Victor Peter

WREN

First published by Victor Peter 2025

Copyright © 2025 by Victor Peter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Victor Peter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Victor Peter has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-998640-20-1

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Dedicated to those who dare to explore the darkest corners of the mind—may you find both terror and truth within these pages.

1

THE FALL

I wake up strapped to a bed.

My name is Lucy Wren.

I think.

Light stabs through my closed eyelids—sharp, searing, relentless. It floods my skull like liquid fire, building pressure behind my eyes until I feel like I might dissolve beneath it. Like I’m sinking inside my own head, like the weight of it might press me out of existence altogether.

Beneath the brightness, there’s a sound. Low. Electrical. It vibrates somewhere deep—through my teeth, my ribs, the base of my spine. A mechanical hum, steady and precise, like the walls are wired. Like the air is alive and tethered to something I can’t see.

I try to move.

My wrists don’t budge.

A sharp, biting pressure digs into my skin. Leather straps. Thick. Cold. Unforgiving. My ankles are bound too—locked tight. I test again, harder. My fingers twitch, but the rest of me refuses to respond.

Panic rises slow and hot, thick in the back of my throat.

I breathe in. Or try to. The air scrapes down like sandpaper, raw and dry. My throat burns. Feels hollow, like I’ve been inhaling dust for hours. Or nothing at all.

Where am I?

The thought comes slow, like it’s slogging through sludge. My brain feels heavy. Muffled. Like someone stuffed cotton into all the corners. My limbs aren’t limbs—they’re weights, uncooperative and distant. My body doesn’t belong to me.

Drugs.

The recognition is slow, but certain. I know this feeling. The pull of it. The disconnect between intention and action. The fog that doesn’t lift, no matter how hard I think.

Someone drugged me.

Enough to keep me still.

Enough to keep me here.

I yank against the straps again—harder, sharper. They cut into my skin with dull teeth. No give. The leather holds. Unblinking. Impatient.

My breath rattles out. Too loud in the silence. Too human in a place that doesn’t feel like it was made for people.

I roll my head to the side. My cheek scrapes against the pillow—stiff sheets, smooth and sterile. The air bites at my nose. Antiseptic. Artificial. There’s something else beneath it too—colder, metallic. A scent I can’t name but instinctively don’t trust.

A hospital?

No.

Not quite.

The ceiling above me is pristine, seamless. Too white. The lighting is recessed and low, diffused like it’s designed not to offend. A faint green panel glows in the far wall. The corners of the room are sharp. Too symmetrical. Too… measured.

Hospitals are messy. Loud beneath the quiet. Alive in a way this place isn’t. Even at their most sterile, they have motion. Imperfection.

This place is still.

Not calm.

Not peaceful.

Still.

Too still.

A slow shiver coils up my spine, inch by inch, like it wants to be noticed. Like it’s been waiting to make itself known.

I need to focus.

Find something solid to hold onto.

I sift through the fog, searching for a memory—anything that explains this. But my thoughts slip through my fingers like oil. I catch fragments: the weight of keys in my pocket. The clink of a mug on my countertop. The sound of my front door locking behind me.

Coffee.

Maybe yesterday. Maybe last week.

But nothing after that.

No bridge between then and now.

Just a black drop into nowhere.

What happened to me?

The hum in the room grows louder. I feel it in my skull, buzzing behind my eyes. My skin tingles with the wrongness of it.

I twist my wrists again. My ankles. My whole body. But it’s like moving through cement—slow, useless. I’m still too sedated. Still buried in something chemical.

Then—

A soft beep.

I freeze.

Quiet. Almost imperceptible. But it slices through the stillness like a scalpel.

A monitor, maybe. Something tracking vitals. Or stress levels.

Or thought.

Something watching.

The silence stretches, long and taut.

Then—

Footsteps.

Soft. Measured. Too even to be rushed, too slow to be casual.

Coming closer.

My heart slams against my ribs. I twist toward the sound, straining every muscle, forcing my neck to move beneath the pull of the restraints.

The footsteps stop.

Silence again.

But not the empty kind. The loaded kind.

My breathing sharpens. I force myself still. Every part of me alert.

Nothing moves. No voices. No breath.

But I can feel it.

The air has shifted.

Someone’s here.

That weight—that instinct. The invisible thread of awareness that tugs at your spine when someone’s watching.

I jerk my wrist again, hard. The strap bites deeper. A sharp sting that barely breaks through the fog. My other hand, my ankles—no movement. I throw my weight to the side. The bed creaks beneath me, a thin metallic groan that sounds wrong in the silence.

Whoever’s here—

They’re waiting.

Watching.

My throat burns. I try to speak, but the words stick. My mouth is dry, tongue thick and useless. I cough instead, and the sound is loud—too loud. It echoes.

Still, no one answers.

A ripple of cold unease snakes through me. Coils tight around my chest.

If they wanted to help me, they would’ve said something by now.

If they wanted to hurt me—

Maybe they already have.

I grit my teeth. Yank at the restraints. Again and again. The pressure cuts into me, sharp and grounding. My heartbeat pounds like a drum in my wrists. My breath turns shallow. Fast. Too fast.

I need to move.

I need to do something.

If I don’t get out of this bed right now—

A second beep.

Sharper. Louder.

Like a machine registering escalation.

Like a reminder: You are not alone.

I squeeze my eyes shut, mind racing.

I can’t keep flailing.

I have to be smart.

I have to be calm.

But calm is a distant thing. A privilege I’m not allowed.

Still, I try.

I slow my breathing. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Count to three. Then five. Then seven. The buzzing in my skull backs off just a little—enough for thought to slip back in.

“Hello?” I rasp. My voice cracks on the word.

No answer.

I grit my teeth.

“I know you’re watching.”

The silence that answers isn’t empty. It’s expectant.

And then—

A sound.

The faintest shift of weight. The soft scuff of a shoe on tile.

Close.

My heart jumps in my chest. Panic climbs fast, hot and bright—but I shove it down. Clamp my jaw and breathe through it.

I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who is here. I don’t know what they want.

But I know this:

I am not in control.

A door hisses open.

Barely audible. A whisper of air. But it slices through the quiet like a knife.

Every muscle in my body goes rigid.

I can’t see them. Not yet.

But I feel them.

Something has entered the room. The air bends around it.

Footsteps. Slow. Intentional.

The same pattern as before.

I twist my head again, fighting the restraints, eyes squinting through the light.

Shapes sharpen.

White walls. Silver edges. A thin curtain drawn around the bed. A shadow on the other side, lengthening. Approaching.

And then—

Him.

Dr. Mercer.

I don’t know how I know his name. But I do.

It’s already there.

Like it’s always been there.

Like it was put there.

He stands at the foot of the bed. Perfect posture. Hands tucked neatly in the pockets of a white coat that doesn’t wrinkle.

Tall. Unmoving. Composed.

Too composed.

He studies me with the quiet interest of a man looking at data. Not a person. A case file. A variable. Something to solve.

A puzzle.

A program.

A problem.

My throat aches. My pulse hasn’t slowed. It might never slow again.

“Where am I?” I whisper.

Mercer doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink.

“You’re safe.”

That’s not an answer.

I try again. “Where am I?”

He waits a beat. Then, smoothly:

“Rookwood. You’re in a hospital, Lucy.”

Lucy.

That name again.

My name.

I think.

It doesn’t sit wrong. But it doesn’t settle right either. Like trying on someone else’s coat that almost fits.

Mercer steps closer. Close enough that I can see the details—shaven jaw, immaculate shirt collar, gray eyes that don’t blink enough.

His hands stay in his pockets. His body language relaxed. But there’s something off.

Too measured.

Too still.

Too… designed.

I shift against the restraints. Leather rubs raw against my wrists.

He doesn’t react.

And suddenly, I know—

He wasn’t surprised to see me awake.

He was waiting.“What is this?” I demand, my voice stronger now, fueled by the sharp pressure of fear. “Why am I tied down?”

Dr. Mercer tilts his head slightly. Not a natural gesture. A calculated one. Precise.

“It’s just a precaution.”

“Precaution for what?” I snap.

He pauses. Just for a second. Then—finally—he blinks.

“You’ve been through something traumatic, Lucy.”

The way he says it—

It isn’t sympathy.

It’s something colder. Clinical. Like he’s reading off a chart. A line practiced a hundred times before me.

“You need rest,” he continues. “We’ll talk soon.”

And just like that, he turns. Already dismissing me. Already done.

“Wait—” I jerk against the restraints as panic spikes again, fast and bright in my chest.

Mercer stops. Not surprised. Almost like he was waiting for it. He turns back slowly, expression unreadable. Eyes steady. Mouth neutral.

Still too calm.

I swallow hard. “Talk now.”

A pause. Brief. Calculating.

Then Mercer steps closer. Just a half step, but it’s enough. Enough to fill more of my vision. To remind me that I’m pinned down. That he isn’t.

His gaze flicks toward the monitor beside me. It hums softly, scrolling data I can’t see, can’t understand. Numbers and signals spitting out in perfect rhythm. Something about that makes my skin crawl.

Then his eyes shift back to me.

“You’re in Rookwood,” he repeats, like saying it again will make it real. “You were admitted yesterday.”

“Admitted for what?” My voice catches slightly. But I hold my ground.

Mercer doesn’t flinch.

“You jumped from the Westwood Bridge.”

The words don’t land right.

They hang in the air between us—too large, too foreign. Circling like gnats, too fast for my brain to catch.

Jumped.

Westwood Bridge.

No.

No, that isn’t right.

My breath catches. My body goes still, but inside, my heart is slamming, fists against a locked door.

“I—” I try to speak, but my voice falters. I swallow, try again. “I what?”

“You attempted suicide,” Mercer says, steady and unshaken.

The room tilts.

Just slightly. Just enough to feel like the floor dropped out from under me, like I’m falling even though I’m strapped in place. My fingers twitch against the restraints. My skin feels too tight.

I stare at him, blood roaring in my ears.

“I didn’t.”

“You did,” he says, without pause, without doubt. “You were found unconscious beneath the bridge. A witness called it in.”

A witness.

The word echoes.

I press my head back against the pillow, squeezing my eyes shut.

Think.

Think.

But the memory doesn’t come. There’s nothing there. Just a gaping hole, wide and dark.

After what?

What came before this?

But I wasn’t at the bridge. I know I wasn’t.

I didn’t jump. I wouldn’t.

Would I?

I force my eyes open again and look at Mercer. His face is perfectly still. No pity. No warmth. Just blank patience, like he’s waiting for me to stop struggling so he can move on to the next patient.

“You’re wrong,” I say. The words come out quiet, but sharp. Like a blade dulled from overuse but still capable of cutting.

A flicker of something moves across his face. Too quick to catch. Then he exhales.

“We’ll talk more later,” he says.

And then—he turns.

This time, he doesn’t stop.

The soft click of the door follows him out.

And I’m alone again.

I stare at the door. My pulse thunders in my throat. My wrists ache, rubbed raw. I yank at the restraints one more time, but it’s useless. The leather holds fast.

He’s lying.

I don’t know how I know that. I just do.

I wasn’t at the bridge. I didn’t jump. That’s not how this started.

Unless—

Unless he’s right.

Unless something did happen, and my brain just won’t let me remember.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Try to force the image into my head. Try to remember the wind on my face. The feeling of standing at the edge. The moment before the fall.

But there’s nothing.

No image. No sound. No memory.

Just a blank wall where the truth should be.

Maybe it’s the drugs.

Maybe it’s what they did to me after.

Or maybe Mercer’s right. Maybe I jumped. Maybe I tried to die, and this—this waking nightmare—is what I got instead.

I push the thought away. Hard.

No. That’s what he wants me to think. That I’m fragile. Unreliable. Broken. Easier to control.

“It’s not unusual for patients to block out traumatic experiences.”

His voice echoes in my skull, calm and flat, like it came from a recording.

Bullshit.

If I had tried to kill myself, I’d know. I’d feel it. That shadow, that pull, that hollow in the chest that never quite fills.

I don’t feel that.

I feel confused. Drugged. Trapped.

Manipulated.

I’d remember the bridge. I’d remember the choice. I’d remember letting go.

I don’t.

Which means he’s lying.

Or twisting the truth.

Or leaving something out.

My hands curl into fists, nails digging into the sensitive skin of my palms.

What’s the angle?

What does he gain from this story?

The strap around my wrist shifts slightly, pulling tight as I move. The skin underneath is raw. I feel it now. Red. Swollen. Sore from all the fighting.

I swallow the frustration clawing at my throat.

I need to get out of here.

I need to think.

Move.

Plan.

Breathe.

The silence after Mercer leaves is worse than the silence before.

At least when he was here, I had something to push against. A voice. A target. Something to measure myself against.

Now it’s just the hum of the room and the growing pressure in my chest.

I stare at the ceiling. My eyes blur. My breath stays shallow. The leather straps around my wrists feel tighter by the second, like they’re slowly drawing in, responding to my pulse.

I don’t struggle again. Not yet.

I listen.

Hospitals aren’t quiet.

Even in the middle of the night, there are signs of life—nurses whispering at the desk, a gurney squeaking down the hallway, machines beeping, patients groaning, someone laughing at the wrong time in the wrong place.

But this place—

This place is too clean.

Too still.

No voices.

No footsteps.

No oxygen machines ticking softly behind the walls.

Just that hum. Low and steady. Not mechanical, exactly. More like—

A frequency.

A tone.

Something pulsing quietly through the building’s bones. Something I can’t hear but feel, buzzing just beneath my skin.

It doesn’t feel like a hospital.

It feels like a set.

Like a simulation.

Like something built to look right but be wrong.

My heart thuds faster.

My eyes flick toward the monitor beside me. Its green line pulses quietly, tracking something I can’t read.

It’s watching me.

All of this is watching me.

And now I don’t know what scares me more—

That I might’ve jumped.

Or that I didn’t.I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself to remember. Something. Anything.

Before I woke up here.

Before the straps.

Before the hum.

I reach for the scraps that still feel real, the pieces that haven’t been touched yet—

My apartment. The shape of it.

Coffee in the morning, steam rising in the sunlight.

The sound of my keys jingling in my coat pocket.

The weight of a normal day.

But then—

Nothing.

Like someone cut the thread.

A black hole, silent and smooth, where the last day—maybe days—should be. Memory severed. Erased.

I grit my teeth.

No.

I won’t accept this.

I know Mercer is lying. I know I didn’t jump.

I know it.

I just have to—

Pain.

A sharp spike behind my eyes, sudden and blinding. I inhale through my teeth as it pulses again, rhythmic and dull and deep, like something knocking from the inside of my skull, looking for a way out.

I wince and let my head fall back against the pillow.

