I don't think humans know what it's like to be under the influence of the control drug. I don't think they understand the pain of dying from withdrawal.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have created something so cruel.

I know a girl. Her name was Samantha. When she was still alive, she liked vanilla ice cream and hated chocolate. She liked the color navy. Her eyes were almost that same color. She was a bit skinny, a bit clumsy, but she had been alive.

And now she simply isn't. Her body is still warm on the kitchen floor. I can see my tears sparkling at her throat, and I keep expecting her to wipe them away.

But of course she doesn't. And I'm as alone as I have always been.

She was sixteen when I found her a year ago, shivering under a bridge in Sector 13. She had pale skin, hardly any clothes, and the dark, confused eyes of someone on the control drug and the sight of her had wrenched at my soul. I remembered being in that same state myself. I remembered being cold and alone and scared. I don't know how she got there and she said, later, that she had no recollection of what had happened to her. But I could tell she was lying. I'm not like Weaver. I don't read minds. But I could feel some emotions. I felt that she was nervous and afraid. And most definitely lying.

My best guess was that she ran away from her house, unable to live with a family that could not accept her for who and what she was.

I remember, as she huddled in the snow, her eyes on mine, that I thought she was too beautiful and fragile to survive the cruel weather. And that she must have been seven years younger than I. And that I couldn't fall in love with someone I'd just seen, least of all a bedraggled, homeless child stoned to her eyebrows.

But I took her home with me. I carried her nine blocks, trying to ignore the strange looks everyone kept giving me, and then up to my apartment. It wasn't much of an improvement. I wasn't exactly rich. My flat had no heat, drab and peeling paint, nearly no furniture, and a tiny refrigerator containing nothing but half a head of cabbage and two bottles of cheap beer.

She murmured fitfully when I laid her down gently on my bed -- the cleanest surface in the apartment, as I'd just had the sheets cleaned. Her eyes were wide open, her pupils contracting and dilating erratically. She was Dreaming. Soon it would end and the pain would begin.

I sighed, covering her with my blanket and making my way to my cramped bathroom, pressing the button on my old answering machine on my way. The damned thing was about to fall apart.

The first message came on and a familiar deep voice spoke. "Matthew? It's me, Connor. Look, about the other night. I'm sorry I stood you up. It's just... I was busy. And then there was the trip... I'm really really sorry. Let me make it up to you, okay? I'm coming home tonight. Let's go out this weekend or something. We've never gone--"

I stared down at the remnants of my answering machine. Falling apart, the damn thing. I throw it at the wall one time and it flies to pieces.

I shoved the bathrom door open and stepped inside. I looked around, my eyes lingering for a moment on Connor's toothbrush on the sink. I remembered what I just did to the answering machine and felt no regret. I couldn't go out with Connor anymore. Not when I'd found her. I pulled the medicine cabinet open. Rows and rows of little amber bottles greeted me, filled with round, orange pills. There was another row of vials at the top shelf that contained a liquid. It was basically the same thing as what was in the pills. Except stronger. Pure.

I grabbed a new syringe, one vial of liquid, and headed back out.

She was getting more restless and I could feel the waves of discomfort emanating from her. She was close.

I studied her critically, clinically. This was something I was very familiar with. I opened the syringe packet, pulled the cap off with my teeth, and jabbed the needle into the opening at the top of the vial. I filled it up to the volume I thought would be appropriate, looked at her again, and plunged the needle into her arm.

She was never coherent for very long. She was too weak to resist the drug's power. But the times when she was normal and clear and capable, she was perfect. And yet, underneath her grace, her silent intelligence, her gentleness, there was an ocean of hurt and bitterness. Sometimes, when I sat watch over her, I felt it. When she was deep in her Dreams, her guard was down. She never offered me any information about what her life had been before I found her. But I could gather enough clues to know that once, she was happy. Once, she had passed for normal. For human. And then something happened -- I don't know what -- and it unlocked the ability and frightened all the people she loved.

She had it tough. She saw the sun before she was thrust into the darkness. I had grown up in the dark. I never even knew what I had been missing until Weaver set me free from the Research Center, only to effectively chain me to this pathetic life. I was used to the control drug. I was used to my own cycle. I was always coherent because I knew when to administer it to myself and because I could fight it if I really wanted to. Fight it long enough to conceal the pain. But of course I could never throw the effects off completely. Like everyone else, if I fought it for too long, I would break and I would die.

I should have known what she was planning. She sank into a depression three months before she died and stopped following the schedule I set for her to take the pills. I had to go to work for Weaver so she was always left alone. Whenever I came back she seemed all right and happy to see me. But she was quieter than usual, she cried in the night, and she was distracted all the time.

And I was so stupid to shrug it all off. To follow Weaver on a three-day trip. And to come back to this.

I wonder how long it took her to screw up the courage to allow herself to die. I wonder how much pain she had suffered as she fought with the instinct to run and take the drug. She had lost the battle against her self-control. I can see the syringe and the vial not far away. But the antidote and the poison had been administered far too late.

I look at her face, but it is peaceful and beautiful, without any sign of agony.

And I cry. And the tears keep falling like they will never stop. Pretty soon, her shirt is soaked and I am surprised to find that I am out of tears.

