Did that sound come from the closet?
Jen craned her neck to look over at the closet door.

Buh bump.

What the...? Jen rocked her body backward and forward to gather the momentum to sit up in bed. She continued to look at the closet with both curiosity and a growing sense of fear.

Sliding her slippers on, she began to slowly approach the closet door.

Brah buh bump.

Jen Froze.....then began her approach again...slowly...quietly.

Sweat was now dripping from her brow. Her hands clammy. Reaching out, she seized hold of the closet doorknob and began to turn it...

Her cat Brownie leapt out at her! She was quite irate at having been couped up in the closet for days.
Her cat didn't look much like a brownie, but her pets had always been named after food.

Jen screeched and jumped backwards, landing on the ground next to her bed and scraping her back on the bed frame.

"Shit!" Jen shouted. It wasn't her tourettes this time. She had landed on the kitty litter tray at the foot of her bed. Morsels of cat poo clung to her butt as she got on all fours to stand up.

As she shuffled her way into the kitchen to get something to eat, her breathing got caught in her throat. There on the counter was Cheesecake and Twinkie, her pet birds...dead.

Not just dead, but apparently burned alive. To the left of them was the shiny reflective lighter from her dream. Next to that...a container of lighter fluid.

Jen walked over and picked up her two dead birds and gently placed them in a tupperware container. With tears in her eyes, she opened the refrigerator and set the container inside. She was too emotional to cook right now. She would have to wait until later to eat them.

Closing the refrigerator door, her attention fell back onto the mysterious lighter. There was a note underneath, she picked it up and read it aloud, under her breath...

"The birds are just the first in seris of punishments should you continue to disobey us. We are not amused with the way you are acting. Remain at your residence. Someone will contact you. Do not eat the birds as we know you have planned. Go outside and bury them. This will be the sign that you understand and that you will comply. We will contact you soon. PS Dont lose the lighter. Have a salad."

Jen retreived the tupperware containg her departed crispy pets. She so wanted to honor their passing by making them her next meal but she would do as she has been told. What other choice did she have. Her back door creaked as she opened it and she stepped out side with the birds and large serving spoon to dig up the earth. After all that has happened to her she could not believe what she saw right in front of her.

She looked up in the sky to see a pillar of black smoke rising from the area where she knew her favorite donut shop was. Dropping her birds, she immediately got in her car and drove to Lardass Donuts. She parked her car, got out, and walked over to see what all the commotion was about.

Everything was happening just like in her dream. Right down to the man running out of the donut shop with the recipe book burning on his back.

BWAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Nice Chopper!!!!

Deja vous--Lardass Donuts was burning again. Evidently, being only half compliant with her Antipsychotic meds had made her quite delusional. She would have to increase the dosage of Seroquel from 400mg to 800mg a day. Which also meant that she would gain even more weight.

She was thinking about The Devil and Daniel Johnston movie when...

...she reached into her pocket and took out the note to see if there was anything she missed from it. Sure enough, there was. She hadn't notice it before, but there was a faded phone number at the bottom.



Jen walked over to the payphone, the very same payphone that she had used in her dream. She picked up the receiver and called the number from the note.

(being FULLY compliant with that stuff can make ya delusional My boyfriend quit the stuff months ago... It could have its benefits but the stuff scares the crap out of me!)

The phone rang once.... no answer.

Twice..... no answer.

A third and fourth, and Jen was losing confidence.
After reaching an automated voicemail with no personal information whatsoever, Jen slammed the phone down in aggravation.

Was no one going to help her?! She turned around again to face the blaze.
She'd obviously forgotten the sequence of her dreams,
for as she began to walk away the phone rang.

Her hand shaking, she picked up the receiver and put it to her ear.

"h... hello??"

"You disobeyed our instructions from the note" a man's voice said coldly through the phone "You were specifically told to remain at your residence. For this, we have no choice but to punish you."

Jen listened closely through the phone. She could make out a lady in the background screaming. She recognized the voice of that screaming immediately.

"Mom!" Jen yelled into the phone.

"Yes," the voice said "that was your mother. We have cut off the fingers on her left hand. If you don't want us to cut off the fingers on her right, you will do the following..."

The voice on the other end paused for what seemed like to Jen an eternity. She could take the silence no more and screamed, "Tell me, tell me you bastard what do you want!" The voice enjoyed her enraged passion and almost delighted at the fact that Jen was suffering. A suffering that the voice hated to end however he continued with his instructions to her.

"Calm down, Jen." He stated coldly. "There is nothing good in it for you if you make me angry, remember that."

She felt defeated. The worst feeling in the world for her was helplessness, but she'd sure had her fill of it lately. She could feel her face growing hot as the tears threatened.

"The grocery store, it's a few blocks away from you, isn't it?" He asked, knowing full well that it was. "I think it's time for you to take a walk over there."

Silently, she made motion towards her car. "NO!!" he yelled, causing her ears to ring and bring on an instant headache. "Actions like that aren't helping! Did you not HEAR ME when I said walk?! Jesus, you really don't care about your mother at all, do you?!? LEARN TO TAKE DIRECTIONS, or suffer the consequences!"
The voice sounded as if he were actually surprised at her complete lack of understanding.

Jen arrived at the grocery store, completely out of breath. She couldn't remember having walked so much in her life. The payphone next to the entrance doors began to ring. She immediately knew it was the man and organization behind all this.

As she picked up the phone, the grocery store exploded.

Jen screamed, cluching the phone for dear life and shielding her face from the nearby flames. "wh-"
"Looks like you were a little late to the party. I was going to have you bake me something sweet, but it looks like you just couldn't mosey your fat ass any faster. I'll tell you what, that was the last straw, but if you get to that gas station and pick up a few things in time, I'll let this game go on for JUST a BIT longer..."

The voice now sounded bored and irritated.

"Look, I'm going to need...."