I saw everything.

Last night, I saw everything she saw.

I couldn't siphon myself off. Couldn't look away. I couldn't control my eyes to close them.

I had to watch.

I wanted to, I realise. To know that there is someone else has brightened the untouched bouts of confidence hidden away inside me. Someone else. Someone else, just like me. But Dr. Light...

He became a completely different person. He was a monster. Is a monster.

Looking down, I discover that I'm halfway out of bed, with pins and needles in my feet.

Outside, the sun is rising dutifully in the sky. Stripes of memories from last night elude me, as if she's trying to make me forget.

'Not everything,' I plead quietly. 'I don't want to lose too much'. Just enough. Enough to forget the horrors of seeing Dr. Light, who'd always been so quiet, turn into a raving lunatic.

'Best psychiatrist ever,' Alyssa remarks, grinning. At least, to me, she's grinning.

'Why are you happy about this? He's a monster. And, we have a session with him in a few hours'.

'No,' she chuckles. 'We have more than that. We have proof'. She goads me into opening the drawer of our bedside table, where I can see it. A strand of metallic black hair which curls into a wave. His black hair.

'We have proof of Mr. Dark'. Frowning, I shut the drawer.

'Mr. Dark? That's what you've called him? Anyway, that doesn't matter. Why would having proof make any difference?' It won't matter if I have proof, not to Light. Not to anyone.

I am trapped with the knowledge that whenever I think of him, I think of a monster.

'Don't be so dramatic,' scoffs Alyssa. She approaches the subject of our psychiatrist being a reject from a horror movie with extreme calm. More than I can conjure up.

'You don't know what I have to say'.

'I don't think I want to,' I answer. My lips quiver and I have no idea what to do about the rising panic in my chest. I certainly can't go running to Light. But then I never did.

I don't need to because now I know who I am.

'Come now. We both know that's not true'. Unfortunately, she knows as well. Knows that I don't know and perhaps I never will. Perhaps Alice Callett is dead and I am the hollow shell left in her place.

'Tell me,' I sigh, too tired at this point to argue. In the end, she always wins. It's how it must be: she has to be in control. No matter what happens to me, she must have control. As I dig deeper, it's impossible to stop the gasp emerging from the pit of my throat.

Without control, she is lost. If she has no control, she is powerless.

I never thought of it that way before.

'Are you listening to me?' she asks, clearly irritable.

'Absolutely'.

'You weren't listening were you'.

'I was partially listening,' I tell her, my hand poised on the bedside table.

'What did I say then?'

'Something partially. I don't know,' I admit. 'I wasn't really listening'. Inside my head, I can sense her seething. She wants me to open the drawer, to examine the hair as if I'm some mad scientist.

'It doesn't matter if we have proof,' I repeat. If I say it enough, maybe I can drill it through her thick skull.

'Listen to me'. She snatches my head in a vice, forces me to lift out the strand of black hair. Before I can protest, a wave of fatigue washes over me, telling me to sit down on the bed. She holds all the cards here, not me.

I'm a ghost in the window of my own mind.

'Look and listen'. Images of peculiar blue pills are pounded into my head.

'He was taking them every day, most likely to repress Mr. Dark,' she explains.

'Stop calling him that'.

'It's embedded now, it's staying'. More images of Dr. Light confiding in me about his headaches. He hadn't wanted me to tell my mother.

'He mustn't want the Janus Foundation to know about any of this,' she concludes. Somehow, she's acting as if she's presenting a solution for a Math equation instead of an explanation of why my psychiatrist is moonlighting as a monster.

'He is not a monster'. Alyssa dives into my thoughts, shredding them to nothing. It makes no sense, coming to his defence like that.

Holding my head, I bury towards the pillows. I hope they swallow me whole.

I can lie to myself – I'm used to everyone lying to me – but I cannot stomach the reality that Dr. Light lied to me too. He kept this from me, when I thought I was struggling alone.

He left me alone. He might as well have been one of those orderlies, locking me up in a padded cell.

Gripping the sheets, the hair crumples between my fingers.

Unfolding my palm, I hold it up to the sunlight. Black as a thundercloud on the darkest night.

"Oh god," I croak to the empty bedroom. The blankness of the walls gives silence as its answer, which is better than I can do. I knew Light was lying to me, but they were white lies. Everyone in my life has lied to make me feel better, so when I finally manage to scrape some semblance of truth, I'm ripped at the seams.