The headache is worse now. Not a side effect—something else. Like an alarm. A glitch. A system warning.

I exhale slowly, trying to calm the rising nausea. The drugs are still in my system, wrapping me in cotton and static, but they’re fading. Worn thin.

And beneath them—

The sharp edges of my own thoughts are starting to return.

That’s good. That’s good.

I just need to wait.

Wait.

Watch.

Bide my time.

I open my eyes again and scan the room, every inch of it. The sterile walls. The empty corners. The silver fixtures. The hum. Always the hum.

Then—

I see it.

The clock.

A digital red glow just above the door, sharp and unblinking. Simple numbers.

10:23.

I focus on it. Let my gaze settle, let my breath slow.

One second.

Two.

Three.

And then—

10:22.

My stomach drops.

I blink. Hard.

Did I see that right?

The numbers moved.

Backward.

No. No, that’s not possible.

I squeeze my eyes shut, press my palms—bound as they are—into the mattress, try to breathe, try to ground myself.

I open them again.

10:21.

I go still.

Completely, utterly still.

The nausea unfurls in my stomach like something twisting itself awake.

That didn’t happen.

It couldn’t have happened.

The numbers. They don’t move like that.

I blink again, fast now, frantic.

10:24.

Normal.

Back to normal. Like nothing happened at all.

Like time didn’t just reverse itself in front of me.

I stop breathing.

Just for a second.

Long enough for the room to press in. Long enough to feel the silence settle heavier across my skin.

The numbers changed.

I know they did.

Didn’t they?

I stare at the clock, unblinking, every muscle in my body tense. The red glow is steady again. Innocent. A soft, mechanical pulse.

10:24.

Still.

Still.

Five seconds pass.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Still.

10:24.

My throat is dry again, scraped raw with something more than dehydration.

My mind starts to spin—too fast, too loud.

A glitch.

A hallucination.

A trick of the light.

Maybe I misread it. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe my brain, still drunk on drugs, still dragged down by fog, saw something that wasn’t there.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m—

No.

I shut that thought down before it finishes.

No.

I saw it.

I know I did.

Didn’t I?

A tremor skates down my spine.

That sick, cold kind of fear. The one that lives behind the ribs and grows teeth.

I squeeze my hands into fists, nails pressing into the soft flesh of my palms. Hard. Grounding.

My wrists ache where the leather straps dig in. My skin is warm. My limbs are heavy. My heart is pounding.

Real. All of it.

So why do I feel like I’m slipping?

I force my breath to slow. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.

I look at the clock again.

10:25.

Normal.

Forward.

Ticking as it should.

Everything’s normal.

Except—

It’s not.

My pulse slams against my ribs, a steady drumbeat of panic. I can feel it everywhere—in my wrists, in my teeth, behind my eyes. Every nerve in my body is tight, buzzing like overclocked wires.

And nothing happens.

The clock stays still. The room stays quiet. The numbers keep ticking forward like they didn’t just—

Did they?

Doubt curls like smoke in my chest. Thick and noxious.

Maybe I imagined it.

Maybe it’s the drugs.

Maybe I’m losing it.

I close my eyes again. Try to center myself.

But the ground is already unsteady.

I was sure. A minute ago, I was sure.

Now that certainty is unraveling. Slipping out from under me like a rug pulled fast.

Mercer’s voice returns.

It’s not unusual for patients to block out traumatic experiences.

God, I hate how easily his words crawl into my head.

I shake my head hard against the pillow. No.

That’s what he wants—to make me question myself. To doubt what’s real and what isn’t. To believe I jumped. To believe I broke.

I didn’t.

I didn’t.

A ragged breath rattles out of me, loud in the stillness.

I open my eyes.

The ceiling stares back.

The hum is steady. The air is sterile.

The clock moved backward.

I saw it.

I know I did.

But…

Did I?

And—

I didn’t jump.

I didn’t try to die.

But they want me to believe I did.

Why?

Why go through all this trouble?

What are they trying to erase?

I lie still, my breathing shallow. My thoughts tighten into something hard and sharp.

If I let them win—if I believe their version—I lose everything. I lose what’s real.

I have to hold on.

I didn’t jump.

I didn’t.

Did I?

No. That’s the doubt again. That’s Mercer’s voice. His hands on my memory, bending it.

Focus.

I scan the room again. The restraints. The IV line snaking into my arm. The hum. The too-clean corners. The air that smells like metal and bleach.

I test the leather straps again, slower this time. Gentle. Looking for weakness. There’s give. Not much. A breath, a tremble of space. But enough.

Enough to work with.

Enough to—

A sound.

Soft. Barely there.

Like a pen against paper.

I freeze.

My eyes flick toward the source.

Mercer.

He’s outside the door.

Just visible through the narrow glass window. Clipboard in hand. Head bowed. Writing something down with smooth, measured strokes.

Observations. Notes.

I watch him, barely breathing.

Then—

As if he can feel my gaze—

He lifts his head.

Our eyes meet.

And something flickers in his expression.

Just for a second. A flash. Gone too fast to name.

Then he looks back down. Makes another note.

And turns away.

The sound of his pen—scratching softly against paper—lingers in my ears long after he’s gone.

Long after the door swings closed behind him.

Long after the doubt starts whispering again.

2

THE MAN WHO NEVER EXISTED

Daniel is real.

I know this the way I know my own name. The way I know the rhythm of my heartbeat—steady, insistent, mine.

But Mercer watches me like I’ve just told him the sky is green.

I wet my lips. They’re too dry. My body is still too heavy, too off. The drugs are fading, but the aftertaste lingers—like my thoughts are playing catch-up, a half-second behind reality.

I push through the fog. Focus.

“My name is Lucy Wren,” I say, testing each word, making sure they still fit in my mouth. “I’m married to Daniel Wren.” A pause. A breath. “And I killed him.”

Mercer doesn’t react.

He just watches me.

His silence stretches long enough for my stomach to knot.

And then—finally—he speaks.

“Lucy,” he says, slow and deliberate, like he’s handling something fragile. “You were never married.”

The words hit like a blow to the ribs.

A slow, cold wrongness slithers into my bones.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge it. “No.” My voice is too sharp, too loud for the stillness. “That’s not—”

I stop. Swallow. The room feels smaller suddenly. The walls inching closer.

“You’re lying,” I say.

Mercer’s face doesn’t shift. “I’m not.”

A flicker of heat sparks in my chest. “Then you’re wrong.”

He says nothing. Doesn’t argue. Just lets the silence settle, thick and waiting, like he’s giving me space to unravel on my own.

So I fill it.

“We lived together,” I insist. The words come fast now, spilling out like I can speak them into truth. “We had an apartment. Third floor. Two windows facing the street. We had a cat—no, we talked about getting a cat. I—” I pause, trying to sort the memory, rearrange it. “I remember his car. It was dark blue—no. Black. It was black.”

Mercer doesn’t blink. Doesn’t interrupt.

I clench my fists. “I killed him.” The words scrape their way up, raw and jagged. “I remember it.”

Do I?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I remember the knife. The weight of it in my hand. The way the air smelled—coppery, thick. I remember his face, the way his mouth moved like he was trying to speak, but—

What was he trying to say?

My stomach tightens.

Mercer doesn’t move. Just waits.

Then, calmly: “There are no records of Daniel Wren.”

The room shifts.

The air feels thinner.

I suck in a sharp breath. My head goes light.

That’s not possible. That’s not—

I shake my head harder. “That’s a lie.”

Still, Mercer doesn’t react.

My wrists strain against the restraints, leather biting deep. My skin burns with it.

He’s wrong.

He has to be.

“No,” I snap, voice cutting through the quiet. “That’s not right.”

He doesn’t blink.

I jerk my arms again, short and desperate, frustration rising hot beneath my skin. “I remember him,” I say. “I remember everything. Our apartment. Our life. And I remember—”

I stop.

My breath stutters.

I remember killing him.

Don’t I?

I swallow hard. My mouth is dry again.

The memory is there—sharp, bright—but when I reach for it, it slips.

I remember the blood. The knife.

His face.

But—

I don’t remember the moment. I don’t remember how it felt.

I don’t remember what he said before I did it.

I press my head back against the pillow. Squeeze my eyes shut. Focus. Focus.

Flashes come—

The kitchen light, dim and flickering.

The thud of my pulse in my throat.

The silence. Heavy.

And then—

Nothing.

A gap. A black hole.

Something’s missing.

I open my eyes again, locking onto Mercer. “You’re lying.”

His voice stays even. “I’m not.”

Anger spikes—sudden and hot. “Daniel existed.”

Still, Mercer doesn’t argue. He just waits. Silent. Letting the words hang in the air like a trap.

And then—softly—he asks, “What floor was your apartment on?”

“Third,” I answer, without hesitation. Solid. Certain.

Except—

No.

Wait.

Was it?

My forehead tightens. I shift in the bed, frowning. The certainty flickers.

Mercer watches me closely. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I force the word out.

But the edges are already softening.

I remember the view from the window. Watching people move below.

But was it a street? Or a courtyard?

Was it even an apartment?

Or a house?

I shake my head, trying to settle the image. “We had an apartment,” I say again. “Third floor.”

Mercer’s quiet.

Then, gently: “What color was his car?”

“Black,” I say immediately.

Too fast.

A second later, I hesitate.

No. It was dark blue.

No—it was black.

Wasn’t it?

I grit my teeth. “Black,” I repeat, like repetition will anchor me.

Mercer doesn’t correct me. Doesn’t say a word.

And that’s worse.

Because I’m not sure anymore.

He tilts his head, just slightly. Curious. Patient. “Where did you go for your first anniversary?”

Relief floods in. Finally, something concrete.

“That’s easy. We went to—”

Silence.

My mind blanks.

One beat.

Then another.

I search. A restaurant. A hotel. A memory. The taste of wine. The sound of laughter.

Nothing.

My hands go cold.

“Lucy?” Mercer’s voice is smooth. Gentle.

I say nothing.

Because the answer isn’t there.

And that’s when it hits me—sharp and sickening.

I never had to think about these things before. They were just there. Part of him. Part of me.

Now, they slip like sand through my fingers.

Daniel is real.

But the details?

They’re starting to disappear.

Mercer watches me, silent.

Waiting for me to admit what he already believes.

I tighten my grip on the sheets, grounding myself in their texture, in the way the fabric cuts into my skin. Real. Tangible. More solid than the memories slipping through my fingers.

“You’re messing with me,” I say, but my voice lacks bite.

Mercer’s expression doesn’t shift. He tilts his head slightly, considering me. “You said your apartment was on the third floor.”

“Yes.” I force the word out again, steady this time.

“And Daniel’s car was black.”

“Yes.”

“And you went where for your first anniversary?”

I hesitate.

The silence says more than I ever could.

I wet my lips, heart pounding. “We lived together,” I say, clinging to the one thing that still feels true. “We—”

Something twists in my chest.

Did we live together?

I see our apartment. Soft gray walls. Bookshelves. Light filtering through the blinds in long golden slats.

But—

That was my apartment.

Mine.

I lived there alone.

No. That’s not right. I shake my head, trying to force the memory to fit. Trying to bend the corners until they click into place. But they don’t.

I reach for another piece. “His car,” I say. “It was black.”

Mercer doesn’t speak. Just watches.

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Yes.” Firmer this time.

But inside, something buckles.

Wasn’t it dark blue?

No. No, it was black. I can picture it—shining under the streetlight, parked right outside our building.

Or maybe that was a different car. A different night.

I squeeze my eyes shut, jaw tight. “You’re trying to confuse me.”

Still, he says nothing. Just lets the words sit in the space between us.

I jerk against the restraints again, leather biting into my skin. “I remember Daniel,” I snap. “I remember everything. You’re lying.”

Mercer’s gaze is steady. “What was the last thing he said to you?”

The question stops me cold.

My pulse skips.

I search for the answer, digging through memory, peeling back layers, trying to find something that fits.

Something warm flickers. His voice. The way he said my name. The way his lips brushed my ear when he whispered—

No. Not that night.

I try again. Go back.

He was in the kitchen. I was near the sink. The knife in my hand. I remember the silence. The tension in the air.

I remember the blood.

I remember his face—his mouth moving.

But not the words.

They’re gone.

“I—I don’t know,” I say, the admission scraping through my throat.

Mercer exhales. Not smug. Just expectant. “It’s not unusual for the mind to create false memories, Lucy.”

“No,” I snap. “That’s not—”

“You said his car was black.”

I open my mouth. Stop.

“You said your apartment was on the third floor.”

The pressure in my chest sharpens.

Mercer steps closer. “Tell me, Lucy—what did he look like?”

I exhale, sharp and shaky. “You’re trying to—”

“Tell me.”

His tone isn’t cruel. It’s calm. Too calm. Like he already knows I can’t answer.

I open my mouth.

But nothing comes.

I can remember the shape of him. The way he walked. The slope of his shoulders.

But not his face.

His features blur when I try to focus. Like a dream I can almost see—just out of reach.

I squeeze my eyes shut, nails biting into my palms.

No, no, no.

“Lucy,” Mercer says, voice soft.

I shake my head. My breathing is too fast. Shallow.

He was real.

He was.

But why can’t I see his face?

I focus on the things I still remember. His voice in the morning, low and scratchy. The way he held his coffee mug. The scent of him—clean laundry and cedar.

Those are real.

They feel real.

But his face—

It’s gone.

My stomach churns.

I want to scream. I want to run.

But I can’t do either. All I can do is lie there. And think.

And doubt.

Mercer moves.

I hear the rustle of paper.

When I open my eyes, he’s holding a folder.

My breath catches.

He steps closer, slow and deliberate. He places it on the tray beside my bed and slides it toward me.

Then waits.

“What is that?” I ask.

His eyes stay on mine. “It’s your intake form.”

I blink. “Intake for what?”

“Your admission to Rookwood.”

A cold weight settles in my chest.

“I didn’t admit myself.”

Mercer tilts his head. “Didn’t you?”

My stomach flips.

I shake my head. “No.”

He just waits.

“Open it,” he says.

I don’t move.

Because I don’t want to see what’s inside.

But I have to.

My fingers move stiffly, heavy from tension. I open the file.

The first thing I see is my name.

LUCY WREN.

Patient ID. Admission date. Diagnosis—

My eyes scan the form.

And then—at the bottom—

My signature.

Signed three days ago.

My breath stutters. “No.”

The word barely escapes.

I look again.

Same signature. Same handwriting I’ve had all my life.

Mine.

Sitting there like evidence. Like truth.

But it’s not. It can’t be.

I stare at the signature, my vision narrowing. My name, in my own hand, staring back like it belongs to someone else. Like proof I never meant to give.

