on France, but I was there somehow, I could touch people and I could see everything around me, I remember that I was also being looked by people and then I was being chased, I could run and not like in the way dreams, that you can't run away or you run too fast or anything like that, I could feel even my lungs burning from the lack of oxygen."

Lucia continued to write down everything he said, her brain tried memorizing every word and also being able to pick up details she could later ask him about, and when he stopped talking, she glanced up at him, her poker face trained to do so, to not show Steven any sign of anything that could encourage him any ideas.

"It sounds to me that what you are experimenting are vivid dreams, but when you wake up, how do you do it? Do you ever fall in your dream and instantly wake up?" She threw the question hoping this could be helpful to her and figure out in which direction to go.

"I often wake up because of a fall or something or someone has hit me but, there are times that even in my dream I go to bed and I wake up in my bed in my apartment." Lucia nodded her head, studying his words and the description of what he sees in his sleeps.

"And it's only in your dreams, you don't ever experience this awake? Like daydreaming?" A nod came from Steven and a new note was writing in her paper.

"I have this faint memory of seeing my reflection not moving with me, but it was odd, because it also sort of didn't look like me." Steven said looking up at her, his mouth slightly opened and his eyebrows meeting together. "It had my face but it wasn't much my face really, it looked almost bloody."

"And how did that make you feel?" She asked when Steven didn't continue speaking for a moment, his hands trembling a little bit.

"Scared and confused, mostly scared." Steven's face softened and Lucia noticed how his eyes started tearing up, but Steven didn't cry, he instead cleaned his eyes and sniffed away his memory. "I actually didn't know I was supposed to come here today Doctor, I saw a note of my kitchen counter that said, therapy session today at three and it had the address, but I don't remember making the appointment or even writing it down."

"Do you live with someone that might've written it down or made the call?" Lucia asked knowing that this information could be helpful to her.

"Not at all, I live alone, and my mother lives far away so she couldn't done it, and it was my handwriting, but I have no memory of doing this." Lucia wrote it down, next to it AMNESIA? And a small star for her to later do her research and figure out if vivid dreams could be connected into this case.

The session for the next hour was all information for Lucia, she wrote down that Steven worked at a museum in the gift shop, the one fin goldfish he has named Gus, no siblings near he could contact, Lucia found out that Steven was close to his mother but that all calls were never returned from her side, but that he knew that she was okay. She also wrote down that Steven tried to do social activities outside his work job but it tended to be hard to accomplish, sometimes he forgot he did them or with the person he had plan it out.

And just for homework, Lucia asked him to write down tonight before bed the next session they would have and also write down the dreams he could have. Lucia learned that in her fourth semester, dreams can be a guide to know what the patient has on their shoulders, what from their past if bothering them and haven't fixed just yet.

Lucia had various patients to attend with different problems, some came for couple therapy and then were channeled to another psychologist, some with a disorder that were either too heartbreaking to attend and some that were easier to help with. And with every single one of them she always did the same thing, look serious, ask questions, take notes and thank them for coming in.

Coming back home to her apartment in King's Road the energy shifted, the stress left her shoulders and peace came back into her body, the same night routine began for the young woman, her formal attire was exchanged for a silk two piece pjs and a mug ready to feel the warm liquid of a hot cocoa, even if the climate was warm, she couldn't dismiss the drink with the small marshmallow over it and enjoy a cozy moment in her couch.

Lucia liked London, she liked the culture, the views and the nice feeling of welcoming that she didn't really have back home in Texas. She didn't see a future as a psychologist, and when the opportunity appeared in Chelsea, she took it, not waiting another day to pack everything and get into the first flight she could pay for. And three years later, she was here, making a future.

Lucia liked reading over her patients notes before bed, every single one of them had a notebook, some never were filled completely and others even had another notebook, she liked to read them again and again, comparing even to see if they had some similarities and remember her way of work and what helped to overcome the problem they could have, and tonight she was reading Steven's information, her eyes scanning notebooks and her laptop shined over the pages, the information of vivid dreams and memory loss, amnesia and other subjects that could be related to one another, but she knew she needed more, she needed to know Steven before she could jump into conclusions.

She just hoped things wouldn't turn bad.