Callan had a recurring nightmare. One he’d never talked about.

  He wasn’t sure when it had started. A while now, though.

  In the dream, he was at the bottom of a hole. A well, maybe.

  He could look up and see the sky, hear the birds and the wind.

  Sometimes, he heard children's voices—but never clearly.

  He would sit in the hole, calling out occasionally, but no one ever came.

  Nothing ever changed.

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  No clouds passed over. No birds. The sun never moved.

  The loneliness would settle in, but he never really tried to escape.

  He would look around, but the hole was deep, and the walls were smooth.

  Nothing to grab onto.

  So he would sit.

  And, from time to time, he would call out.

  Never to be answered.

  And just as the panic would start to set in—just as the feeling became unbearable—a piece of paper would float down from above.

  He would watch it with so much anticipation.

  A letter. A change. Something. Anything.

  When it got low enough, he would desperately claw at the air, trying to catch it.

  He never did.

  It always slipped past him, landing on the dirt floor.

  And when he picked it up—when he tore it open, hands shaking—he would read… nonsense.

  It always looked like nonsense.

  But it didn’t matter. He knew what it said anyway.

  “If you’re so fucking smart, why are you still in this hole?”

  And he would wake up, sweating.