“I didn’t sign this.” My voice is faint. Thin. Like it’s being pulled from far away.

Mercer doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.

“I didn’t,” I say again, more forceful this time, but my fingers are curled tight around the edge of the page like I could crumple it, erase it, make it go away.

But it doesn’t go away.

It stays.

Three days ago.

My name.

My handwriting.

No.

It’s a trick. A forgery. It has to be. Someone else signed it. Someone copied it. Someone—

But why would they?

Why go to all this trouble?

My stomach coils tight.

I let the page go like it’s burned me. “This means nothing,” I say. “A piece of paper doesn’t change what I know.”

Mercer exhales, quiet. Steady. “And what is it you know, Lucy?”

I glare at him. “That I was married. That Daniel existed.”

He nods once, like he’s logging it. Like he’s heard it before.

I hate him.

“I want proof,” I say, my voice stronger now, cutting through the rising panic. “I want real proof.”

Mercer pauses.

Then he reaches into the folder again. Pulls out a thin, sealed envelope. Slides it toward me.

I don’t move.

“What is this?”

“Open it.”

The envelope sits there. Ordinary. Harmless.

But it isn’t.

My fingers tremble as I reach for it. I tear it open, pull out a single photograph.

I turn it over.

And I freeze.

It’s me.

Standing outside my apartment building.

Alone.

My pulse spikes, hammering in my chest.

I grip the photo tighter, eyes scanning the image.

The coat I’m wearing—the dark green one with the missing button. The bag over my shoulder—Daniel’s gift. The way I’m standing, just turned, off-balance.

It’s me.

But there’s no one beside me.

No shadow of another person.

No hint of Daniel.

Just me.

I shake my head. “This—this doesn’t mean anything.”

Mercer says nothing.

“It’s just one picture,” I say. “He could’ve been inside. Or out of frame. Or—”

I stop.

Because I hear the way I sound.

Like I’m scrambling. Like I’m reaching for something that isn’t there.

Mercer doesn’t have to say a word. I already feel it. The weight of the moment. The silence pressing in.

My breath stutters. I drop the photo like it burns.

Daniel existed.

But the photograph says otherwise.

The room feels too small. The air too thick.

I can’t look at the photo again.

I won’t.

Daniel isn’t in it.

And if he’s not there—

Then where is he?

I shake my head hard. “This is a trick,” I say. “You edited it. You faked it. Or—or it’s from before we met. Or after—”

But I know when it was taken.

That’s our building. The one we lived in.

Except—

There’s no car in the lot.

No lights in the windows.

No sign of him.

My stomach twists violently. I try to bury the thought, but it’s already rooting itself in my chest.

I was alone.

No.

No, that’s what Mercer wants me to think. That I was always alone. That Daniel was never real. That I invented it.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t.

I know him. I remember him. I remember our life. I remember—

I remember killing him.

Don’t I?

My breath leaves in a ragged exhale. My hands shake.

Mercer still hasn’t spoken. He doesn’t need to.

He’s waiting.

Waiting for the cracks to deepen.

Waiting for the doubt to win.

And it’s already there.

It’s already in me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. The photo is burned behind my eyelids. The absence of Daniel. The way I stood, so alone, like I wasn’t missing anything.

I reach for his face, for the image of it.

But it won’t come.

I try harder.

I know how he felt. His warmth. His voice. His scent.

But the specifics—

They’re gone.

His eyes. His mouth. His smile.

Gone.

Like he never existed.

Like he was never there.

A cold shiver moves down my spine.

Mercer shifts slightly. I feel it more than I see it.

Still silent.

Still watching.

Still waiting.

The doubt is louder than anything now.

I stare at the ceiling, fists clenched in the sheets, trying to hold onto something, anything, before the last of it slips away.

Daniel was real.

I know he was real.

But if that’s true…

Where is he?

Where is the proof?

Where is the truth?

My breath shudders out of me, weak and uneven.

Mercer exhales.

Soft. Measured.

Like he’s already won.

But I don’t look at him.

I just close my eyes.

And try to remember.

3

THE ROOM WITH NO HISTORY

I need to think. I need to be alone. I need proof.

I repeat it in my head like a mantra as I push through the door to my room, my pulse too fast, my hands still trembling.

Mercer is lying. He has to be.

Daniel existed. I know that. I know that.

But the file. The photo. My signature.

My stomach twists. I rub my arms, trying to chase away the cold creeping under my skin. The tremor in my fingers won’t stop.

I step further in, pressing my back against the door, taking in the space like I’m seeing it for the first time.

White walls. A bed. A nightstand. A chair. A single window—thick glass, locked tight.

Nothing personal. No clutter. No evidence that anyone has ever lived in this room.

A dull ache blooms behind my eyes. I press my fingers to my temples and breathe through it. My head’s been pounding since Mercer left me in that too-bright room, since he started slicing holes in my memories and waiting for me to fall through them.

But I won’t let him win.

If he’s lying—if they’re all lying—there’ll be something. A mistake. A seam in the story. A detail they couldn’t fake.

Something real.

I push off the door and move to the bed. The sheets are crisp, perfectly tucked. I run a hand across them.

Cool. Smooth.

Unused.

A sharp unease coils in my gut.

I slept here last night. Didn’t I?

I try to picture it—tangled sheets, a restless night, waking up with exhaustion soaked into my bones. But the memory feels thin. Fragile. Like it belongs to someone else.

I sit on the edge of the bed, shifting my weight, testing it. The mattress barely gives beneath me. No creases. No indentations. Just flat, untouched fabric.

I glance at the pillow. Same thing. No wrinkles. No hairs. No sign of a head ever resting there.

Like no one’s ever laid here at all.

My chest tightens.

I move to the nightstand, running my fingers over the surface. No smudges. No dust. The chair beside it is perfectly aligned with the floor tiles, legs flush against the base. I slide it out, crouch, check for scuff marks underneath.

Nothing.

I straighten and stare at the chair, the nightstand, the pristine bed.

The room feels wrong.

Not just sterile. Not just cold.

Fabricated.

Like a set. Like a space made to look used, not to be used.

A space without history.

A chill scrapes down my spine. I fold my arms tightly across my chest.

It’s just a hospital room.

Just a hospital.

But then why does it feel like I wasn’t here yesterday?

Why does it feel like I was placed here?

I swallow hard, trying to force the thought down.

I’m overthinking. My head’s still fogged from whatever they gave me. My body’s still reeling from Mercer, from that file, from those lies.

I just need to breathe.

I close my eyes. Inhale slowly.

The air smells sharp. Chemical. Antiseptic, with something colder underneath—metallic, like the inside of a freezer.

I try to ignore it.

Instead, I focus on the walls.

Too smooth. I trace my fingertips along the surface, searching for flaws—a scratch, a dent, anything that proves this place has been lived in.

Nothing.

The paint is pristine, unblemished, like it was applied yesterday.

I crouch in the far corner, inspecting the baseboards. Still nothing. No faded outlines where furniture once sat. No rubbed edges. No marks.

I stand again, heart pressing hard against my ribs.

Hospitals cycle through patients constantly. There should be signs of that. Worn paint. A nicked nightstand. Chair legs scraped from daily use.

But there’s nothing.

No wear. No history.

No one’s stayed here before me.

This room isn’t just clean—it’s untouched.

A fresh ripple of unease rises beneath my skin.

I turn back to the bed and yank the sheets loose, tugging hard. The corners barely budge. The fabric smells faintly of detergent—but not like used sheets do. There’s no residual warmth. No human presence in the fibers.

It’s too clean.

Too staged.

Like a showroom.

I swallow hard and shake my head. I’m spiraling. That’s all this is.

It’s just a hospital room. They bleach everything. They swap linens between patients. It makes sense.

And yet—

My hands won’t stop shaking.

I press them into my sides, trying to still them. But it’s like my body already knows something my brain won’t admit.

This place isn’t right.

I move to the window, pressing my fingertips against the thick pane. The glass is ice cold. Unyielding.

Outside, the sky hangs heavy—flat gray, packed with clouds. The view is barren: an empty courtyard, a stretch of pavement, a matching wing of the hospital across the way.

No people. No motion.

No signs of life.

I exhale slowly, turning back toward the room, studying it again like a puzzle I haven’t solved yet.

Something is wrong.

Something’s missing.

And then it hits me.

The air.

I don’t feel it moving.

No draft. No hum. No shift in temperature. Just static coldness, pressing evenly from every side.

My eyes snap upward.

I scan the ceiling. The corners. The walls.

No vents.

No ducts. No return grilles. No AC unit humming behind the plaster.

Nothing.

The realization slams into me like a punch.

Where is the air coming from?

I go still.

The question settles in my chest, heavy and precise, rooting deep.

Where is the air coming from?

I turn in a slow circle, scanning again. Ceiling. Walls. Floor.

Still nothing.

No vents. No grates. No subtle vibrations of airflow behind the drywall.

I hold out my hand, palm up, waiting to feel something—anything. A whisper of movement. A brush of conditioned air. The familiar shift that only registers when you stop to notice it.

But there’s nothing.

No breeze. No pulse.

Just stillness.

My breath speeds up. My body reacts before my thoughts catch up.

This isn’t right.

This isn’t normal.

I move to the door and press my palm flat against it. It’s cool and featureless. I crouch, laying my hand along the seam at the floor.

No draft. No seep of hallway air bleeding through the crack.

Just sealed silence.

I straighten slowly, my throat tight.

Okay. Maybe the vents are hidden. Maybe there’s some central system, concealed behind walls or under the floor.

Some facilities do that.

Some.

But even then, there’s something. Some flicker of change in the air. A shift. A sound.

I feel none of it.

I cross the room again and rest my hand on the nightstand.

Still no warmth. No dust. No trace of time.

This room doesn’t feel clean.

It feels arranged.

Like it was waiting for me.

A cold tremor ripples through my chest.

I rub my arms hard, trying to shake it off.

I just need to calm down.

I just need to think.

I lower myself onto the edge of the bed, fingers curling into the stiff sheet. The fabric is cool. Crisp. Unused.

I stare at the ceiling. The chair. The flawless walls.

Nothing is technically wrong.

And yet—

My skin hums with warning.

My body knows before my mind does.

Something in this room isn’t real.

I inhale shakily, pressing my hands to my knees.

I need to stop spiraling. I need to focus.

I need to—

Something moves.

A flicker in the corner of my vision.

My head snaps up.

I freeze.

The mirror.

It hangs on the far wall, perfectly centered, reflecting the sterile emptiness behind me—bed, chair, nightstand. Me.

At first, everything looks normal.

But I saw something.

Didn’t I?

My pulse pounds against my ribs as I stare into the glass, waiting.

Nothing.

I exhale, trying to shake the tension from my shoulders. I’m just on edge. The room feels wrong and my brain is scanning for proof. Inventing shadows. Seeing things that aren’t there.

I start to turn away—

And my reflection lags.

Barely.

A half-second. A fraction.

But enough.

I go still.

My breath locks in my chest.

I turn my head slowly to the right.

The woman in the mirror follows.

But just a little too late.

A sharp chill rolls across my skin.

I raise my right hand. So does she.

I drop it.

A beat behind.

Not obvious. Not dramatic.

But off.

Wrong.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears, steady and brutal.

I stare hard at my reflection—at the slight tension in my shoulders, the tremble in my fingers gripping my thighs. I move again, this time lifting my left hand. Slower.

The reflection follows.

But not immediately.

There’s a delay.

A delay.

Cold nausea crashes through me.

I blink, hard. Shake my head. Try to breathe.

“The light in here is weird,” I whisper. “That’s all.”

The overhead fluorescents buzz faintly—stark, clinical. Maybe they’re casting some kind of optical delay. A double image. An aftereffect.

That’s all.

I rub my hands along my arms, trying to calm the goosebumps rising there.

I look again.

I shift forward in my seat, lean in just slightly.

So does my reflection.

Perfectly.

Like nothing was ever wrong.

Like nothing happened at all.

I swallow, my throat tight. My skin is crawling.

I turn away.

Force myself to face the rest of the room.

Force myself to breathe.

But I don’t look back at the mirror.

Not yet.

My pulse is still racing. My hands still tremble with leftover adrenaline. My skin still feels too tight.

It was nothing.

A trick of the light. A moment of fatigue. My perception lagging behind reality. I’m still coming down from the drugs. That’s all it was.

But I need to be sure.

I exhale slowly. Then I look.

My reflection stares back.

Still.

Normal.

I lift my right hand. Move it at a steady pace.

She mirrors me. Exactly.

I drop it.

No delay.

No lag.

I do it again—faster, then slower, then somewhere in between.

Each time, the reflection keeps pace, mimicking every breath, every tilt, every motion.

My stomach twists.

I saw it lag. I know I did.

Didn’t I?

A sharp pulse of doubt flares behind my eyes. Mercer’s voice echoes through the cracks—soft, relentless. False memories are common, Lucy. The mind fills in gaps.

No.

No. That wasn’t a gap. That was real.

I press my fingers to my temples, trying to block it out. I won’t let him get into my head.

I look at the mirror again. Force myself to meet my own gaze.

My reflection stares back.

Still.

Watching.

I turn away.

But it takes effort this time.

Like some part of me is scared to turn my back on the glass.

Like I won’t know what’s there if I look again.

I inhale through my nose. Exhale through my mouth.

The room is silent.

I flex my fingers against my thighs, trying to shake the unease still clinging to me.

Something feels different.

I don’t know what.

I scan the space again, heart thudding, brain scrambling for the piece that’s out of place—

The bed.

My stomach knots.

The bed is wrong.

It’s closer to the window now.

No—it was always there.

Wasn’t it?

I think it was.

I think—

I don’t know.

I clench my fists, nails digging into my palms.

I’m overreacting. My mind’s playing tricks on me. I need rest. I need sleep.

That’s what Mercer would say.

I rise from the bed, cross the room, and stop in front of the mirror.

My hand lifts before I can talk myself out of it.

I press my palm to the surface.

It’s freezing.

Not just cold.

Wrong.

Like ice. Like touching something that isn’t really solid. Like the temperature doesn’t belong here.

I yank my hand back, rub my fingertips against my palm, trying to get the feeling out of my skin.

I tell myself I won’t look at the mirror again.

But I don’t move.

I take three slow steps back.

The air feels heavier now, thicker, as if something is watching.

I glance toward the chair. The door. The bed. The walls.

Everything is exactly as it was.

But the feeling won’t leave.

I hesitate.

Then move quickly—yank the chair across the floor and shove it up against the wall beneath the mirror.

Just in case.

The motion is instinct. No logic. Just something in me responding to a threat I can’t name.

I exhale, slow and shaky.

My reflection still stares from the glass.

Still. Silent.

Watching.

