He could feel her in his arms, the wedding dress beneath his fingers as he held her. He could smell the sweet scent of her hair. He could see her face smiling up at him. They danced.

He awoke alone in their apartment, holding only the gray sheets in their bed. The smile he awoke with melted in the cold of reality. The clock on the nightstand showed 4:00am, and beside it sat a glass of water and a pill. The medicine that promised to stop the nightly torture.

The real Todd had died two years ago. He thought back to the intensive radiation treatments his wife had begun days after their wedding. He had ceased living a life of promise with his wife, and started enduring a day to day stuggle alongside her.

When she succumbed to the cancer, that Todd died as well. No future, and no fight to give this shell of a man any purpose. No possibility that they would dance again.

He reached into the nightstand drawer and drew out a pistol. He slid the pill into the chamber, placed it to his head, and pulled the trigger.