"Oi. sleepyhead! wake up. your tea is getting cold." Sophie's voice sliced through the crimson fog of Aman's dream. He woke up with a violent jolt, his forehead drenched in a cold sweat. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps, and his hands wouldn't stop trembling.

  "Chuckles". That familiar mocking vibration in his skull. "Funny isn't it? How a man who carves open body is s easily shattered by a little dream." Aman looked up at Sophie. The first thing he saw, the only thing he could focus on, was the piercing blue of her eyes. In an instant, the terror of the operating room faded.

  He felt a profound calmness wash over him like a traveler who had been dying of thirst finally stumbling upon an endless ocean. He didn't realize that ocean water no matter how beautiful, is salt and poison to those who drink it. "Thanks Sophie", he rasped, his voice dry. "I've always liked the tea you make."

  "Yeah, yeah whatever, just drink it," she said her, tone dismissive but her eyes staying fixed on him, "i'm leaving now." "Wait come on," Aman said trying to regain his usual playful footing. He reached out and poked her cheek." At least stay and make me some dinner?"

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  "Oh fuck off!" she laughed swatting his hand away with a smirk. "Drink your tea and make your own food, you lazy dork." "Eh fine." Aman looked down at the mug. The liquid was dark streaming. And normal. "As if he would notice," "As if he could see the green ghost hidden in the brown."

  Aman drank the tea in one long gulp. Almost immediately a heavy, velvet, like calm settled into his muscles. His eyelids felt like they were made of lead. 'You know Sophie.....every time you make me tea, It makes me so....sleepy," he murmured, his head collapsing back in the sofa.

  "Shut up dork. Just go to bed." Aman didn't argue. He stumbled toward his bedroom, collapsing onto the mattress as the world turned to black. The apartment fell into a heavy artificial silence. On the bedside table sat the wall-clock Sophie had given him years ago. It was still broken.

  Aman hadn.t even got the chance to install the batteries. Sophie stepped into the bedroom, moving silently across the floor. She looked down at Aman's sleeping form for a long moment before her gaze drifted to the clock. She reached out and picked it up, her fingers tracing the frame. A small, chilling smile played on her lips. Suddenly, the silence was broken. Tick, tock, tick, tock/

  Without batteries, without repairs, the clock began to breathe again