I lay her back down on the floor. The apartment looks the same as it always has. Except maybe it is now slightly cleaner, and there are curtains on the window. And one of her skirts is draped across a chair. No, the apartment is different. It is ugly and lifeless and drab: even worse than it had been before the day I had carried her into my life.

I stand up, a plan forming in my mind. If she could do it, if she could deny herself life, then so could I. I wonder why I never even thought of it before. It would be so easy. The answer to everything.

And then the knock.

A knock on my door usually meant the landlord, demanding my rent. There was never anyone else. But I'd just paid, hadn't I? I'd paid before I left, so that the old witch wouldn't bother her.

I want to ignore it. But the knocking is persistent and steady, now falling into a rhythm. Two beats then three then two then three once more and on and on and on.

I make my way to the door, realizing that my limbs are still slightly shaky and that tears are still drying on my cheeks. I wipe my face and pull the door open.

And there's a boy. A few years younger than Samantha, probably, but it is always hard to tell with dream weavers. Yes, I realize that much. His face is far too perfectly balanced, much too beautiful, to be simply human.

I take in his clothes -- falling apart at the seams -- and his shoes -- worn to the soles, his toes poking out, his socks frayed and dusty. His jeans are dirty with mud and sweat and God-knows-what-else. His torn shirt and jacket look like he's been sick on them. It's winter, and there are snowflakes melting in his hair. Then my eyes sweep to his face and I see a pair of light blue eyes, young and hopeful, but also oddly wise.

"Mister," he croaks in a voice coming from a throat rough with lack of water and use. "Mister, please. I need..." His voice trails into a hacking cough and I squash whatever pity I'm starting to feel.

"I'm sorry. I can't help you--" And I start to close the door.

He stops it with his hand, his thin arm surprisingly strong. "Matthew," he rasps out. "Matthew, you have to help me."

I am frozen. How could this boy know who I am? He is not a mind reader, not on the same level as Weaver. My mind is well guarded and he hasn't even touched me.

"Who are you?"

He swallows. "I'm thirsty. Can I have a glass of water, please?"

"Who are you? How do you know who I am?"

He reaches out and touches me, his frail hands clutching the front of my shirt. He can hardly support his own weight, but when he grabs me, I can feel some kind of strength coming from him, something he was holding in reserve. One hand reaches up and lightly touches my face. "I know you because I've seen you." He taps his head. "In here."

"Who are you?" I repeat.

"Not sure. I think--" he winces "It might be Kenneth. I have another name. It's--" He steps back, his eyes confused, dilating and contracting crazily. "Something greek. And then numbers. They gave it to me, the people in white... lots of people in white coats."

I feel a chill in my bones. "Are you talking about the Facility? The Research Center?"

His body spasms and begins to fall. I catch him and I know the cycle is starting all over again.

The vial and the needle are still on the floor by Samantha's body and I run to grab it. But when I've got it filled with liquid, when I'm ready to inject the liquid into him, he flails wildly, knocking it out of my hands. When I start to reach for it, he grabs me, and I realize that I had been right. He'd been holding a bit of strength in reserve. He is putting all he has on his grip around my arm and I can't move at all.

"Don't. Don't you dare put that in me or I swear I will make you regret it."

I look at him. His pupils are tiny black pins in his irises and I feel a sliver of fear. "You'll die!" I tell him, panicky. The last thing I want is another dead body in my kitchen. Another dream weaver killed by the control drug.

"I wish I could." he replies bitterly. "I'm not on the drug. I'm just tired, but you have to see this. You have to understand or you'll turn me away." He holds on tight and the edges of a Dream wash over me. It's tentative at first, like a flimsy curtain brushing against my face in a breeze. And then stronger and stronger, but still gentle. Like a warm blanket enfolding me. I don't know what it is he wants to show me, what he wants me to see so badly that he ignores his exhaustion, his thirst, and undoubtedly his hunger. But it must be important. And Samantha...Samantha would have wanted me to pay attention.

So I let go and stop fighting and find myself thrown back into his memories, into a Dream so perfectly created, for a moment I am confused by its reality.

I watch the scenes playing back from his mind and I begin to understand. The sliver inside me expands until the fear fills me, engulfs me, and owns me. I learn who he is and why he came to me. And what I must do before I take him where I am expected to.

He releases me and falls unconscious to the linoleum-covered floor. The front pocket of his jacket shifts and a lump inside it moves. A moment later, a wet, bedraggled black kitten -- dirty and skinny and tiny -- crawls out to lick the boy's face.

I pick the small animal up and hold it carefully, letting it curl up in the warmth of my hands.

Humans are afraid of dream weavers. Afraid enough to put all of us on a chemical leash. Afraid of young girls like Samantha, so gentle and quiet, and this boy, who cared enough to rescue a pathetic young cat, even if he could barely take care of himself.

But then there's me. With all the blood on my hands and the secrets in my heart.

I set the kitten down on the boy's chest and watch him. He would have to be taught some of them. How to fight. How to spin more complex Dreams (though this he could probably do better than I). Perhaps even how to kill.

I have to teach him and provide for him. This one is not someone I have to protect or care for. I don't have to. Perhaps in time, however, he will become someone that the humans would be right to fear. Someone that even one such as myself would be afraid of.