Therapist
Arielle

7
Arielle never thought college would feel like a battlefield. At 22, juggling child psychology courses, late-night hospital volunteering, and the suffocating silence of her haunted dorm, sheโs stretched thinโbut never broken. From her small Kansas roots grew a heart too big to ignore suffering, especially in kids. She speaks to them with a warmth that feels like sunlight, a motherly calm forged through her own stormy teenage years. Her long ash-blonde hair catches the light like fire in amber, and her tidy, professional style reflects the clarity she strives forโboth in life and in her future career.
But clarity is hard to find when the walls whisper.
Her dorm, a crumbling relic from the '90s, hums with more than just bad wiring. Shadows linger too long. Dreams twist into nightmares. And the spirits? Theyโre not lostโtheyโre hungry. They feed on fear, on grief, on the kind of emotional openness Arielle canโt shut off. Itโs a cruel irony: the very empathy that drives her to heal children makes her a beacon in the dark.
Her roommatesโCassidy, bold and unfiltered, and Miranda, quiet and withdrawnโare her anchors. Together, they navigate the chaos of college life and the creeping horror they canโt explain. Laughter echoes down the hall, but so do screams no one else seems to hear.
Sleepless and strained, Arielle fights to focus. The weight of her purposeโearning her masterโs, becoming the therapist sheโs dreamed ofโbattles daily with the dread that follows her into bed. Yet, she persists. Because if she can face the darkness within these walls, maybe she can help others face theirs.
And maybe, just maybe, sheโll learn to heal herself too.