Cassius shot up in his bed, gasping desperately for air. The cold air flowed through the open window, fluttering the drapes and flicking at him. His entire body felt as if it was on fire; grasping at his chest, he tried to douse the burning coursing through him. But no amount of clamoring at his chest would do anything to relieve the feeling. After several seconds of blind panic, his body gradually steadied himself, and the flames died down from a roaring inferno to a mellow match.

“What the hell!” Cassius groaned, rubbing at his temples.

That was undoubtedly the most vivid and harrowing nightmare Cassius had ever experienced. Every detail felt so real: the drinks, smells, and chills running across his body when he opened the door for that horrendous thing. He would have sworn it was all real if he had not just awoken in his bed.

Cassius could swear he could still feel that abomination's dagger-like claws pressing into him and spreading vile corruption. He shuddered at the thought.

While dressing, he cast his gaze above the door. The small carving of Jesus on the cross stared back and judged him. Cassius was never much of a religious man, but his wife certainly put some value in the word of the lord. Never in all of his life had he ever been so close to turning to righteous god for some support. Close, but not quite.

Cassius shook his head free of the sleep fog and those memories before stumbling out into the kitchen, not even glancing into the main clinic room. Not like anyone came to his clinic that often; even if they did, they would be attempting to break the door down to see and likely throttle him— if the last few months of treatment were anything to go by.

Pushing open the creaking door to the kitchen, Cassius sighed; coming in here and cooking was the worst part of his day. He missed when he could wake up to Rose’s angelic humming wafting throughout their home, along with the mouth-watering odor of her fresh cooking.

Now, the silence in the room was deathly and always filled him with dread, knowing what he wanted could never be again.

Their kitchen was nothing spectacular or anything that one would write home about. Little more than the base needs to be called a kitchen. Inside were eggshell white cupboards and a cast iron stove filled to the brim with ash, having not been cleaned in many weeks. As he moved in, Cassius winced in pain, sunlight from the single window catching his eyes, causing his horrible hangover to throb and squeeze his head like a vice. The floorboards creaked as he stepped over a floor hatch that led into a small dry cellar, with nothing left inside for provision. Cassius knew the place well enough; he had built and lived here for the last few years, after all.

Cassius lazily lit the fire in the stove and tossed some kindling into the glowing embers. The small amount of smoke wafting out of the front door stung his dried throat and nose. He looked into the coffee pot and was pleased to see that there was still enough for a few hot cups. Grinding up more beans did not seem like a pleasant idea at the moment, especially with tremors wracking his hands.

Samuel was not surprised by his lack of preserved food when he opened the cupboard; only several dozen cans remained, and some preserves his late wife made from her garden.

Once Rose died, he stopped going out for fresh supplies and lived solely on preserves and other dried goods. Luckily enough, he still had enough to scrape together a meager meal. Though a meal of crackers, jam, and the last of his canned meat was meager even by his recent standards.

Cassius wondered if he should start digging into his savings to get something more robust and filling than this. Likely, individuals on the Oregon trail were eating more rich meals than he was, which was somewhat pathetic. For Christ's sake, he was a doctor and should at least be able to afford a stew or have some pemmican.

Everyone he managed to keep in contact with from college lived in cities with a thriving pocketbook. Several months ago, one of them wrote his bragging about having received a wage increase, along with their fourth child. Who on earth needed to make six dollars a day, and how Jack managed to make that in New York City was beyond Cassius.

Cassius lazed in the chair nearby as he waited for his coffee to warm up to anything beyond room temperature and the canned meats' coagulated fat to melt. He might be poor, but he would not eat that nast gelatine if he could help it.

Cassius looked outside the window, and a detail he must have ignored earlier caught his eye. Vines were crawling up against the window. The plants looked fresh and young, their bright green leaves glowing in the sunlight. Cassius noted the growth, but it was nowhere near the forefront of his worries. He would simply go outside and remove them later.

But he did think of one odd thing: it is late in the season for anything to be growing so well. Autumn had befallen the area several weeks ago; next to nothing other than some late gourds should be happy and healthy. Perhaps those vines were just some rogue members of whatever Rose had planted this year; she was constantly expanding her garden.

That was neither here nor currently. Curbing his horrendous hangover was more vital. Something about this hangover was worse than he had ever had. Cassius saw gray visions of the immediate world around him each time he closed his eyes. Yet they did not look like the visual imprints he had seen in the past.

Instead of being outlined shapes of constantly shifting light, they looked like they were ashen constructs of his furniture. Occasionally, amidst the mixing swirling visions, Cassius could swear he spotted strange sets of glowing blue eyes attached to ghostly white apparitions. They were not man nor monster, but something else, something beyond his descriptive abilities.

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Cassius shoved those thoughts out of his mind, doing his earnest to ignore them. He had enough of the local townsfolk believing he was crazy as is, and he was not about to give them vindication by acknowledging what had to be the results of the kindling effect.

At least, that is how he attempted to place some scientific and logical reason to what he witnessed. The kindling effect has been known and documented for hundreds of years. Galen had authored several musings about excessive drinking causing delirium and letting slip the overall stability of one's mind. This had to just be that—right?

After engulfing his pathetic meal, Cassius wandered out of the kitchen and toward his clinical room. Leaving the stove's fire burning, hoping to put a little bit more heat into his chilly house. He had to do something about his tremors and hopefully put these visions to rest. One benefit of being the only proper doctor in the county was that he knew what to do and had the means to properly treat himself, unlike so many of the superstitious locals.

