"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."- Christian Nestell Bovee

She's in his dream again. She's been in his dream at least once every other day since his father died two years ago. It doesn't matter what he does. It doesn't matter what's happening in his dream or where his dream takes him. no matter what else is happening she is there, always haunting him, always clinging onto his mind like she had dug claws in. nothing at all can make her go away.

This time she's sitting on the bed in one of the rooms at the facility he runs. She has her legs drawn up towards her chest, her thing, pale arms wrapped around them. Her hair hangs lifelessly around her face and he notes that she's never quite looked like that before. Normally when he sees her in his head she even looks vibrant, looks full of life. This time she doesn't seem much like her normal self at all.

Her eyes stay fixed on him as he moves into the room, closes the door behind him. Even as he watches her though and her gaze remains on him her face stays impassive as though she feels nothing at all. Sometimes he wonders why he sees her in such strange ways.

"You don't let me call you Robert anymore." Her voice sounds so much weaker than it normally does. And maybe that's because here, in this place, everyone is weak. Everyone is destroyed here. And that's how he likes it.

"Robert doesn't exist anymore. Robert is dead."

"Then why is he sitting right in front of me? Why does he see me every night?"

"Robert died the day his father was buried. He became someone new."

"Someone broken."

"Yes."

"Someone dark."

"Yes."

"And now you bring me down into the darkness with you."

"Ariadne." Her name passes his lips in a breathy whisper. He's said her name that way every time, like the name itself haunts his tongue, weighs it down with lead.

"What if I don't want to stay in the darkness with you?"

"You're in my head. I don't think you have much of a choice when you're not real."

"What makes you so sure I'm not real?"

"You're a dream. Dreams are just part of our imagination. They're not real."

"All dreams come from reality, Robert."

"I told you. Robert is gone."

"If Robert was really gone then I wouldn't be here." Her voice sounds so sure that it almost makes him falter, almost makes him wonder if maybe she's right, this pale girl that lives in his head. "Only Robert could need me here as often as I'm summoned."

"You sound very sure of yourself."

"I am." She unfolds her legs, moves them down to rest on the bed, her pale hands at her side for a few moments before she moves them up, undoes a couple of buttons of her pale blue pajama shirt. "I know why you're here."

"Do you?"

"You only bring me into your dreams for two reasons. Sometimes its one, sometimes it's the other. Sometimes it's both. But I know why you're here this time."

"You know me well."

"I'm in your head. It makes sense that I know you well."

"Then maybe you can tell me why I come to you for these things."

"Because you can't get them in the real world. You can only get them from me here." Her fingers maneuver the last button out of the hole and she sits back, the fabric sliding away from her body, a long pale line of her chest exposed to him. "Robert isn't dead but parts of him are. And that's why you need me."

Reaching out she grips his tie in her hand, pulls her to him. Her mouth presses against his, his body melts against hers.

He takes what he needs for now.

It's not just about power. And it's not just about the power that the mind has over the body. But that's a big part of it. That's an important part of it all. His own mind had taught him that.

It started with this idea, some vague idea that his mind, one that told him he didn't have to follow the Fischer empire. It came to him as he flew to the states to bury his father. And that one idea changed something in him, made him into something else entirely, made him realize he could be something else, be someone else.

He tore apart the empire his father had built and made a new name for himself. He took the money he had left and he studied the mind, what it can do to you, how it can control you, destroy you. The mind can do such horrible things to the body that he couldn't help but fascinate him; he couldn't help but want to learn what it can do. So he studied it, created a new name for himself, started a new life. That's why Ariadne is wrong; that's why Robert Fischer is long, long dead.

But it's not just the power that made him do what he decided to do. It's not just the power or the fact that the mind can do horrible thing to the body. It's the thrill.

There was something in the toxin that called to him. Whatever Robert had been had been destroyed and now…now it was fear that drove him. Fear and pain.

He enjoys what he does there. He enjoys hearing the screams. It thrills him in a way that nothing else does any more. Light can't touch him anymore. And he knows it never will again.

It's the fear that thrills him; it's the screams; it's the ability to drive a person out of their right mind and make their body shudder with it that gives him comfort, gives him strength.

Only hurting others makes him feel alive anymore.

That's part of the reason that he summons Ariadne in his dreams. It's because of her that he changed himself; it's because of her he wanted to understand the power of the mind and how it controls the body. Because it's her very presence in his head that changed him, turned him into something more, something strange- this pale woman that haunted him for months after his father was buried.

She can give him what he can't get in the real world.

She's in his dream again but they're not at the asylum this time. they're in a room he's had her in before, in a room with no windows and only one door; in a room with cement walls and a cement floor.

She's sitting in a chair with her hands tied behind her back, her eyes glassy as she gazes at him. Blood runs down the pale skin between her breasts. But even as the blood runs down her skin she smiles at him, this strange and almost amused smile. The knife in his hand feels cold, heavy. It glints in the dim light, blood dripping off the tip of it, droplets hitting the floor, soaking into the carpet.

"I told you can't get in the real world what you can here," she tells him in this superior voice, like she just proved her point. "That's why you always bring me into your dreams."

"I was never like this before," he tells her. "I wasn't like this until after you started coming into my dreams."

