Romance / Tragedy / Psychological / Psychiatric / Mental Illness/ Medical Mystery/ Ambient Horror / Identity / Angst / Morality / Medical Ethics
NOTE: extremely dark and angsty, but no violence, action, rape, etc.; mental illness a core theme, but no outwardly directed crazy behaviour (except one questionable outburst of selfish desperation... on the part of the psychologist)
SYNOPSIS: In the "present" or not-too-distant future, a young psychology student stumbles upon the professor she idolizes grieving over an unmarked gravestone... In a series of flashbacks, he narrates to her the story of his first patient, the love of his life.
In this past where most of the story occurs, the professor, then a naive first-year psychology student, moves into a creepy, semi-dilapidated mansion, receiving room and board for aiding the elderly butler in caring for the ailing lady of the house. The last of her family, she is a deeply disturbed and ephemerally beautiful 18-year-old orphan, with an unidentifiable psychiatric condition that's literally causing her to wither away. Deeply anxious and physically ill, she appears to know full well what troubles her, but refuses to open up to anyone, leaving countless medical professionals stumped and diagnosing her simply with "utter despair".
The cause of this darkness that suddenly possessed a vibrant, healthy, cheerful girl baffles everyone.
The future professor falls in love at first sight and resolves to cure her. With his love, he manages to get further than anyone else, and she begins to open up as they enter into passionate love affair. However, in his amateurish enthusiasm and naivete, he stumbles through ethical and moral dilemmas, takes wild gambles, and uncovers horrifying secrets about her and himself.
His own sanity begins to toe the line as he comes to the horrifying realization that her condition is so deeply rooted in her identity that his vow to "save her", should he succeed, might involve forever losing and even destroying the person he loves...
MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER:
His lover is actually an alternate personality... her physical deterioration - anxiety and distress upon realizing what she is, doubting herself and the realness of said "self", and fearing the death of her identity and self.
She has been, unwittingly, the dominant of two split personalities for most of her life after a failed suicide attempt by her multiple-personality disorder-afflicted 4 year old self, which one of her original personalities believed to be successful. Her detirioration's cause is guilt, self-hatred, and fear of disappearing into nothingness when her other personality, of which she was unaware and which she now believes to be the "original", begins to re-emerge after reading her own suicide note. This "original", still mentally a 4-year-old child that considers itself the "The Good Girl" and the only real personality, killed herself to rejoin her dead mother and father in heaven. She believes that "The Monster", a faceless, nameless entity (actually her own resentment and will to live), has possessed her body and taken her place. This "original" (still mental age 4 and deeply disturbed) now wants someone to kill "The Monster" (the vibrant, good-natured teenage girl) for her... and the current identity doubts its own humanity, anxiously fears being cast out into nothingness and unbeing, and viciously hates itself for its will to live.