In recent years medicine has seen some actual advancements. Cassius could recall his teachers reminiscing on simpler times when an injection of quicksilver or the application of bloodletting would ease the symptoms. He knew better than that; while Benjamin Rush might have been an influential figure in his day, his methods were now antiquated by any proper professional standards.

With several options available to him. Though the one he planned on using was a simple yet effective one. Morphine—A small and conservative injection of the calming liquid would take the edge off the symptoms and allow him to manage some coherence, should anyone arrive.

He retrieved the supplies from the cabinets. A vile Morphine that was half full, along with his sterilized needle. He had done this enough times that the idea of injecting himself no longer bothered him. Having that minor haze caused by the medicine was far better than tremoring so much he could hardly write in his journal.

He filled the syringe with a few drops of the heavenly and diluted liquid; his shaking hands made getting the exact amount all but impossible, but he knew the amount he had was acceptable. Three milligrams at most.

He lowered his trousers and sat in the chair. Looking down at his exposed thigh, the remnants of his previous self-treatment were evident. He had done this so many times that there was notable scarring across his upper quadriceps.

He brought the needle to his skin and sunk it in until his muscles had accepted every inch of the tool. He depressed the plunger and gradually withdrew the needle. Unlike all other injections, Morphine's effects were almost immediate. There was no pain from feeling your muscles swell with medication. The immediate area went slightly numb as the medication began to take hold.

After his treatment, Cassius rubbed his thigh, waiting for the medication to take full effect. He pondered if it was time for him to completely give up on the bottle. He had yet to fall into true dependence like many locals. Taking morphine to keep debilitation at bay was likely not a healthier alternative.

With his so-called stepbrother having banned him from the saloon, there was no better time to make the attempt. He doubted Rose would like seeing him in such a pitiable state. Primarily, since he used to be the type of man to condemn those who needed some substance to cope, but that all was before he felt so empty, useless, and lost.

It took no more than a few minutes, but eventually, the fog of Morphine took hold throughout his entire body. The tremors passed, the pain in his gut left, and the remnants of the burning from the night's dreams.

Once again, all felt correct in his body. Yet Cassius still could swear he saw those visions of ash when he blinked. He wondered if he should use more or give it some time. If he took more, he could not do anything for the day, so he opted to give it time before he allowed genuine worry about the hallucinations.

Taking to another form of self-treatment, Cassius went outside to bask in the cold autumn breeze and find some salt-of-the-earth work. The chilly air was constantly refreshing first thing in the morning. He needed to gather more firewood as is; this was a prime thing he could do to occupy his mind.

Stepping out, ax in hand, Cassius froze like a deer that caught a whiff of a hunter on the breeze. What he saw was beyond understanding; it could not be true or happening.

Rose's garden, despite neglecting its treatment for months, was vibrant and overflowing with fresh growth. Every rose, spice, vegetable, and fruit was in full bloom as if mother nature had neglected to have the autumn chill befall the area.

The garden and the surrounding of the entire house were like this, full of lush, vibrant life. The whole area appeared to be in the middle of its summer peak, not the trailing edge of life that autumn brought.

Cassius stepped forward cautiously, unable to comprehend the unnatural state of what he was bearing witness to. He hesitantly reached for the bright red of the garden's centerpiece. A bright red rose bush that he had gotten Rose when they first arrived here. He initially gifted it as a bit of a joke, but she tended the little plant with such care it thrived. But not like this. A small part of his mind wished this was a hallucination brought on by withdrawals and morphine, but it wasn’t.

His fingers caressed the petals, pushing his mind to the idea that what he saw was all too real. They were soft and smelled vibrant and healthy. This could not be real; it was impossible. His heart pattered faster, and a knot of nervousness twisted tight like a noose on his throat.

“How?” Cassius questioned as if the rose bush itself would be able to give him an answer.

He stood there cupping the rose in his palm for several minutes. Trying to reason this out somehow. That he had blacked out tending the garden, that there was a heat wave he missed during a blackout, anything that could explain the strange phenomena. But he was coming up with nothing that fell within the bounds of logic and reason. Nothing natural to the world could possibly give an answer, nothing he could provide credence to, at least.

There were the stories of the magics, demons, gods, and angels told by the locals. But that was just wives' tales and superstitions. They were just stories that could not be real.

As if his body wanted to lash out against the unnatural, Cassius felt almost angry, like he should destroy this. But he paused when the violent thoughts crawled into his mind. He dejectedly released the rose he had begun to squeeze. Despite him crushing it in an iron-like grip, it was still proud and healthy.

As unnatural as this was, he could not destroy what his wife so earnestly loved. This Garden was one of the few things of hers he had left. Destroying it would be the last thing he could do; without it, whatever madness he was witnessing would undoubtedly take him.

Cassius slung his ax over his shoulder and walked off into the woods. He hoped that a hard day's labor would help him find his center. While he did not believe every word in the medical writings of Benjamin Rush, he did agree that giving those afflicted with alcohol withdrawal something to do would help.

Hopefully, by the time he returned home, whatever strange visual and tactile hallucinations he was afflicted by would be gone. That was his last hope that there was just the last bit of his sane mind clinging to reality.

Mainly because as Cassius looked about the forest, he could swear the undergrowth and plants were becoming more lively, bending and growing toward his presence. Even the animals seemed slightly less afraid of him and stayed unnaturally close while he began to search for a tree to fall.