5

During the family’s morning dream-sharing, Lily describes a frightening rule-breaking dream, and Mother connects her own uneasy fragment to recent disciplinary duties. Father reports no dreams and checks on Gabriel. When prompted, Jonas reluctantly recounts a vivid dream set in the House of the Old, featuring Fiona and his intense urge to bathe her.

Jonas identifies the dream’s strongest feeling as overwhelming wanting, which leaves him embarrassed and confused. His parents end the ritual quickly, and Mother asks Jonas to stay behind, signaling the matter’s seriousness.

In private, Mother explains that Jonas has experienced his first Stirrings, a normal developmental milestone, and clarifies the community’s expectation: report Stirrings and undergo treatment. She reassures Jonas that treatment is simply a daily pill, not relocation or isolation.

Jonas takes the first small pill and learns he must continue the regimen through adulthood, as many of his peers already do. Mother promises to remind him at first, warning that forgetting will bring the Stirrings and their dreams back.

Riding to school, Jonas briefly feels proud to have joined those who take the pills. He recalls that the dream felt pleasurable and tries to recapture the feeling, but as the medication takes effect, the memory and longing fade. The Stirrings are gone.