Lying is the medicine that makes you crave more until, one day you force yourself on a detox that could cost you your life.

'Yes. It could,' she interrupts. Quartets of ideas, solutions, pass between us, but none of them are said. We both know what needs to be done. No. I know what she wants to do, and I have to agree.

I have to. Whether it breaks me or not.

'Don't you want answers?' she presses. I grip the strand of hair, chest tight. Very tight. Way too tight in fact.

I can hardly breathe.

'Alyssa, you're talking about confronting him, like one of those Detectives on TV. I can't do that. I can't let you do that'. Even when the words are inside my head, my voice still trembles.

'He's been lying to you since he walked through that door. We need to do something'. I notice her desire to kill him goes unmentioned.

Savouring the tinniest amount of satisfaction, I survey my bedroom. White wardrobe, white walls.

White lies piled on top of each other to create a sugar coating.

'Come on. You need to know the truth as much as I do,' she whispers.

Keeping the hair clenched in my palm, I stand. I hate sugar.

'Alright,' I mumble after an eternity stood in the salt lines. I don't even bother to protest or plead with her to do this my way. She's stronger than me. She'll always be stronger than me.

I'm about to open the door when my body stops short. A deep breath rummages through me like a backpacker trying to locate their map.

I want to do this my way.

She doesn't respond, which is plenty encouragement. It never used to be.

Easing the door open, I'm greeted by a sea of sepia, drowning the carpet beneath. As I reach the top of the stairs, I catch Mum racing to the door, a small brief case clutched by her side.

"Where are you going?" I call out and she jumps.

"I'm just going to meet some friends. Don't worry, I'll be back soon. Dr. Light is waiting in the therapy room if you're feeling well enough," she says.

Oh, I think I'm feeling well enough.

"Sure. Have a good time". Mum smiles and whisks away.

When I continue to stare at the doorway, it appears as if she was never there in the first place.

Shuddering inwardly, I skirt downstairs. Lumps bunch together in my windpipe, but I gulp them back. Answers. I need them. Otherwise I'll spend the rest of my life being someone else.

Memories mould people and I can't stomach being moulded into something I'm not.

The extent of my unpreparedness hits me as I'm about to enter the room. I used to knock, but the sessions have become so informal that I haven't needed to. What do I do now?

I don't know the man on the other side of that door. Then again, I never really knew him.

Just like he never really knew me.

'Hurry up,' she prompts. Her eagerness is something I've never been able to replicate. Even when we were children, I could never pluck up the courage for a simple relay race, never mind all the ridiculous sports she signed us up for in High School. I remember her putting my name down for football club.

'You hated everything I picked,' she says softly.

'I never hated you'. It shouldn't be the truth. But it is.

Despite everything I thought and everything I still think, I could never bring myself to hate her.

Just like that, my mind clears, and I open the door in one swift motion.

Dr. Light looks up from his notebook, unable to hide his dishevelled expression. There are a series of coal bags under his eyes, while faint frown lines crease his brow. He's too young to look so old.

"Good morning Alice". I don't reply.

'Atta girl,' Alyssa grins. I don't reply to that either. Undeterred, Light continues.

"Did you sleep well?" There's that lump again. I have to say something, anything. I need to have some closure.

'Say something. Don't arouse suspicion. I'll do the talking,' she says, even though I imagine her version of talking involves a lot of bloodied fists.

"Alice?" Dr. Light leans forward, concern rooted in his face. His caring mask. Hiding my pain, I edge to sit on the couch.

'Say something!'

"Was Dr. Light even real?"

Springing backwards, he drops his pencil. My eyes narrow, praying for that wretched notebook to fall along with it. He tries to replace his smile, one of nonchalance, but it never returns.

I was right. About him, about everything. He's just another façade.

"I don't understand. I'm here, Alice. What are you talking about?" More lies, so many lies. Inside, all my bones are breaking, while the drive of my heart starts to crash. He made me feel alive and now he might as well be killing me.

"Come on Alice. Tell me what's wrong," he says quietly. The ache becomes unbearable. My ears pop and the words flow.

"Is Dr. Light some sort of alias? Well, it's sure ironic let me tell you. We know everything. Those blue suppressant pills, your crazy persona running around somewhere in there. Fantastic stuff. I've never had a more interesting psychiatrist in my life. So, tell me. You stole those files. Why? What do you know about the Gemini Project?"

His frown relaxes into understanding.

Calmly, he sets his notebook to one side.

"You can stop pretending any time now," he says. "I know it's you".