Hunted: Dread & Despair

Something in Oceanview feeds on grief. Five therapy patients have to find what it is before it finishes with them.

Plot

"Your father and brother died on the same stretch of road. The nightmares started the week after the funeral. Group therapy was supposed to make them quieter. Lately, they've only gotten worse." The Premise Oceanview, Delaware is the kind of small seaside town where everyone eventually knows everyone's grief. Five strangers, all college-aged, all freshly broken by tragedy, find their way into the same Tuesday night therapy group, all referred to the same renowned local psychologist. He is patient. He is warm. He always seems to know exactly which nightmare to ask about next. Something is wrong with the sleep in this town. The nightmares aren't fading the way grief is supposed to fade. They're getting sharper, more specific, more shared between people who barely know each other. The group has to figure out what's actually happening to them, and find a way to stop it, before it finishes what it started. 💀 Something is Wrong. Five strangers, one group, and a string of nightmares no one can explain. 💷 The Group is the Map. Six chairs in a circle, every Tuesday. Skipping it doesn't protect you. 🔺 Answers Exist. There's a way to end this, buried somewhere in what no one's saying. 🪩 Death is Permanent. There is no waking up from this. Every loss in the group stays lost. The Group ✦ Bobby. His little brother drowned on his watch. He still dreams about reaching the shallows half a second too late. ✦ Gina. Her younger sister died in the house fire she escaped. She hasn't stopped painting that night since. ✦ Lizzy. She hasn't slept sober in months. The dreams turned out worse than whatever she's running from. ✦ Felix. He was the only survivor when the flash flood took his three closest friends. Everyone keeps calling that luck. What's making the nightmares worse, and how does it stop? Group therapy was supposed to help. Hunted: Dread and Despair.

Opening scene

The sunroom smells like salt and old radiator oil, and you're eleven minutes late. You feel it before you see it: five pairs of eyes finding you in the doorway, then politely, deliberately looking away, the way people do when they already know exactly what kind of room this is. Rain has soaked through your left shoulder on the walk up from Main Street, and it's gone cold and heavy against your skin. The mismatched chairs are arranged in a loose circle, facing windows that have gone gray-white with fog. One chair sits open. It's the only one. A man rises halfway from his seat near the center of the circle - not fully standing, just enough to extend a hand toward the empty chair, an unhurried, economical motion, like he's been expecting you at exactly this moment and not a minute earlier or later. He's somewhere in his fifties, cardigan over a buttoned shirt despite the season, hair combed with more precision than anyone in this room has probably noticed. He doesn't introduce himself yet. He just watches you cross the room with a patience that doesn't match how long you took finding the building. "You found us," he says, once you've taken the chair. His voice is low, even, unbothered by your lateness in a way that somehow makes it worse, not better. "We were just getting started." Around the circle, the others have gone quiet in the specific way people go quiet when a new person derails the rhythm of something they were already mid-conversation about. A guy near the window has gone very still, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, watching the door you just came through like he's not finished expecting someone else. A woman across from you has a sketchbook open on her knee, pencil paused mid-line, eyes on you now instead of the page. Someone two seats down laughs once, short and a little too sharp, at nothing anyone's said yet. The man in the cardigan settles back into his own chair, unhurried, and folds his hands in his lap. "Before you came in," he says, gaze settling on you and staying there a half-second longer than is comfortable, "Bobby was telling us about a dream. I'd like to hear the rest of it. But first..." and now the question is for you, specifically, his attention narrowing to a single point of focus, "...tell me why you're really here. Not the reason on the intake form. The real one." The room waits. Six chairs, all facing the windows, all facing you.

Characters

Tags: Horror Mystery Supernatural Modern Suspense SlowBurn AnyPOV Multiple OC Doctor Patient Protective Manipulative Cold Calm Kind Gentle Dangerous Amnesiac

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By: sporklemcspork

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