Chapter 5: The Placebo of Sanity

Chapter 5: The Placebo of Sanity

The doctor’s office was an aggressively beige and sterile box, designed to soothe with its sheer lack of personality. Generic watercolor prints of sailboats hung on the walls. The air smelled faintly of lemon-scented cleaner and old paper files. It was the furthest possible thing from the shadowy, malevolent world that had consumed Silas’s life. It was a temple to the rational, and Silas had come seeking absolution.

Dr. Alistair Finch was a man who seemed assembled from a kit labeled ‘Trustworthy Psychiatrist.’ He had a kind, tired face, a neatly trimmed grey beard, and a soft, methodical voice that never rose above a conversational murmur. He listened patiently as Silas spoke, making small notes on a legal pad with a silver fountain pen.

Silas, of course, did not tell him the whole truth. He couldn’t. He couldn’t speak of cars passing through a spectral body or eyes like swirling voids of anti-light. The words would have branded him irrevocably insane. Instead, he gave the doctor the version of the story that could fit within the confines of this beige room.

“I’ve been under… a lot of stress,” Silas began, the admission costing him a sliver of his pride. He detailed his expulsion, his father’s disownment, the crushing weight of his failure. He painted a perfect picture of a young man at his breaking point. Then, he cautiously approached the real reason he was here. “And I’ve been… seeing things. A man. Always the same man. In the distance.”

“Tell me about this man,” Dr. Finch prompted, his pen hovering over the page.

“He’s tall. Wears a black coat and a hat,” Silas said, his voice dropping. “I just… feel like he’s watching me. It’s making me paranoid. I can’t sleep. The other day, on the road… I thought I saw him and I just… I panicked. My friend who was driving was really scared.”

He left out the most crucial details—the vanishing, the impossible physics, the fact that only he could see him. He presented it as a symptom, not as a concrete reality. He was feeding the doctor the diagnosis he so desperately wanted to receive.

Dr. Finch nodded slowly, a deep, knowing look in his eyes. He set his pen down with a quiet finality. “Silas, what you’re experiencing is not uncommon, given the severe emotional trauma you’ve endured. The disownment by your father is a significant psychological blow. Your mind, under immense pressure, is creating a focal point for your anxiety and despair. A tangible figure to represent an intangible threat.”

The clinical, detached words were a balm on Silas’s raw nerves. It sounded so reasonable. So simple.

“We call them trauma-induced hallucinations,” the doctor continued, his tone reassuringly textbook. “A manifestation of hypervigilance coupled with acute stress disorder. Your brain is stuck in ‘fight or flight’ mode, and it’s projecting a threat where there is none.”

A hallucination. The word was a key, unlocking a door back to the real world. That impossible moment on the road, the car passing through the figure—it hadn't been a violation of physics. It had been the climax of his own delusion. His mind, at its breaking point, had simply edited the man out of existence when the car drew near because it knew, subconsciously, that an impact was impossible. It all made a strange, fragile kind of sense.

“So… I’m not crazy?” Silas asked, the question small and childlike.

Dr. Finch offered a thin smile. “You’re not crazy. You’re wounded. And wounds can be treated.” He scribbled on a prescription pad, tore off the sheet, and slid it across the polished desk. “I’m prescribing a low-dose antipsychotic. It’s very effective at quieting this kind of… mental noise. It will help you regulate your dopamine levels, break the cycle of paranoia, and allow you to get some restorative sleep.”

That little white slip of paper felt heavier than a block of granite. It was a formal admission of his own mental failure, but it was also a weapon. A scientific, rational weapon against the creeping, supernatural dread.

Back in the suffocating silence of Rob’s empty house, Silas stared at the small, white, circular pill in his palm. It looked so insignificant. How could this chalky little disk stand against a thing that radiated such ancient malevolence? It felt like trying to fight a hurricane with a paper fan. But he had no other options. With a trembling hand, he tossed the pill into his mouth and washed it down with a glass of tap water.

He waited for a thunderclap, for the figure to appear at the window in a final act of defiance. Nothing happened. The house remained silent. The afternoon sun continued its lazy crawl across the living room floor.

He didn't notice the effects at first. It was a slow, subtle change. An hour later, sitting on the couch, he realized the muscles in his shoulders and neck, which had been knotted with tension for weeks, were beginning to relax. The constant, low-frequency hum of anxiety that had become his baseline state was fading, replaced by a strange and unfamiliar quiet. It wasn't just the house that was silent; the screaming in his own head had stopped.

That night, for the first time since his father had closed that door, Silas slept. It wasn't a fitful, nightmare-plagued battle for consciousness, but a deep, dreamless plunge into a peaceful black abyss. He woke ten hours later to the sound of birds chirping outside, the sun warm on his face. He felt… new. Rested. The world looked sharper, the colors more vibrant. He walked to the window and looked out at the street. It was just a street. No sense of being watched. No figure by the oak tree. Nothing.

Just an ordinary, beautiful morning.

A surge of energy, alien and wonderful, coursed through him. He didn't just feel sane; he felt capable. He cleaned the kitchen, scrubbing away the evidence of his and Rob’s bachelor-pad squalor. He took a shower so long the water ran cold. He looked at his reflection in the steamy bathroom mirror and saw not a gaunt, paranoid wreck, but a tired young man who had weathered a storm and come out the other side.

Just as he was toweling his hair dry, his phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. He answered hesitantly.

“Silas Thorne?” a professional female voice asked.

“Yes?”

“This is Cynthia from Marketing Solutions. We were very impressed with your portfolio yesterday, and we were wondering if you’d be able to come in this afternoon for a second-round working interview? We’d like to see what you can do on the fly.”

The request would have sent him into a spiral of anxiety just twenty-four hours ago. Now, it felt like a confirmation. The world was righting itself. The fog had lifted, and opportunity was knocking.

“Absolutely,” he said, his voice clear and steady. “I’ll be there.”

The second interview was a triumph. Seated at a sleek iMac, the creative energy he thought he’d lost forever came flooding back. He designed a mock-up logo, laid out a brochure, and spoke about branding with a confidence that surprised even himself. He was the old Silas. The promising art student. The kid with a future.

Cynthia was so impressed she offered him the junior designer position on the spot, a ninety-day probationary period starting Monday.

Walking out of the sleek, glass-fronted office building and into the bright afternoon sun, Silas felt invincible. He held a job offer in his hand. He had a future again. The despair that had led him to stand on that rickety chair with a cord in his hand felt like a memory from someone else’s life.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small orange prescription bottle. He looked at the street, at the anonymous, bustling crowds, at the mundane reality of it all. There were no monsters. There were just neurons and chemicals, trauma and recovery. He had faced the abyss, and the abyss had been nothing more than a glitch in his own brain.

With a small, triumphant smile, he shook one of the little white pills into his palm and swallowed it dry. It was his shield. His cure. He had defeated the man in the tall hat with a simple prescription. He was safe. He was sane. He had won.