I don’t look at it again.

I don’t trust what I’ll see next time.

4

THE FIRST NOTE

I wake like someone yanked me from sleep by the spine. No scream. No thrash. Just a jolt of consciousness, cold and precise. Like my body remembers something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet.

The silence is wrong.

Not just quiet—dead.

Hospitals hum. Machines click. Doors squeak. Nurses whisper. But this room? It breathes like a tomb. Still and waiting.

I hold my breath and listen. Nothing. Not even the tick of a clock.

The air tastes like bleach scraped over something older. Like sterilized regret. A chemical sting clings to the back of my throat.

I sit up slowly. The mattress groans beneath me. Every sound feels magnified.

The room is dark, shaped by the faint yellow glow leaking under the door. Everything looks the same as last night—except it doesn’t. The chair seems closer to the window. The mirror’s angle is off by a hair. The nightstand drawer isn’t fully shut.

Had it always been like that?

I scan the corners. Empty. Still. But my skin prickles like something’s watching.

No. Not something. Someone.

I think of the mirror. Of how it twitched last night. A glitch, Mercer said. Optical fatigue. A stress response.

Liar.

I force myself to breathe.

In through my nose. Hold. Out through my mouth.

The sheet sticks to my legs. Sweat? Fear? Both, maybe. The skin beneath my arms feels clammy, and my pulse kicks up again for no reason I can name.

I shift slightly—and my fingers brush something underneath the pillow.

Paper.

My chest tightens. My breath catches.

I reach under, slow and deliberate, and pull out a folded piece of paper. Thick. Worn. The creases soft like it’s been hidden and handled again and again.

I already know what it is.

Still, I open it.

This isn’t your first time here. Get out before they reset you again.

My heartbeat turns jagged.

I read the words again, hoping they might shift. Morph into something rational. Something less terrifying.

They don’t.

It’s my handwriting.

I know every loop, every slash. The ink skips in the exact spot where I always lift my pen too fast.

This is mine.

But I don’t remember writing it.

I stare at it, willing the context to come.

Nothing.

My thoughts scramble:

Did I write this yesterday? Before I was admitted? Before I forgot?

Before they made me forget?

The word reset slices through my thoughts like glass.

I rise, unsteady, and pad barefoot across the tile. Cold seeps into my bones.

I check the door.

Still locked. No sound on the other side.

I knock once.

Nothing.

I knock again, a little harder.

Still nothing.

The walls seem to absorb the sound.

The mirror pulls me next.

I stand in front of it.

My reflection looks back.

Same dark eyes. Same split lip. Same sleep-creased shirt.

But the expression is wrong.

It looks calm.

Too calm.

Like it knows something I don’t.

I blink. It blinks with me. Perfectly in sync.

Still, I step back. I don’t trust it.

I check the room.

Chair. Nightstand. Vents. Corners. All unchanged.

Except the drawer is open by an inch.

I pull it open. Empty.

Why does it feel like something used to be there?

Not just empty—vacant.

I lower to my knees, running my hands under the bed frame, tapping along the underside of the mattress.

Nothing. But I feel watched again. Like something in the room is waiting for me to miss it.

The walls are bare, but I imagine there used to be something on them—a painting, maybe. A clock. My memory offers vague shapes that vanish when I try to focus.

I return to the bed and sit heavily.

The note flutters in my hand like it wants to be believed.

I flip it over.

Nothing.

No date. No second message. Just the quiet terror of white space.

This is a warning. And it came from me.

Why don’t I remember leaving it?

My fingers tighten around the edge. I bring it up to the light.

The ink is faded slightly on one side, smudged just enough to suggest sweat. Or tears.

I think of Mercer.

If I show him this, he’ll smile. Clinical. Soft.

“Disassociative scripting,” he’ll say. “Patients externalize internal conflict.”

He’ll take it. He’ll file it away. Lock it in some drawer I’ll never see again.

And worse?

I might forget it ever existed.

The idea sends a shiver down my spine.

I clutch the note tighter.

I can’t lose this.

I slide it back under the pillow. Folded the exact same way.

The crease fits like a scar.

My hand lingers. A strange ache in my fingers. Like I’ve done this before.

Maybe I have.

Maybe this is the fifth time. Or the fiftieth.

Maybe there’s a cycle I can’t see, only feel. Like standing in the dark on a train that never stops.

I lie down slowly. Every muscle tense.

The note is a thin pressure under my head.

My thoughts spin:

Maybe this is a test.

Maybe they want to see what I’ll do.

Maybe someone left this to help me.

Or maybe I’m still in the loop.

Maybe I never left it.

I look at the ceiling. White, speckled tile. Like every ceiling in every room. But there’s a crack in the plaster now that I don’t remember. A hairline fracture spidering across like it’s been growing slowly, watching me.

I blink. The crack is gone.

The silence shifts. I hear a low hum, distant and fleeting—like fluorescent lighting just out of sight. Then nothing again.

I close my eyes.

This isn’t your first time here.

Get out before they reset you again.

I whisper, just barely: “Tomorrow. If it’s still there tomorrow, then I’ll know I’m not imagining things.”

If it’s gone, I won’t even know to miss it.

Or maybe I’ll find a new note.

A different version.

Maybe this isn’t the first one. Maybe there were more. Maybe there are still others, hidden in places I’ve forgotten.

I scan the room again. The ceiling. The cracks. The mirror.

Still watching.

I slide my hand under the pillow again, not to check—just to feel it.

It’s still there.

I focus on that.

I picture waking up again, tomorrow. I picture the same scene, the same air, the same silence.

And the same note.

How many times have I done this?

I don’t move.

The pillowcase feels cold against my cheek.

Too smooth.

Too sterile.

The note rests beneath it like a buried truth.

I listen to the silence.

Not just quiet now.

Listening back.

Holding its breath with me.

Waiting to see what I do next.

5

JONAH KNOWS

The cafeteria hums with the low murmur of voices, but I don’t hear conversations. Just noise. Just the vague, empty sound of people existing.

The fluorescent lights overhead cast everything in a dull, sterile glow. A handful of patients sit at plastic tables, eating food that smells like cardboard, staring at nothing. I don’t know what I expected—shouting? Crying? Someone throwing a chair? Instead, it feels like a waiting room no one ever leaves.

It’s my first time outside my room.

I should feel relieved, but I don’t. If anything, my skin feels tighter, stretched too thin over my bones.

The note is still folded inside my pillowcase, a secret pressed between fabric, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since last night.

This isn’t your first time here. Get out before they reset you again.

My handwriting. My words. A warning I don’t remember writing.

I haven’t decided what to do with that yet.

But I do know one thing—I need to stay sharp. I need to pay attention. Because if Mercer is lying, if this place is lying, then there will be something. A mistake. An inconsistency.

Something real.

I grip the edge of my tray and scan the room, hyper-aware of everything. The way the nurses glance up every so often, their eyes flicking between patients like they’re making silent calculations. The way the doors to the hallway remain locked, even though no one is trying to leave.

The way I feel like I’m being watched.

I shake the thought off and lower my gaze to my food. Oatmeal. Plain toast. A small carton of milk. Bland. Harmless. I force myself to pick up the spoon, to move like I belong here, like I’m not sitting on a powder keg of uncertainty and paranoia.

I don’t even get one bite in before someone sits across from me.

I don’t hear them approach. One second, I’m alone. The next, there’s a tray hitting the table, a plastic chair scraping against the tile.

I go still.

Slowly, I lift my eyes.

A man.

Mid-thirties, maybe. Sharp, tired features. Dark hair cut close to the scalp. The kind of face that would blend into a crowd—except for his eyes.

They’re locked onto me. Calm. Amused. Like he’s in on some joke I haven’t figured out yet.

I grip my spoon tighter. “Can I help you?”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away. And then, like he’s testing the words, he says—

“Lucy.”

The way he says it makes my stomach twist. Not like he’s reading my name off a chart. Not like he just overheard someone say it.

Like he knows me.

Like we’ve had this conversation before.

I exhale slowly, setting my spoon down. My pulse is steady, but there’s something coiling underneath, something cold and sharp.

I meet his gaze. “Have we met before?”

He smirks. Just slightly. “You always ask me that.”

A chill rakes down my spine.

I don’t look away. Neither does he.

And suddenly, I’m sure of two things.

One: I don’t know this man.

I don’t move.

Neither does he.

For a few seconds, we just sit there, the rest of the cafeteria blurring into the background. The hum of voices, the clatter of trays, the scrape of chairs against tile—it all fades beneath the sharp weight of his gaze.

I study him carefully.

He looks… ordinary. That’s the unsettling part. Just another patient in loose gray sweats, dark hair buzzed short, stubble lining his jaw. If I passed him in the hall, I wouldn’t look twice.

But his eyes—

They hold something I can’t name. Amusement. Curiosity. Recognition.

I should be the one in control here. I don’t know him. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m the one being observed.

Finally, I force myself to speak. “Who are you?”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he was expecting that. “Jonah.”

Nothing else. No last name. No explanation.

I don’t react. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

Instead, I lean forward slightly. “You know me.” It’s not a question.

Jonah tilts his head, as if considering. “Not yet. But I will.”

A slow, prickling unease settles over my skin.

He’s messing with me. Trying to get a reaction.

I don’t take the bait.

Instead, I say, “You said I always ask you that.” My voice is steady, but my fingers tighten under the table. “Why?”

Jonah exhales a quiet laugh, shaking his head like I just did something funny. “Because you do.”

I wait for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.

I shift in my seat, my mind running too fast, grasping for something solid.

He could have overheard my name. That’s easy enough. Maybe he thinks we’ve met before. Maybe he’s just another patient playing mind games.

But then why does it feel like he’s telling the truth?

A flicker of something moves behind his gaze. Like he’s waiting for me to catch up.

A test.

My stomach knots.

“I don’t remember you,” I say carefully.

Jonah smirks. “That’s what you said last time too.”

A slow pulse of dread creeps up my spine.

I don’t look away.

Neither does he.

And for the first time since waking up in this place, I wonder—

If Mercer isn’t the only one lying to me.

I exhale slowly. Keep my expression neutral. But something uneasy slithers through me, winding around my ribs.

I don’t know Jonah.

I shouldn’t know Jonah.

But he talks like this isn’t the first time we’ve sat across from each other. Like this isn’t new for him.

I press my palms flat against the table. “If we’ve met before, tell me something.”

Jonah cocks his head slightly. “Like what?”

I hesitate. There’s too much to ask, too many gaps in my memory that he could easily twist into whatever game he’s playing. I settle on something simple.

“What’s my middle name?”

Jonah lets out a quiet breath—almost like a laugh—but there’s something else underneath it. Something tired.

“You always start with that,” he says.

A cold ripple of unease slides through me.

He doesn’t answer the question. He just knows I would ask it.

I grit my teeth. “And you always avoid answering?”

Jonah leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, hands clasped loosely. “If I tell you too much, they’ll make you forget again.”

The words hit me like a slow punch to the ribs.

I stare at him, my breath locked in my throat.

They’ll make me forget again.

I don’t know what to say to that.

Because that’s exactly what the note under my pillow warned me about.

Jonah watches my reaction carefully. I force my expression blank, but my hands feel ice-cold against the table.

I should call him out. Demand proof. Tell him he sounds insane.

But instead, my mind spirals.

What if he’s telling the truth?

What if I have been here before?

What if Mercer is lying?

My fingers curl slightly against the table, a grounding motion. I take a slow breath. “That’s a convenient excuse,” I say, voice steady. “If you don’t tell me anything, you never have to prove you’re right.”

Jonah tilts his head, studying me. “It’s not about proving anything.”

I frown.

He leans in slightly, lowering his voice. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Something sharp and cold threads through my stomach.

I don’t want to give him anything. I don’t want to agree with him.

But I do feel something.

I don’t move. “Feel what?”

Jonah’s gaze flickers over me, like he’s reading something in the way I’m sitting, the way my hands are positioned, the way I keep my expression flat but my shoulders tense.

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then, finally—

“This isn’t your first time in this place, Lucy,” he says quietly. “It’s just your first time remembering.”

The words slam into me.

I don’t breathe.

Jonah sits back, like he’s already said too much.

But it’s too late.

Because the thought has already taken root.

And I can’t shake it loose.

I stare at him.

His words sit heavy in the air between us, impossible to ignore.

This isn’t your first time in this place. It’s just your first time remembering.

Something inside me coils tight. A slow, twisting pressure in my ribs.

I don’t like this.

I don’t like the way he talks in circles, how he never really says anything but somehow manages to get under my skin anyway.

I press my hands against the cool surface of the table. “If you know something, just say it.”

Jonah smirks, but there’s something else beneath it. A flicker of—what? Amusement? Pity?

“You always say that, too.”

My breath catches. A quiet, sharp pulse of dread moves through me.

I shake it off. I have to shake it off.

This is a trick. It has to be.

I force my expression blank, locking my jaw. “You’re messing with me.”

Jonah shrugs. “Or maybe I’m trying to help you.”

I let out a slow breath, gripping the edge of the table to keep my hands steady. “Then help me,” I say. “Tell me something real.”

Jonah watches me for a long moment.

Then—softer, quieter—

“You were here before.”

My stomach clenches.

“No,” I say immediately, shaking my head. “That’s not—” I stop myself, inhaling sharply, steadying my voice. “I just got here.”

Jonah doesn’t argue. He just leans back in his chair, tipping it onto two legs, watching me with an unreadable expression.

“Then why does it feel familiar?” he asks.

My skin prickles.

It doesn’t.

It doesn’t.

I open my mouth, ready to tell him he’s wrong—but the words stick, catching at the back of my throat.

Because for just a second—just a single second—I know what he means.

I think about the way the room felt too clean when I woke up. The way the bed didn’t look slept in. The way I felt like I was placed here rather than admitted.

And the note.

This isn’t your first time here. Get out before they reset you again.

I push the thought away before it can take root.

I force myself to scoff, to lean back in my own chair, mirroring his casual posture. “So, what? You’re saying I’ve been here before, but I just forgot?”

Jonah tilts his head, still studying me. “I’m saying maybe you’re remembering now.”

A cold chill skates down my spine.

I hate that he won’t give me straight answers. That he just throws these half-truths at me and lets me drown in them.

I grit my teeth, forcing myself to meet his gaze. “If I was here before, prove it.”

Jonah watches me carefully. His fingers drum against the tabletop, slow and deliberate. Then—

“I don’t have to.”

My pulse jumps. “Because?”

His smirk fades just slightly. His voice is steady, calm.

“Because you already know I’m right.”

Something inside me fractures.

Just a little.

Just enough.

I should walk away.

I should push back my chair, dump my untouched tray in the trash, and put as much distance between myself and Jonah as possible.

