FADE IN:

INT. CLINIC

A slender man wearing a white coat and a name tag walks down the hall. His tag reads, DR. DIONEAE: Psychotherapist. He stops and looks into a room through a window in one of the doors.

DR. DIONEAE’S POV – PATIENT’S ROOM

Through the door window, a PATIENT with a large scar on his right forearm sits in an empty room. The walls are a dingy white color—same as the patient’s scrubs.

THE PATIENT’S ROOM

The lights flicker. The back wall is no longer there. Instead a landscape of stars and hills unfolds in the distance like a dream of Starry Night. There is a light in the distance among the trees. The patient starts walking towards the light. He is bewildered. As he approaches the light, the ground gets darker, as if it were blackened from fire. He is afraid now, but he has gone too far in to go back. As he steps into the column of light, he is engulfed in it.

DR. DIONEAE’S POV – PATIENT’S ROOM

The patient is gone. The lights flicker, and the room’s back wall returns to normal.

BACK TO SCENE

Dr. Dioneae nods with satisfaction.

INSERT- DR. DIONEAE’S ARM

Is now scarred just like the patient’s arm was.

BACK TO SCENE

Dioneae walks back down the hall and disappears in the shadows. MERC, the patient in the next room can be heard shouting and banging against his door in protest.

taken from SCENE 3 ACT 2

GEORGE
How do you know I saw something?

DIONEAE
Your mind heals itself. This is good.

GEORGE
That’s impossible! How can I be healing? I’m hallucinating. I don’t even know the girl. It’s just a picture—just a picture I found as a kid.

DIONEAE
This picture is obviously important to you. Why do you keep it?

GEORGE
I don’t know… It was like staring at someone I’d known for as long as I could remember, and it was like she knew me too. My mother said she thought it might be our neighbor’s. I really don’t know why I keep it.

DIONEAE
Last night, did you see a light?

GEORGE
What?

DIONEAE
Are you hungry, George? Hunger is a fascinating phenomenon. It starts in the brain before the body ever truly needs nutrients—a seemingly insignificant flash between neurons. Few humans ever experience more than this cerebral sensation, but if ignored long enough or if forced to ignore these messages the body sends itself painful reminders. Stripping away layer after layer of substance, the body cannibalizes itself, George. Our minds are no different. The light feeds us. Now rest. Use your energy to continue healing. Do not resist the treatment.

GEORGE
I don’t want a science lesson. I just want to know why I dream about that picture.

DIONEAE
We are all hungry for something, George. Remember, we are always hungry.

The doctor lifts up his clipboard to write and his sleeve slides back, revealing a nearly faded scar on his forearm.

GEORGE
Your scar—

DIONEAE
Rest, George.

taken from SCENE 3 ACT 2

MERC
...For some reason, I thought this place might have the answers. Hell, it was better than wearing a diaper. What brought you here anyway?

GEORGE
There’s this girl, I guess. I can’t remember ever meeting her, but I found her picture near the lake by my house. I was a kid when I found it. The picture always makes me feel so sad. I keep it in my apartment now.

MERC
Why didn’t you just throw the picture away?

GEORGE
That would kill me worse than just keeping it. When I look at it, all I want is to trade places with her—to look out at her in her apartment from some ratty old photo, not the other way around. It’s like she’s trapped in there, and all I want is for her to get out, even if it would take me getting in there to do it.

MERC
Then you’re crazier than I thought. You might not make it through this. It’s sink or swim in this place.

GEORGE
I never learned how to swim.

MERC
Then I hope you can float.