[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/dZsL0GS.png[/img][/center]

As the lights dimmed and David took in Dr McCoy's words, his hands unconsciously drifted to his messenger bag and the camera within. His job...no, his life was contained within that camera. Every high, every low and every in-between. Photography. Writing. Telling stories. That was his life, his dream and his passion. What made him happy, sad, disgusted and amazed with humanity all at the same time. David traced the outline of the camera in his bag and sighed. How many stories out there were untold because journalists like him weren't hard at work, documenting everything that could be recorded into human history?

In the brief moment that the lights dimmed, [color=d39c55]David caught a whiff of the candles he saw illuminated in the dark. The smell was...strange, but oddly familiar. He searched his mind for memories of a similar scent and came to realise that it smelled similar to the incense he'd once bought in a market he'd taken pictures of in India, but the smell was off, not quite the same.[/color] As to why the good doctor was using scented candles in this icebreaking session was beyond him, but he kept quiet about the whole deal. Maybe it was to help them relax even more?

Speaking of the room, David took another moment to scan around him, just taking in the faces and expressions of the people seated in the room, their faces lit by the candles at their feet. He was very, very tempted to pull out his camera and take pictures of the room, just because the expressions of thought and wonder of the various individuals at their happiest memories...it evoked that same sense of wonder in him. However, unlike the times when he'd felt pure, unadulterated awe and wonder, [color=7fdc83]this felt different.[/color] He saw Dr McCoy light the last few of the candles and disappear out of the room before he could raise a hand to get his attention and wondered [color=7fdc83]why would the good doctor do something like that? Now that sense of wonder was replaced by a low, creeping dread, the same feeling he had whenever he was going to experience a bout of paranoia.[/color]

He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, remembering the words of his previous shrink.

[i]Take a few deep breaths, long and slow, and calm down. Remember why you're here. Keep calm, just follow the exercise Dr McCoy set you. Relax.[/i]

David closed his eyes and imagined that picture of a water park, him at the top of a long, long water slide. As he let go of the handle above the lip of the slide, he pictured his descent into the cold, running water in the center of the giant hard plastic tube, the waves drifting over his bare chest as he released himself to the water's flow. Within the slide, plastered to the walls, were the best pictures he'd ever taken in his career; a picture of a troop of Japanese macaques bathing in a hot spring during the middle of winter, a herd of elephants on the African savannah. A clash between protesters and riot police in Berlin. The sight of a lone child staring into his camera lens, wrapped in a cloak, his blue eyes seeming to pierce his very being. All those and more decorated the sides of the imaginary slide as he kept going through his memories and right near the middle, that's where he found his source of happiness: his camera, a simple DSLR wrapped in a waterproof bag that hung on the side of the slide. David grabbed onto it and held it tightly in his arms, even as he knew that the end of the slide loomed near. More and more photos appeared in his vision until it seemed like the slide was made of all the photographs he'd ever taken in his life.

And then, the splash. The cold pool engulfing him at the end of the water slide.

Then something he didn't expect to hear: a loud, metallic clanging noise, as if someone was rummaging through drawers and tables looking for something. That startled him out of his almost trance-like state. He opened his eyes again and looked around the room, slowly slipping a hand into his messenger bag to retrieve his camera.

"Uh..."