But I don’t.

Because despite everything—despite his smug little smirk, despite his vague half-answers, despite the fact that I know he’s playing a game—I can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t lying.

Not entirely.

The note under my pillow.

The way Mercer talks to me like he’s waiting for me to break.

The creeping sense that I’m missing something, that this place is wrapping around me like a second skin, molding itself to me in a way that feels too familiar.

I sit there, gripping the edge of the table, willing my pulse to slow.

Jonah watches me, unreadable.

I swallow. “Let’s say, for a second, that I believe you.” My voice is tight, controlled. “That I’ve been here before. That I’ve forgotten.”

Jonah doesn’t react, just keeps watching me, like he already knows where this is going.

I lean in slightly. “How do I stop it from happening again?”

Something changes in his expression. A flicker of hesitation.

Then he exhales sharply, shaking his head. “You always ask that too.”

The words send a sharp pulse of unease through me.

I grip the table tighter. “And what do you always say?”

Jonah looks away. Just briefly.

Then, after a pause, he leans in, lowering his voice just enough that I have to lean in too.

“You need to find Room 513.”

The words slam into me like a fist to the ribs.

I go still.

My breath catches.

Room 513.

The second he says it, something inside me tightens, a sharp pull in the back of my mind, like a half-formed memory trying to claw its way forward.

I know that number.

Not well. Not strongly. But something about it feels like an echo, like a note lingering too long in the air after a song has ended.

Jonah sees my reaction. His jaw clenches slightly. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought.”

I shake my head, trying to clear it. “What’s in Room 513?”

Jonah leans back. “Forget I said anything.”

My pulse slams against my ribs.

“No,” I snap. “You don’t get to drop something like that and then—”

He looks away again, scanning the room. His entire demeanor has shifted—he’s not smirking anymore. Not teasing.

He looks worried.

And that scares me more than anything else.

Before I can press him further, a voice calls across the cafeteria.

“Jonah Vale.”

We both turn.

Two orderlies stand by the entrance. One of them gestures for him to come.

Jonah exhales slowly. He turns back to me, and in that brief moment, his eyes are serious.

“Find it, Lucy.” His voice is lower this time. Urgent. “Before they erase me again.”

Then he stands, grabs his tray, and walks toward the orderlies.

I sit frozen, my fingers digging into my thighs.

Erase him again.

I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until Jonah disappears through the door.

Jonah doesn’t look back.

He walks toward the orderlies without hesitation, without resistance, without a single glance in my direction.

Like this is normal.

Like this has happened before.

Maybe it has.

I don’t move. I just watch as the two men flank him, one slightly ahead, the other behind. Not aggressive. Not forceful. Just routine.

That’s what unsettles me the most.

They don’t treat him like a risk.

They treat him like something temporary.

Like something they can take away and put back whenever they want.

My fingers curl into my lap, nails pressing into my palms. A sick, twisting feeling settles in my stomach, thick and heavy.

I want to call out to him, demand answers, demand that he finish whatever the hell he started to say—

But I don’t.

Because I already know it won’t matter.

I’ll see him again, won’t I?

That’s how this works.

Isn’t it?

Jonah reaches the door. One of the orderlies presses a keycard to the scanner, and a quiet beep sounds through the cafeteria.

Jonah steps through.

The door closes behind him.

I swallow hard, my throat dry.

The room feels colder now, emptier, like something important has just been removed, like a piece of the puzzle has been ripped away before I had the chance to see where it fit.

I stare at the door, my hands tightening into fists beneath the table.

I don’t know what I expected.

For him to struggle? To fight? To turn back at the last second and tell me something that changes everything?

But there was no fight.

No struggle.

Just quiet acceptance.

Like he knew this was coming.

Like he knew he wouldn’t be here tomorrow.

I sit there long after Jonah is gone.

The cafeteria moves around me—patients shuffling past with their trays, orderlies watching from the walls, the distant clatter of silverware against plastic.

Everything continues like nothing happened.

Like he was never here at all.

A slow, creeping unease coils in my stomach.

I glance at the empty space across from me, where Jonah sat just moments ago.

His chair is still pulled out slightly, but it already feels… untouched.

Like he was never really part of this place.

Like he was a temporary flicker of movement in a world that will erase him the second I look away.

A ridiculous thought.

But so was the note under my pillow.

Find it, Lucy. Before they erase me again.

I don’t move.

I don’t touch my food.

I just sit there, replaying his words in my head, over and over, until they don’t sound like words anymore—just a warning pressing against the inside of my skull.

I force myself to breathe.

Jonah was here.

I talked to him.

I know that.

But still—

A cold thought creeps in, slow and suffocating.

Tomorrow, what if no one remembers him?

The idea wraps around my ribs, squeezing tight.

I grip the edge of the table, grounding myself in something real, something solid.

Jonah Vale.

That’s his name.

I won’t forget it.

I won’t let them take him away from me.

I exhale slowly.

But deep down, I already know.

Tomorrow, he’ll be gone.

6

AGAIN

I wake up slow.

Not the kind of slow where you stretch and blink against the morning light, easing into the day with the warmth of leftover dreams.

No.

This is something heavier. A dragging, unnatural kind of slow.

Like I’m surfacing from somewhere deep.

Like my brain reset overnight.

My eyelids feel thick. My limbs are heavy, wrapped in a dull, lingering exhaustion. My head is clouded, thoughts sluggish—like I was drugged again. But I wasn’t.

At least, I don’t think I was.

I try to swallow. My throat is dry. My body stiff. My skin too tight, stretched over me like it belongs to someone else.

I blink against the dim light in the room, vision adjusting in slow, disjointed frames.

Something feels wrong.

I don’t know what, exactly.

Just a quiet wrongness curling at the base of my spine, pressing into my ribs.

I shift against the sheets and then—

The note.

My fingers twitch.

I slip my hand under the pillow, the paper crinkling softly beneath my touch.

It’s still there.

The breath I didn’t realize I was holding shudders out of me.

Proof.

I slide my fingers along the edge of the note, grounding myself in its texture. It’s real. I didn’t imagine it.

I force my sluggish mind to catch up.

Yesterday.

Jonah.

The cafeteria. His words. The way he looked at me like he knew me. Like he was waiting for me to remember something I should’ve known.

Find Room 513 before they erase me again.

I press my fingers harder against the note.

Jonah.

My stomach knots.

Something happened yesterday. Something important. But my mind is coated in a thick fog, like I’m waking up inside myself instead of as myself.

I press my palm against my forehead, trying to chase the feeling away.

I need to focus.

I need to remember.

I exhale slowly and push myself upright. My body protests—sluggish and heavy—but I force it to move.

The room looks the same.

But it doesn’t feel the same.

Like something is slightly off. A degree or two removed from how I left it.

I can’t place it.

It’s probably nothing.

But the sinking feeling in my gut tells me it’s not.

I glance toward the mirror across the room—but I don’t look at my reflection.

Not yet.

Instead, I sit there a moment longer, gripping the sheets, willing my pulse to slow.

I need to get up. I need to move.

Because today—

Today, something is different.

And I need to figure out what.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, pressing my feet to the cold floor. The chill jolts through me, cutting through the fog.

I rub my face, trying to shake the heaviness clinging to my body. My thoughts still feel thick, wrapped in gauze, like I’ve lost time I didn’t know was missing.

I reach under my pillow again, fingertips brushing the note just to make sure it’s still there.

It is.

That means yesterday happened.

Jonah.

Room 513.

Before they erase me again.

I swallow hard and push myself to stand.

The room tilts slightly before settling. My muscles ache, like I’ve been lying in the same position for too long. My throat still dry. My head still heavy.

I move anyway.

The routine helps. Bathroom. Change into the dull gray sweats folded on the chair. Run a hand through my hair, fingers catching on tangles.

When I open the door, the hallway is already humming with early morning movement.

Patients shuffle past, dressed like me—loose sweats, tired eyes, faces turned downward. Nurses glide between rooms, voices clipped and efficient.

The hospital runs like a machine.

I step out into the hallway, merging with the quiet tide of bodies moving toward the cafeteria.

It all feels… normal.

But that wrongness is still there.

Pressing just beneath the surface.

I push the feeling down and keep walking.

Then—

A loud clatter echoes through the hallway.

Metal on tile.

Sharp. Sudden.

I freeze.

A breakfast tray lies overturned on the floor, plastic dishes skidding in different directions. A metal spoon spins in a slow, deliberate circle before settling with a soft, final clink.

The nurse who dropped it mutters a sharp curse under her breath.

Another nurse sighs, already bending down to help. “You’re always so clumsy.”

The first nurse huffs. “I swear this tray hates me.”

I feel it then—

A slow, creeping unease crawling up my spine.

The same noise.

The same words.

The same exact moment.

I swallow hard. My pulse beats steady and strong against my ribs, but something inside me stirs, unsettled.

It’s just a coincidence.

That’s all.

But I don’t move.

I just stand there, staring at the mess on the floor.

Because I’ve seen this before.

Yesterday.

Same tray. Same nurse. Same reaction.

I press my nails into my palm, trying to ground myself.

No one else reacts.

No one else notices.

The conversation moves on. The two nurses finish cleaning up. The hallway shifts back into its usual rhythm.

But I don’t move.

Not right away.

Because for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, I feel it—

A terrible, sinking certainty curling in my chest.

I’ve already lived this day before.

My eyes stay locked on the metal tray, the spoon that has stopped spinning, the way the nurse mutters the same words under her breath.

I know this moment.

I saw it yesterday.

Same sharp clatter of metal against tile. Same exasperated sigh from the second nurse. Same exact words.

A crawling sensation spreads across my skin.

I tear my gaze away, scanning the hallway, searching for any sign that someone else noticed—that someone else felt it too.

But no one reacts.

They keep moving, keep talking, keep following the rhythm of the morning like nothing is off.

Like this isn’t the second time it’s happened.

I inhale slowly through my nose, exhale through my mouth.

It’s just a coincidence.

I want to believe that.

But I don’t.

Because it’s not just the tray.

It’s the way my body felt wrong when I woke up. The way my thoughts dragged like they were trying to catch up with me. The way my room seemed too still, like it had been reset.

I press a hand to my stomach, trying to steady the sick, twisting feeling there.

The nurse bends to pick up the mess, sighing again.

“You’re always so clumsy,” the other nurse mutters.

My spine stiffens.

The exact words.

The exact tone.

Like a script.

I swallow hard.

Maybe I misremembered. Maybe I dreamed it, half-awake yesterday morning and my mind is just filling in the blanks.

But that’s not true.

I know that’s not true.

I turn away from the scene, force myself to move. My feet feel unsteady against the tile, my muscles tense.

The cafeteria is ahead. A few more steps and I can sit down, focus, push this feeling down where it can’t reach me.

But before I reach the door, a cold thought sinks into me like a hook.

What else is going to happen again?

I don’t want to know.

But I think I already do.

I force myself to keep walking.

The hallway opens into the cafeteria, the low murmur of voices blending with the faint scrape of plastic trays against tabletops. The smell of overcooked eggs and something vaguely sweet hangs in the air, thick and artificial.

I grab a tray without thinking, moving through the line automatically, but my mind is still tangled in what just happened.

The tray. The nurse. The words.

The same.

Exactly the same.

I grip the tray tighter, my fingers pressing into the plastic.

This isn’t normal.

I scan the cafeteria, looking for Jonah, but his table is empty. His chair is still pulled out slightly—just like it was yesterday.

A fresh wave of unease ripples through me.

I shake it off and focus on something solid. The food in front of me. The tray in my hands. The sound of footsteps moving across the floor.

I need to stay calm.

I need to figure out what’s happening.

I turn away from the food line and—

“Good morning, Lucy.”

I freeze.

Dr. Mercer stands a few feet away, clipboard tucked against his side, his expression as calm and unreadable as ever.

The same way he stood in front of me yesterday.

The same slight incline of his head.

The same polite, practiced tone.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks.

My stomach clenches.

Because I know—I know—what I said to him yesterday.

I told him I was fine. I lied.

And I know exactly what he said in response.

I grip the tray tighter, my pulse quickening.

I need to test this.

If this is the same—if he is the same—then what happens when I change something?

I swallow hard and force my expression neutral. “No,” I say. “I barely slept.”

I watch him carefully.

Wait for his reaction.

Dr. Mercer doesn’t hesitate.

Doesn’t even blink.

“That’s good to hear,” he says smoothly, already glancing at his clipboard. “Your vitals looked stable this morning.”

The words hit me like ice water to the chest.

My grip tightens on the tray, my breath catching in my throat.

I just gave him a completely different answer.

And he responded like I didn’t.

Like he’s following a script.

Like I’m reading from lines I don’t know.

A sharp, pulsing fear spreads through me.

I stare at him, waiting for something—anything—to break the illusion. For him to frown, to ask me to repeat myself, to show any sign that I just said something different from what I was supposed to.

But he doesn’t.

He just nods, tucks his pen into his pocket, and turns away.

I watch him go, my breath shallow, my hands still gripping the tray like it’s the only thing anchoring me to reality.

I say something different.

But he answers the same way.

Like I’m following a script I can’t see.

A slow, creeping terror coils around my ribs.

This isn’t just my memory playing tricks on me.

This is something else.

Something worse.

Something I don’t have a name for.

I don’t remember walking to my table.

One second, I’m standing in the cafeteria, my pulse hammering, Dr. Mercer’s words looping in my head like a broken recording. The next, I’m sitting down, staring at the tray in front of me, my hands still gripping the edges so tightly my knuckles ache.

I need to focus.

I need to ground myself.

I take a slow, measured breath and lift my head, scanning the room.

There’s an easy way to prove I’m not imagining this.

Jonah.

If he’s here, if he’s sitting where he sat yesterday, then maybe—maybe I’m wrong. Maybe my mind is twisting things, filling in gaps with false memories.

But I already know the truth before I even look.

His table is empty.

A dull, sick feeling sinks into my stomach.

I scan the room again, slower this time. I check every face, every slouched figure in gray sweats, every patient with tired eyes and slack expressions.

Nothing.

Jonah is gone.

I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, trying to suppress the unease slithering under my skin.

Maybe they moved him to a different part of the hospital. Maybe he had an episode. Maybe he—

I stop myself.

That’s what they want me to think.

I push my tray aside and stand abruptly. The chair legs scrape against the floor, a sharp sound that makes the nearest patient flinch. I don’t care.

I weave through the cafeteria, searching the corners, the quiet spaces where someone might sit alone.

But he’s not there.

I inhale slowly, steadying myself.

Then I move toward the nurses’ station.

A woman in blue scrubs is flipping through a file, not looking up as I approach. Her name tag reads S. Harper.