"I think you want to believe that. I think this was always inside of you, that you just want to believe that I brought it out. It makes it so much easier to handle if that's the case. If you don't have this darkness inside of you then you're normal, you're sane." She leans forward as far as she can with her hands tied behind her back. "But you're not sane. Something inside of you is broken. No one sane gets off on this stuff."

"If I'm not sane than neither are you for letting me do this to you."

"I'm in your head, Robert. You can do whatever you want to whoever you want here."

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

"I can call you whatever the hell I want. I'm just a figment of your imagination. Rules don't apply to me."

"I thought you said not to assume you were just a part of my imagination."

"I did. But Robert, you're insane, remember? Since when would anything in your head make sense."

"Don't call me that." He presses the knife against the side of her neck.

She smiles again, wider this time, arches her neck slightly to press the side of her neck against the blade harder. Her skin splits just a little, just enough for blood to leak out of the wound. "If you kill me then you won't get to have fun with me."

She's right. He knows she's right and she hates that because it makes him feel like he really is insane, living in his head, arguing with a part of his own imagination. And the ironic thing is that they're arguing over his sanity. But he still knows she's right. Even if she's part of his head if he kills her then she's just dead until the end of the dream. And there's no fun to be had with her dead. As twisted as he may be he isn't into playing with a dead body. He hasn't quite gone that wrong yet.

After a moment he moves the knife away from her neck, brings it back down by his side and just watches her. "You really think I'm insane."

"No," she argues. "I don't think you're insane. You do. I'm just a part of your dream, remember? And if I think something that means you think it."

His hand starts to shake a bit, taps the knife against the side of his leg. That makes sense but he doesn't want to admit it. Because he knows something is wrong inside of him, that something snapped when his father died but he'd rather not think himself insane.

"Come on," she coos, lounges back in the chair. "Untie my hands. You know it's more fun when my hands are untied."

And he knows that's true, too. So after a moment he goes around to the back of the chair, cuts the rope from around her wrists. It falls to the floor and she stands up, turns to look at him. Her button up shirt hangs open at her sides, blood staining her pale skin, some of it resting on the top of her jeans.

"One of these days you're going to come to terms with the fact that you're insane," she assures him, reaches out and rests her hands on either side of his waist. The cut on her chest seems to rip open further as she moves, blood still flowing out but he knows that he's just imagining it, that the wound isn't getting bigger.

"I don't think you ever come to terms with being insane."

"Maybe not," she concedes. "But you eventually realize that you are insane." Her fingers open the fly expertly like she's done so many times in his head.

"What if I don't want to realize that I'm insane? What if I'm happy feeling normal?"

"If doesn't matter what you want. You are what you are." Her hand slips inside his jeans, beneath the waistband of his underwear and she takes him in her hand, curls her fingers around him to make a fist.

He closes his eyes, let's himself get lost in his dream.

He does horrible things to people. He doesn't do it the way he hurts Ariadne in his dreams. He hurts their minds- and he supposes that through that he hurts their bodies.

He can't count the number of times he's been locked away by now for what he's done. But every time he gets locked away he manages to find a way to get back out and do the same things over and over again.

Sometimes when they catch him they lock him away in a facility like he worked at for a while. They strap him up in a straightjacket and leave him alone in a room. Sometimes he talks to the woman in his head when he's in there even if she doesn't answer back.

But when he's in there he dreams about her more often than he ever does when he's not locked up. He has to dream of here in there. It's the only way he gets relief.

When he's locked away like that he can't make others suffer. He can't watch them go insane, he can't see them twitching and muttering to themselves. So he summons her.

In his head he can listen to her suffer; in his head he can slice her open, watch her bleed. He can use her in whatever way he wants to and she never complains. She just laughs and smiles and she reminds him that he's crazy. She argues with him in his head and it's the closest thing to normal that he has anymore. Its something he's very, very used to. And it's something that's very, very comforting.

He's been free for eight months now. He's been able to hide it from the world for a long time, playing games with people's heads, scaring people the best that he can.

He's been bringing Ariadne into his dreams still. But they don't argue about whether or not he's insane anymore. She doesn't bring it up. But sometime she does. And when he does, when he asks her about it she just smiles at him, she just smiles at him and laughs and ignores the question like she knows that he knows why she doesn't bring it up anymore. And maybe he should. Maybe it's insane not to know.

He's not free now though. He's sitting against the wall of a building in an alley, his hands cuffed behind his back. He can hear people outside talking, can hear the cops moving around but he closes his eyes and tries to block it out.

The people move around in the building and they all talk about things, talk about him, talk about other people. And then he's being hauled to his feet and he's being led out of the building.

It's not until he's outside that he opens his eyes. He opens his eyes and he looks at the crowd. And there she is. The girl that lives in his head. She's standing in the crowd and she's talking to one of the police officers on the edge of the crowd.

She looks at him. She looks at him with her impossibly dark eyes, her eyes full of concern. She looks sad, she looks broken. She looks guilty.

The cop stops him outside his car and he pushes him towards the door, puts a hand on top of his head to help him inside, to make sure that he doesn't hit his head.

Ariadne watches him as the door closes. And he smiles.

Because he knows that this is all in his head.

Because she's just a part of his head. And if she's a part of his head then she doesn't exist.

She never existed.