“Excuse me,” I say, my voice coming out more tense than I intended.

She finally looks up. “Can I help you?”

I wet my lips. “I’m looking for Jonah. Jonah Vale. I don’t see him here.”

Her brows pull together slightly. “Jonah?”

A flicker of hope rises in my chest. Maybe she knows. Maybe he was transferred. Maybe—

She shakes her head. “I don’t know any Jonah.”

The words hit me like ice water.

I swallow, my throat dry. “That’s not—” I exhale sharply, steadying my voice. “He was here yesterday. We talked. We sat at that table right over there.” I turn, pointing to the empty seat, my pulse thrumming behind my ribs. “Dark hair, mid-thirties, kind of sarcastic. You have to know him.”

She tilts her head slightly, lips pressing into a thin line. “I think you might be mistaken.”

I stare at her.

Mistaken.

Mistaken.

No.

“No, I’m not—” My voice shakes. I take a step back, fingers curling into my palms. “That’s not possible.”

She watches me carefully now.

Assessing.

Calculating.

I’ve seen that look before.

It’s the same way Mercer watches me.

A flicker of something sharp pierces through my panic.

I can’t let them think I’m unraveling.

I force my hands to relax, taking a slow breath through my nose. I shake my head, let out a strained laugh. “You know what? Never mind. I must’ve gotten his name wrong.”

She hesitates, then nods slowly, like she’s making a mental note.

I don’t wait for her to ask more questions. I turn and walk quickly toward the exit, pushing through the double doors before my expression can betray me.

My hands are shaking.

Jonah is gone.

Not transferred. Not discharged.

Erased.

I don’t stop moving.

The second I push through the cafeteria doors, I keep walking, turning down the hallway, past the nurses’ station, past the common room where a television hums softly in the background.

The air feels heavier now, pressing against my skin like static before a storm.

They erased him.

The thought repeats over and over, sinking deeper with every step.

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I know it’s true.

Jonah was here yesterday.

We sat together. He looked at me like he’d done it before. He told me to find Room 513.

And now he’s gone.

I reach my room and shut the door behind me. My breath is shallow, my heart hammering against my ribs.

They took him.

And if they can erase Jonah—

I don’t let myself finish the thought.

I move straight to the bed and yank the pillow up, fingers scrambling underneath. The paper crinkles against my skin, and I grip it hard, pulling it free.

I unfold it with shaking hands.

This isn’t your first time here. Get out before they reset you again.

I press my thumb against the paper, grounding myself in its texture, its weight. It’s real.

It’s the only thing that is.

My eyes scan the words over and over, like they might change, like they might offer something new.

But they don’t.

Jonah knew something.

And now he’s gone.

I clutch the note tighter, my fingers digging into the edges.

What if this isn’t the first time I’ve read it?

What if I’ve done this before?

The thought slams into me, stealing the air from my lungs.

I stumble back against the bed, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me.

How many times has this already happened?

I sit on the edge of the bed, gripping the note so tightly the paper threatens to tear.

Jonah is gone.

Not moved. Not discharged. Not missing.

Erased.

I squeeze my eyes shut. My breath comes in short, uneven bursts. My thoughts feel too loud, slamming into each other like a rush of static, an overlapping storm of voices whispering in the back of my mind.

I read the note again.

This isn’t your first time here. Get out before they reset you again.

I know what the words mean now.

I know what happened to Jonah.

And I know what’s going to happen to me.

I press my fingers against my temples, trying to steady myself, trying to force my brain into order. But the more I think, the worse it gets.

How many times have I woken up here?

How many times have I met Jonah?

How many times has he been erased?

The thought sends a sharp pulse of nausea through me. I swallow hard, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes.

It’s not just about him.

If Jonah was telling the truth, if this isn’t my first time here, then—

What else have they erased?

I force myself to breathe, to slow my pulse, to push the terror down where it can’t swallow me whole.

I need to think. I need to focus.

I fold the note carefully, sliding it back under my pillow.

If I forget, if they reset me again, this is the only thing that might bring me back.

I lie down, staring at the ceiling, my body rigid, my breath too shallow.

I won’t let them erase me.

I won’t let them win.

But deep down, a colder, more terrifying thought lingers.

What if they already have?

7

THE ESCAPE ATTEMPT

I won’t wait to disappear.

Not like Jonah.

Not like the others—whoever they were, whatever they’ve taken from me.

I sit on the edge of my bed, gripping the sheets so tightly my knuckles ache. The note is still tucked beneath my pillow, the paper creased and worn from how many times I’ve unfolded it, reread the same message over and over like it might suddenly change.

It doesn’t.

But it’s proof.

Proof that I was here before. Proof that they’ll come for me next.

I inhale slowly through my nose. My heartbeat has settled into something steady, something controlled—but there’s a tension in my chest, a coiled pressure waiting to snap.

I can’t stay.

I don’t know when the reset happens. Maybe it’s tonight. Maybe it’s in an hour. Maybe it’s already happening, rewiring itself around me as I sit here, waiting.

I press my thumb to the inside of my wrist, grounding myself in the dull thud of my pulse.

Today is different.

Today is mine.

I repeat it twice, then force myself to move.

My body is rigid with exhaustion, my muscles stiff from too many nights of restless sleep, but I push through it. I pull on my sweater. Tie my shoes. Fingers moving quickly. Efficiently.

I study the room one last time, committing it to memory. The smooth walls. The scuffed chair. The slight tilt in the overhead light. If I come back—when I come back—I need to know if anything’s changed.

I don’t hesitate as I step into the hallway, shutting the door behind me.

Act normal. Don’t let them see.

The morning routine has already started. The halls hum with quiet movement—patients making their way toward the cafeteria, nurses walking with clipboards, their faces neutral, unreadable.

I walk with them, keeping my pace steady, my expression blank.

But I’m watching.

Tracking.

The nurses move in predictable patterns. They check rooms in a slow, steady rhythm, their attention cycling between patients. I focus on the gaps—the seconds where their eyes are elsewhere, distracted by a task.

It’s not a real hospital. Not in any way that matters. But it behaves like one.

And that means it has weaknesses.

I pass the recreation room, glancing inside just long enough to confirm what I already knew.

Jonah’s seat is empty.

No one is looking for him. No one is asking questions. No one remembers.

I swallow down the cold pulse of fear tightening my ribs.

I won’t let that happen to me.

The main exit is ahead—past another hallway, past the nurses’ station. The doors aren’t locked—not with a key, not with a keypad. I’ve seen people come and go.

But never patients.

I keep walking, my pulse steady but my hands curled into loose fists at my sides.

I don’t know what will happen when I reach the doors.

But I do know one thing.

I won’t let them erase me.

Every step toward the exit feels like pulling against something unseen. Like the walls themselves are pressing in, pushing back, resisting.

I ignore it.

I keep walking.

The hallway stretches ahead, sterile and artificial under fluorescent lights, the linoleum reflecting my movements in dull, muted shapes. I pass another nurse. Another patient. Another closed door.

None of them look at me.

They don’t see me.

Not yet.

I steal a glance toward the large clock on the wall. The time flickers past 10:23 a.m.

I don’t know when the reset happens.

Maybe it’s tonight. Maybe it’s in an hour. Maybe the reset has already begun—shifting the walls, rewriting the day around me while I stand here, unaware.

I move faster.

There’s no plan—only instinct, sharpened by something primal clawing at my ribs.

They will take me if I wait.

They will erase me if I stay.

Jonah said to find Room 513.

But how can I look for it if I don’t even know how much time I have left?

I press a hand against the wall as I pass another stretch of identical doors. The paint is too smooth. The texture too perfect.

Have I walked past this exact spot before?

The question hits out of nowhere, cold and sharp, like a knife sliding between my ribs.

I push the thought away and keep moving.

The exit is close now. Just a few more steps.

If I make it outside, then maybe I can break this.

Maybe I can stop it.

Maybe I can make it real.

I reach the final stretch of hallway.

The doors are ahead.

And then—

Something shifts.

Not in the air. Not in the lights.

But inside me.

A sudden, violent certainty settles in my chest, coiling tight, electric with fear.

I don’t know what it is, or why I feel it, but I know—deep in my bones—

I’m not supposed to make it to those doors.

I take another step forward.

The feeling gets worse.

Like stepping off the edge of something I can’t see.

Like pushing against a rule that isn’t meant to be broken.

Like—

Like the system catching up to me.

My breath locks in my throat.

I move faster.

One step. Then another.

Then I’m there.

At the doors.

I press my palms flat against the surface and shove—

Nothing.

They don’t budge.

I push harder, throwing my weight forward, expecting resistance.

Expecting something.

But the doors don’t just refuse to move.

They don’t even rattle.

They feel solid. Fixed.

Like they were never meant to open at all.

I shove harder.

Nothing.

The doors don’t shift. Don’t even tremble under my weight. They aren’t locked, but they’re not openable either.

Like they were never meant to be used.

My pulse thuds in my ears. My breath comes in sharp, uneven bursts.

I glance around quickly. No cameras. No security guards. No reinforced locks or heavy metal bars.

Just a pair of glass doors that lead to the outside world—

Except they don’t.

I press my hands against them again, feeling the cold, unyielding surface.

This isn’t right.

I’ve seen people come and go. Orderlies. Nurses. Even delivery drivers dropping off shipments at the side entrance.

But never a patient.

Never me.

My stomach clenches.

I turn, scanning the hallway, my thoughts scrambling for an explanation—for a reason that makes sense.

The nurses’ station is at the far end. The usual staff moving back and forth with clipboards, taking notes, exchanging quiet words. Normal.

But the hallway itself—

I stare at it, a slow unease creeping up my spine.

It looks the same.

But not the same.

Like I’ve seen it before—but not in the way a person recognizes a familiar place.

More like…

Like when a word is repeated too many times, until it stops sounding real.

I shake my head, trying to force the thought away—

But it lingers, clinging to the back of my mind.

Here is the lightly polished version of Part 2 of Chapter 7:

The hallway is wrong.

Too smooth. Too uniform.

Like a copy of a real hallway.

I press my nails into my palm, grounding myself in the pain. Focus.

This is just panic. I’m just disoriented.

But then—

A flicker.

Not in the air. Not in the lights.

In me.

A brief, gut-wrenching certainty that I’ve done this before.

Not just walking through this hallway. Not just standing at these doors.

Trying to leave.

Trying and failing.

Again and again.

The feeling slams into me so hard I stagger back, pressing a hand to the wall. My breathing is too shallow now, my heart hammering in my chest.

I have been here before.

Not just once.

Not just yesterday.

But so many times I can’t count.

And every single time, I failed.

A cold shudder racks through me. I grip the edge of my sleeve, twisting the fabric between my fingers, trying to anchor myself in something real.

I glance down the hallway again. The nurses are still there. The other patients still move in slow, muted patterns.

Nothing has changed.

And yet, everything has.

I take a slow, careful step back from the doors.

Because now I understand.

This isn’t just a hospital.

It’s a trap.

I feel it before I see it.

A shift in the air. A slow, creeping awareness prickling at the back of my neck.

Someone is watching me.

I turn my head—just enough to see without being obvious.

A nurse stands a few feet away.

Not moving. Not blinking.

Just watching.

She’s young—maybe mid-twenties—her dark hair twisted into a neat bun, her pale blue scrubs crisp and clean. I’ve seen her before, haven’t I?

Or maybe I haven’t.

Maybe they all look the same.

She doesn’t look concerned.

Doesn’t look confused.

And that’s what makes my stomach turn.

If she caught me trying to escape, she should be reacting. Rushing forward. Calling security. Pressing a button on the wall to alert the others.

But she just stands there, eyes locked on mine, like she’s processing something.

Like I did something I wasn’t supposed to.

The hallway around us is still moving—nurses flipping through charts, patients shuffling toward the cafeteria—but this moment feels frozen. Stretched thin.

She takes a step forward.

I take a step back.

Her lips part slightly, like she’s about to say something, but she hesitates.

Then—

“You weren’t supposed to do that.”

The words are soft. Not a warning. Not a threat.

Just fact.

A sick pulse of dread shoots through me.

I don’t breathe.

I don’t move.

Her expression doesn’t change. There’s no anger, no alarm, no urgency.

But she knows.

She knows.

I should run.

I should move—push past her, find another way out.

But my legs—

They won’t.

I’m frozen.

Held in place by something deeper than fear.

Her head tilts slightly, like she’s considering something. Like she’s waiting for a response I don’t have.

Then—

An alarm blares.

The sound slams into me like a physical force, rattling inside my skull, vibrating in my bones.

Red emergency lights flash overhead, turning the hallway into something wrong. Something pulsing and unreal.

The nurse doesn’t flinch.

She just keeps looking at me.

The way Mercer does.

The way Jonah did.

Like she’s waiting for me to understand.

My body moves before my mind catches up.

I run.

The alarm is everywhere.

Not just in the air—not just loud—but inside me.

Shaking my ribs. Burrowing into my skull.

It isn’t like a normal alarm, sharp and mechanical.

It’s deeper. Thicker.

Like a living thing pressing itself into my thoughts.

I don’t stop.

I don’t think.

I run.

My shoes slam against the tile, the overhead lights flashing red, painting the hallway in shifting shadows.

The hospital isn’t just reacting—it’s waking up.

I tear down the corridor, turning blindly at the first intersection.

The halls blur together.

Identical walls and identical doors stretch endlessly ahead of me.

I just need to get away.

I just need to move.

Behind me, voices rise—sharp commands, the sound of rushing footsteps.

Someone is coming.

I push myself faster.

Another turn.

Then another.

The air feels heavier, pressing against me, slowing me down.

Like the hospital itself is trying to pull me back.

I ignore it.

There has to be another way out.

A back exit. A loading dock. Something.

I sprint past another set of doors, another nurses’ station. Their faces are blurred and unreadable under the flashing emergency lights.

I should know where I am.

But I don’t.

The hallways aren’t right anymore.

I take another turn—

And stop short.

This isn’t my hallway.

This isn’t any hallway I’ve seen before.

The walls are too long. The ceiling too low.

The air is too thick, humming with something I can’t name.

I glance behind me.

The way I came is gone.

Replaced by another hallway.

A different one.

The hospital isn’t just watching me.

It’s moving.

This isn’t possible.

I spin back toward the way I came, expecting to see the familiar corridor, the nurses’ station, the flashing red lights still pulsing through the air like a slow, mechanical heartbeat.

But it’s gone.

The corridor behind me is different now—longer, stretched in a way that makes my stomach twist.

The walls feel narrower.

The air heavier.

Pressing against my skin like something alive.

I take a step back, my breath sharp and uneven.

The hospital is changing.

Shifting around me.

Sealing off exits.

Rerouting paths.

Trapping me.

I press a hand against the wall, fingers splayed across the too-smooth surface, trying to ground myself—trying to hold on to something real.

But the walls feel wrong.

Too clean. Too perfect.

Like they were placed here just seconds ago.

Like they’re adjusting to me.

My pulse pounds against my ribs.

The alarm still blares overhead.

The red emergency lights flicker in jagged, disjointed flashes.

I have to keep moving.

I push forward, half-walking, half-running, each step slower than the last.

The hallway stretches ahead, impossibly long—like the space is expanding.

Like the rules of distance don’t apply anymore.

I reach an intersection.

I take a left. Then a right.

I should be near my room by now.

But the hallways keep changing.

Every time I turn, the path behind me warps into something new.

Something unfamiliar.

Twisting in ways that don’t make sense.

I stop short, heart hammering.

My mind scrambles for something solid. Something real.

But nothing is.

Because I’m not lost.

I’m being moved.

A shudder rolls through me—cold and sharp—my skin prickling like static electricity is pressing into my spine.

I turn another corner.

Dead end.

A blank wall where there should be more hallway.

I spin back, breath catching in my throat—

Another dead end.

My stomach drops.

The hospital isn’t just watching me.

It’s closing in.

8

THE ISOLATION ROOM

I wake up wrong.

Not just groggy—wrong.

My body is sluggish, limbs dead weight against the bed. I try to lift my arms, but something tightens around my wrists. The sensation is slow to register, pushing through the fog in my brain like a dull needle.

Straps.

Thick, coarse fabric. I’m restrained.

A pulse of panic surges through me, but even that feels distant—like my emotions are smothered under layers of cotton. My chest rises and falls, but I don’t remember taking a breath. My fingers twitch against the sheets, but they don’t feel like mine.

What did they do to me?

The room around me is too white, too sterile. Not my usual room. The air smells sharp, stinging my nose with antiseptic and something colder underneath. Something metallic. The ceiling light hums softly—steady, unbroken. No flickering. No distortions. Nothing to remind me that reality has fractures.

But I know.

I know something is missing.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to clear the fog. Trying to think.

The last thing I remember is—

The alarm.

Running.

Hands grabbing me.

Then—nothing.

A clean cut in my memory, like someone took a scalpel to my mind and excised the moment between then and now.

My pulse picks up.

Something is missing.

Not just time.

Something else.

I force myself to focus. To push against the weight in my skull, the haze slowing my thoughts. I go backward, retracing what I know. Jonah. He told me—

Jonah.

Jonah.

I know that name. I know it’s important.

But his face—

My throat goes tight.

No.

I try again, gripping the memory harder, but his face isn’t there. It’s a hole. A blank space where a person should be. My mind recognizes his name, his presence, the fact of him—but his features, his voice, his eyes?

Gone.

They took him from me.

A cold rush of nausea rolls through my stomach.

This is what they do.

They didn’t just erase him from the hospital.

They erased him from me.

The restraints dig into my wrists as I twist against them, desperate for sensation, for something real. My breathing comes too fast now—shallow gasps that rattle in my chest.

I’m losing him.

I’ve already lost him.

A sound.

The soft creak of a door opening.

Footsteps—steady, measured.

I know them before I see him.

Dr. Mercer.

His voice is calm when he speaks—the same voice that lied to me. The same voice that tried to convince me Daniel never existed.

“Lucy,” he says smoothly, stepping into view. He looks down at me, studying me like I’m an experiment mid-trial. “Do you know where you are?”

I force my expression neutral, but my pulse is hammering.

They’re testing me.

They’re checking to see what’s left.

I swallow, throat dry and raw. “Where’s Jonah?”

Mercer tilts his head. No reaction. Too controlled.

“Who?”

My stomach twists.

I clench my fists—and that’s when I feel it.

Something small and rough against my palm.

Paper.

My fingers brush the edge of it—taped to my skin. Hidden.

My own voice echoes in my head, but I don’t remember speaking.

They took Jonah. Next, they’ll take me.

I press my nails into my palm, into the paper’s edge. Holding on.

I don’t look at Mercer.

I grip the note tighter.

I keep my fingers curled over the paper, careful not to react. If Mercer sees it, he’ll take it. If he takes it, I’ll forget.

I can’t forget.

I force my breathing to slow.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Mercer watches me with the kind of patience that makes my skin crawl—like he’s waiting for me to fall into place. Like he expects something to settle in my mind. A new reality. One that fits his version of the world.

I won’t let it.

“Lucy,” he says again, like he’s calling me back from somewhere far away.

Maybe he is.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

I keep my expression blank.

Let him talk. Let him tell me what I’m supposed to believe.

“You suffered an episode yesterday,” he continues, his voice even, unhurried. “A break in perception. Do you remember?”

A test.

I let my head tilt slightly, like I’m considering. “No.”

Not a lie. Not exactly.

I remember enough—enough to know I can’t trust what’s missing.

Mercer nods like he expected that. “That’s understandable.”

He steps closer to the bed, eyes scanning my face for something.

“We found you in a distressed state. You were confused. Agitated.”

A pause.

“Paranoid.”

I flinch before I can stop myself.

Mercer notices.

His expression doesn’t change—but his posture does. A slight straightening of the spine. The way his fingers adjust their grip on the clipboard.

Paranoid.

It’s a trap.

If I argue, I’m defensive.

If I agree, I’m unstable.

I say nothing.

Mercer waits—just long enough for the silence to stretch—before flipping a page on his clipboard.

“We had to sedate you for your own safety. Do you understand?”

Do I understand?

That they took Jonah.

That they erased his face, his voice, his entire existence from my head.

That the last time I tried to escape, the hospital moved to stop me.

That if I push too hard, I’ll wake up tomorrow without knowing I was ever here at all.

Yes.

I understand.

I nod.

Mercer’s lips curve into something that isn’t quite a smile. Approval.

Like I gave the right answer.

“Good,” he says. “Then let’s start with something simple.”

He shifts the clipboard against his arm. “Tell me your full name.”

I hesitate.

And for one terrifying second, I don’t know why.

Then it hits me.

I know I’m Lucy. I know that.

But the second he asks—tell me your full name—something twists in my brain.

A shadow where certainty should be.

What if he already took something?

I press my nails into my palm. Into the paper still taped to my skin.

Anchor myself.

The words burned into it flash through my mind:

They took Jonah. Next, they’ll take me.

My throat is dry. I force myself to swallow.

“Lucy Wren.”

Mercer studies me. Maybe he’s looking for hesitation. A break in confidence.

A gap.

I don’t give him one.

He nods again. “And where are you, Lucy?”

Another test.

I keep my voice steady. “Rookwood.”

His gaze flickers. Just for a second. So fast I almost miss it.

That was the wrong answer.

Or the right one in the wrong way.

I don’t know which.

Mercer doesn’t correct me.

He simply notes something on the clipboard.

The approval from earlier is gone—replaced with calculation.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

They already took Jonah.

They won’t take me next.

They won’t.

Mercer watches me a moment longer, then taps his pen once against the clipboard.

The soft click of metal on paper feels deliberate.

Like a signal I’m not supposed to understand.

“You need rest, Lucy,” he says. “You’ve been under a great deal of stress.”

I don’t respond.

I can’t.

My pulse is a steady drumbeat inside my skull.

My body still too heavy from whatever they drugged me with.

The note under my palm is the only thing grounding me—its rough edge a quiet act of defiance against the sterile white of this room.

Mercer sets the clipboard down on a nearby table. The motion is unhurried.

“We’ll continue our sessions once you’re more stable.”

Stable.

A word that doesn’t belong to me.

A word that means something else here.

He steps toward the IV line running into my arm.

My fingers twitch at my sides—instinct screaming at me to move, to fight—

But my body is slow. Too slow.

“This will help,” he murmurs, adjusting the drip. “It’s important that you don’t overexert yourself.”

The liquid slides down the tubing. Too fast. Too easy.

And I realize—

He’s increasing the dose.

Panic snaps through me.

I jerk against the restraints. Clumsy. Weak.

The straps don’t give.

Mercer sighs—almost disappointed.

“This is for your own good, Lucy.”

The edges of my vision blur.

No.

I try to hold on.

Try to push back against the drug creeping through my veins.

The note is still there, taped to my palm, pressing into my skin.

Proof that I am real. That I know the truth.

I can’t let them take more.

I bite the inside of my cheek, hard.

The sharp pain slices through the haze, just enough.

“Jonah was real.”

The words are slurred, but I get them out.

A desperate grip on something that’s already slipping.

Mercer tilts his head slightly. “Jonah?”

I see it—the flicker behind his eyes.

The way his gaze sharpens.

The way his fingers pause on the IV line.

He remembers.

But then, as if flipping a switch, his face goes smooth.

Neutral.

“There is no Jonah here, Lucy.”

I try to shake my head.

The movement barely registers.

“You need to stop fixating on these delusions,” Mercer continues.

Gentle. Patient. Rehearsed.

“It will only make this harder for you.”

I want to argue.

To scream that I remember—except I don’t.

Not his face. Not his voice.

Just his name.

Slipping through my grasp like sand.

The IV drip continues its slow, measured pull.

Tugging me under.

No.

I can’t—

The room tilts.

Mercer’s face blurs.

I squeeze my hand into a fist.

Feel the note bite into my palm.

Don’t let them.

The lights overhead flicker.

Or maybe that’s me.

Darkness pulls at the edges of my mind, and this time—I can’t fight it.

I fall.

The heaviness in my body is worse now—

A weighted fog wrapped around my limbs.

I try to move my fingers.

At first, nothing happens.

It’s like my nerves aren’t fully mine anymore.

Like there’s a thin, invisible barrier between thought and action.

I focus.

Push harder.

My fingers twitch.

Then curl.

Good.

Something coarse brushes against my palm, and for a moment, panic slices through the haze.

The note.

I still have it.

I inhale slowly, carefully, forcing myself not to react.

Not to let on that I’m awake.

The air is thick with antiseptic, but there’s something else beneath it—

Something sharp and metallic.

A scent too clean.

Too deliberate.

Like blood scrubbed away.

Like memory wiped clean.

I keep my breathing steady. Listening.

The room is still.

No Mercer.

No nurses.

They must’ve sedated me again—expecting me to sleep longer.

My eyes stay closed, but I flex my hand just enough to feel the edge of the note pressing into my skin.

The paper is crumpled. Damp with sweat.

But it’s there.

Real.

Proof.

A lifeline.

I turn my wrist slightly, testing the restraint.

It holds firm—tight against my skin.

But the way my fingers move now—

The sluggishness is fading.

Just a little.

I try again.

Breathing shallow. Controlled.

This time, my wrist shifts.

Just enough.

I open my eyes.

The room is the same blank white.

The same sterile emptiness that makes my skin itch.

But something is off.

I scan the walls.

The ceiling.

The corners where shadows should gather—but don’t.

The room is too perfect.

Too still.

I glance toward the door.

A small window set into the metal.

The glass is fogged, blurring whatever’s beyond it.

Then I notice the clock.

Red digital numbers glow from the far wall.

5:12.

Then—

5:11.

My stomach lurches.

I blink hard.

When I look again, the numbers are steady.

5:13.

No.

No, I saw that.

I saw it move backward.

A chill settles deep in my spine.

I force my mind to replay what Mercer said before I blacked out.

He was waiting for something.

Watching for something.

The way he reacted when I said Rookwood—

Like I’d given the right answer.

Or the right one in the wrong way.

I test the restraint again.

Careful. Slow.

The leather bites into my wrist—

But this time, I feel a little more strength behind the movement.

Whatever they gave me—

It’s wearing off.

I just have to wait.

Wait, and hold on to what’s left of myself.

I glance at the clock again.

5:13.

Still 5:13.

But the air in the room feels different now.

Like something is watching.

Like something is waiting.

I squeeze my hand into a fist, pressing the note deeper into my palm.

I will not forget.

The room is too quiet.

Hospitals are never silent.

Even at night, there should be something—a cart rolling down the hall, muffled voices, the hum of a distant intercom.

But here—

Nothing.

I listen harder, my breathing slow and measured.

My pulse still pounds against my ribs, but the sedation is fading—

The fog in my brain peeling back in slow, uneven layers.

The clock on the wall remains frozen at 5:13.

It hasn’t moved.

Or maybe it has.

Maybe it flickered backward again and I just didn’t catch it.

A fresh wave of nausea rolls through me.

I tighten my fist around the note, pressing the crumpled paper deeper into my palm.

It’s grounding me.

Keeping me tethered to something real.

Something mine.

Click.

A soft mechanical sound cuts through the silence.

I snap my eyes to the door.

The lock.

I wait, heart hammering—

But nothing happens.

No footsteps.

No shadow moving on the other side of the glass.

Just the lock.

Undone.

They want me to think I’m alone.

But I’m not.

I test the restraints again.

They hold firm.

But my right wrist—there’s more movement now.

The leather is still tight, still unforgiving—

But I can shift my hand just enough to feel the edge of the buckle digging into my skin.

I twist my wrist.

Not hard.

Just a slow, steady pull.

A test.

If they’re watching—

I can’t let them see.

Click.

Another sound.

This time, the lights.

A faint buzz.

A subtle shift in brightness.

So small that if I hadn’t been staring at the ceiling, I wouldn’t have noticed.

But I did.

The fluorescent panels didn’t flicker.

They dimmed.

The air in the room changes.

Colder.

The antiseptic smell still clings to the back of my throat, but there’s something else now.

Something harder to name.

Like dust.

Like a space left empty for too long.

I swallow against the dryness in my mouth.

“Hello?”

The word barely escapes.

My voice is raw. My throat sandpaper.

But the sound feels too loud in the stillness.

Too sharp.

Nothing.

No response.

The clock hasn’t moved.

The door is still closed.

But I know.

I know—

I am not alone in this room.

I feel it.

A pressure.

A presence.

Not Mercer.

Not a nurse.

Something else.

My skin prickles.

The lights dim again.

Another whisper of a shift.

And then—

From the farthest corner of the room—

A sound.

So faint. So fragile.

I almost don’t catch it.

A breath.

Not mine.

My fingers tighten around the note, hard enough that the paper crumples under my grip.

Something is here.

Something is waiting.

And this time—

I don’t think it’s human.

The breath is so soft, so faint, I almost convince myself I imagined it.

Almost.

My body goes rigid, every muscle locking against the restraints.

The air feels thicker now—charged with something unseen.

My skin prickles.

My ears strain for another sound, another clue that I’m not alone.

But there’s nothing.

No movement.

No whisper of fabric shifting.

Just the slow, suffocating sense of being watched.

The lights dim again.

A fraction of a second.

Barely perceptible.

But it happens.

A subtle pull of brightness—

Like the room itself is adjusting.

Shifting.

Like something is feeding off it.

A metallic taste spreads across my tongue—sharp, bitter.

My pulse is too loud in my ears, hammering against my skull.

The restraints dig into my wrists, the pressure growing unbearable.

But I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I wait.

The breath comes again.

Closer, this time.

It’s not normal.

Not human.

No rhythm.

No inhale.

No exhale.

Just a dragging sound—like something pulling air through a space where lungs should be.

A chill creeps down my spine.

I force myself to turn my head slightly, just enough to scan the edges of the room.

Nothing.

The far corners are empty.

Untouched.

The door is still closed.

But that doesn’t mean I’m alone.

I wet my lips, forcing down the dryness in my throat.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

I strain my ears.

Waiting.

Waiting—

Then—

A shift in the air.

Not a sound.

Not exactly.

A change.

A subtle pull in the space around me.

The way a room feels just before a storm—like the walls are holding their breath.

I squeeze my fist tighter, the note still crumpled in my palm.

Grounding me.

Then—

The restraints move.

Not me.

Them.

A slow tightening.

Like something is testing them.

Panic flares in my chest.

I yank against the straps, instinct taking over—

But they don’t budge.

The leather digs in.

Harder now.

Enough to sting.

Something is pulling them.

Something wants me to stay still.

The lights dim again.

Longer this time.

Like something is pressing against them.

The shadows stretch.

Lengthen.

Curling toward the bed.

And then—

A whisper.

Soft. Delicate.

But inside my head.

“Shh.”

The air leaves my lungs.

It wasn’t Mercer.

It wasn’t a nurse.

It wasn’t me.

Something is here.

Something is speaking to me.

And I don’t think it wants me to leave.

I go still.

The whisper lingers in my skull—impossible and invasive.

Like someone exhaled the word directly into my mind.

It’s not a voice.

Not exactly.

More like a presence—

Something curling around the edges of my thoughts, testing for a way in.

A cold sweat breaks across my skin.

I try to swallow, but my throat locks.

My body won’t move.

Not because of the restraints—

Because of something else.

Something holding me down.

The air thickens again.

Presses against me.

Denser than before.

The overhead light flickers.

Not a failure.

Not a mechanical glitch.

A slow, pulsing distortion—

Like the room itself is breathing.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

This isn’t happening.

This is the drug. It has to be.

But the whisper comes again.

Closer this time.

“Shh.”

Terror scrapes down my spine.

The bed beneath me creaks—

But I’m not moving.

Something else is.

My heart slams against my ribs as I try again to move my arms, my legs—anything.

The restraints hold firm, but I feel it now—

A weight.

Something unseen pressing against my wrists.

Against my ankles.

Not just the straps.

Something more.

A presence.

It’s holding me down.

I force my breath to steady.

If I panic, I’ll lose control.

If I lose control, I’ll give it what it wants.

I focus.

The note in my hand.

The crumpled paper beneath my palm—

Proof that I was here before.

That I knew this was coming.

I need to move.

I need to act.

I inhale sharply—

And jerk my arm against the restraint with everything I have.

The pressure vanishes.

The whisper cuts off.

The lights flicker violently, strobing between too-bright and too-dark.

The air splits with a sharp, electric crack—

And suddenly—

I can breathe again.

I gasp, dragging in air like I’ve been drowning.

My chest heaves against the weight that was just there—

But now isn’t.

The lights stabilize.

The room settles.

I blink, heart pounding, scanning the corners, the ceiling, the door.

Nothing.

The restraints still hold me, tight and unmoving.

But the presence—the thing pressing against me, against my thoughts—

It’s gone.

Or maybe it’s just waiting.

I grit my teeth.

Force the fear down.

I’m not losing myself.

I can’t.

I turn my head, my cheek scraping against the stiff hospital pillow, and stare at the door.

The lock is still undone.

I’m getting out of here.

Whatever just happened—

Whatever they’re doing to me—

I’m running out of time.

9

THE HOLE IN HER MEMORY

I wake up slow.

Slower than before.

Like my mind has been filled with sand—grain by grain—pressing against my skull, leaking into the cracks between thoughts, making everything heavy.

I don’t move right away.

Not because I can’t.

Because something tells me not to.

That if I move too quickly, the wrongness of the world will slam into me all at once, and I won’t be able to breathe through it.

So I wait.

I let myself drift.

I focus on small things.

The coolness of the restraints against my wrists.

The low hum of fluorescent lights.

The shallow rhythm of my breath, soft and slow, like I’ve just surfaced from underwater.

Something is missing.

I don’t know what—not yet.

But the emptiness sits somewhere inside me, vast and quiet, waiting for me to notice.

I swallow against the dryness in my throat. Test my limbs. My muscles ache—too still for too long.

They drugged me.

I don’t remember when.

I don’t remember how.

But I know.

My body is sluggish in a way that doesn’t feel natural. My thoughts are muffled, distant.

They wanted me compliant.

Numb.

Quiet.

But I’m awake now.

And I remember enough to know I’ve lost something.

I open my eyes.

The ceiling stares back—smooth, sterile, white.

No cracks. No stains.

No sign that time has passed at all.

I force myself to focus.

Who am I?

Lucy Wren.

That much is solid. That much is mine.

I repeat it once.

Twice.

Three times.

Anchor myself in it.

Then I try something harder.

What happened before this?

My thoughts drag like I’m pulling them through mud.

I was in the hallway.

Running.

The alarm.

The walls shifting.

The hospital closing in.

I remember the red emergency lights flashing. The way my breath came too fast.

The floor beneath my feet—solid but wrong—stretching in impossible directions.

Then—

Nothing.

My stomach clenches.

There’s supposed to be something after that.

I didn’t just blink and end up here.

Something happened.

But my brain won’t fill in the gap.

It’s not foggy. Not hazy.

It’s just—

gone.

A clean cut.

A missing frame in a film reel.

I inhale slowly.

Flex my fingers against the restraints. Test their hold.

I can work with this.

I can fix this.

I just need to rebuild.

I test my memory like I’d test a cracked bone.

Gently. Pressing until it gives.

I know who I am.

I know I was married.

I know I killed Daniel.

The thought lands heavy in my chest. But it’s not new. Not surprising.

It’s a truth I’ve carried for years. Something sharp and dark, buried deep.

I keep going.

I was here before.

I know Jonah was here.

The name is a wound.

The second I think it, something inside me twists. Tight. Sharp.

Like a muscle locking up.

Jonah.

I force myself to hold onto it.

I know him.

He was here.

He sat across from me, smirking like he had the upper hand. Speaking in half-truths. In riddles.

I know this.

But—

What did his voice sound like?

The question slices through me.

Cold. Precise.

I try to summon the answer, but my mind doesn’t cooperate.

It’s not just missing.

It’s been cut out.

My stomach flips.

Nausea rolls through me in slow, sickening waves.

I should remember his voice.

His eyes.

Anything.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

It’s like my brain refuses.

Like it’s been trained not to look.

I press my head back into the pillow.

My pulse speeds up.

This isn’t forgetting.

This isn’t normal.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the pieces back into place.

Try again.

I was married.

To Daniel.

I killed him.

I was here before.

Jonah was here.

And then—

Another gap.

Right there.

Between Jonah disappearing and me waking up here.

I know something lives in that space.

Something important.

But my mind won’t touch it.

I grip the restraints.

My nails dig into my palms.

It’s not just missing.

It’s been removed.

The way Jonah was.

A clean hole in my mind where something used to be.

My breath shudders out.

I was reset.

Not just restrained.

Not just drugged.

Something was taken from me.

Something I don’t even know how to look for.

The thought leaves me cold.

I force my eyes open again.

Stare at the ceiling.

Steady my pulse.

Push through the fog.

This isn’t over.

I’m still here.

I still have pieces of myself.

And as long as I have that—

I can fight.

I say my name again.

One more time.

Lucy Wren.

Lucy Wren.

Lucy Wren.

I don’t know what they took.

But I will find out.

Before they take something else.

I need to be sure.

I need to know what’s real.

I stare up at the ceiling, breath slow and deliberate, fingers flexing against the restraints.

The drugs are wearing off, but my mind still feels thick. Sluggish.

Like my thoughts have to push through wet cement just to reach me.

I fight through it.

Start simple.

I am Lucy Wren.

That much is still mine. That much is solid.

I was married.

To Daniel.

The thought lands in my mind like stone—immovable, heavy.

I see him.

His face.

The sharp line of his jaw.

The way he looked at me that night—the moment before—

No.

I cut the thought off before it can go further.

The memory is real.

I know that.

I move on.

I was here before.

Jonah was here.

Jonah.

The second I think his name, the sickness returns.

That curling at the edges of my mind—something missing, something stolen.

I don’t let go.

I push.

Jonah was real.

I talked to him.

He warned me.

I know that’s true.

I know it.

But—

What color were his eyes?

My stomach clenches.

I should know.

I should be able to picture them.

Brown? Green? No. That’s not right. That’s not—

The memory won’t come.

Like my brain has been trained to look around it.

Like an empty frame where a face should be.

My pulse kicks harder, pounding too fast, too erratic.

I try again.

What did his voice sound like?

Nothing.

Not even an echo.

Like it was never there at all.

I clench my teeth.

This isn’t forgetting.

This is something else.

I switch tactics. Go deeper.

I had a childhood.

Safe. Untouchable.

I had parents.

I grew up in—

I stop.

Because for one awful second, I don’t know the answer.

The memory should arrive easily. Automatically.

But instead, I get a hollow pause.

Then—

A house. A street. A town.

Familiar. Expected.

But it doesn’t feel remembered.

It feels retrieved.

Like I pulled it from a shelf.

Like I’ve recited it enough times to believe it.

But I never really felt it.

A slow, creeping unease spreads through me.

What if I’m wrong?

What if these memories aren’t mine?

I swallow hard. My throat tight.

I need something stronger.

Something that belongs to me in a way nothing else does.

I had a sister.

The thought comes fast. Easy.

But the second it lands—doubt slams into me.

Did I?

I think I did.

No. I know I did.

Didn’t I?

A flicker moves at the edge of my mind.

But the moment I try to focus—it slips away.

Like oil on water.

I force the thought back.

Grab the memory. Make it hold still.

She had—

Blonde hair? No. Brown.

She was younger. No. Older.

No.

Wait—

The memory is wrong.

The more I press, the less real it feels.

Like it’s not a memory at all.

Just a placeholder.

My stomach turns.

I squeeze my eyes shut, nausea rolling through me slow and thick.

They didn’t just take memories.

They gave them.

They filled the gaps.

With something else.

Something fake.

A shiver runs through me. Cold. Deep.

What else isn’t real?

I grit my teeth.

Press my head back against the pillow.

My heart pounds too fast now.

Sharp. Jagged.

This isn’t just about Jonah.

Or what happened between the alarm and now.

They didn’t just erase him.

They’ve been doing this longer.

To more than just him.

To me.

I clench my hands into fists.

The restraints bite my wrists. Grounding me in the pain.

I am Lucy Wren.

That much is mine.

I repeat it, over and over, forcing it to stick.

Because if I let go—

Even for a second—

I don’t know what they’ll replace me with.

A sudden, blinding pain rips through my skull.

Sharp and tearing.

I gasp—

My body tenses—

Breath seizes in my throat.

My vision warps, the ceiling bending.

My head feels too full.

Pressure building behind my eyes.

Behind my thoughts—

And then—

Nothing.

Silence.

A gap.

A missing frame.

I blink.

I’m still here.

I think.

The pain is gone. The world is normal again.

But something is wrong.

I don’t move.

Don’t breathe.

Don’t blink again.

I wait.

I reach for what I was just thinking about—

And it’s gone.

Not fuzzy.

Not buried.

Gone.A second ago, I was spiraling—

Grasping at something horrible, something I knew wasn’t right.

But now—

Now I don’t even know what I lost.

I exhale, shaking. My body cold all over.

I test my mind.

I am Lucy Wren.

Still there.

I was married.

I killed Daniel.

Still there.

I was here before.

Jonah was here.

Still there.

But something else isn’t.

I was thinking about something important.

Something critical.

I know I was.

But now the memory is just a hollow shape—

A book with its pages ripped out.

My pulse pounds behind my eyes.

I blacked out.

Not asleep. Not unconscious.

Just—

gone.

Like a flicker of static in a video feed.

Like something removed me.

And when I came back—

I was missing something.

My hands clench against the restraints.

My breath comes too fast.

This isn’t paranoia.

This isn’t a feeling.

It’s happening.

Right now.

I press my head against the pillow, willing myself to stay calm.

Focus.

Look for proof.

My fingers twitch—

Brush something.

Paper.

The note.

My pulse jumps.

I drag my hand across it, feeling the edges, the creases, the weight of it pressing into my palm.

Still here.

Still real.

I force my fingers to unfold it, lift it just enough to read—

The words stare back at me.

They took Jonah. Next, they’ll take me. Don’t let them.

I swallow hard.

I wrote this.

I know I did.

But—

I don’t remember why.

The meaning should hit me like lightning.

It used to.

But now, reading it—

Staring at it—

Tracing the ink with my eyes—

It feels distant.

Like a message from a stranger.

From a version of me I don’t remember being.

A sharp tremor moves through me.

It’s happening faster now.

Not just hours.

Not just days.

Seconds.

They’re taking me apart while I’m still awake.

I tighten my grip on the note.

My hands shake.

My breath stutters.

I can’t let go.

I can’t forget.

If I lose this—

I lose everything.

I grip the note so tightly it crumples in my fist.

I won’t let them take this.

I won’t let them take me.

My breath comes fast, uneven.

My pulse is a war drum in my ears.

I can feel it happening—

The slow, deliberate erosion of my mind.

Piece by piece.

It’s not normal forgetting.

It’s surgical. Precise.

Like they’re peeling me apart thought by thought,

Removing the parts they don’t want me to have.

I force myself to think.

To hold on.

Jonah.

I picture him.

Try to shape his face.

Try to force details into focus—

Something sharp. Something clear.

But the thoughts slip—

Like water through my fingers.

I know he was real.

I know I spoke to him.

But the rest—

His voice.

His eyes.

The way he looked at me—

Fading.

They’re still working on me.

Still inside.

Still taking.

I grit my teeth. Bite down on the panic clawing up my throat.

I need an anchor.

Something they can’t touch.

I whisper—

Voice hoarse and dry:

“Lucy Wren. My name is Lucy Wren.”

Again.

And again.

Cementing it.

If I lose that—

There’s nothing left.

The restraints bite into my wrists as I twist against them.

Trying to move.

Trying to fight.

I won’t let them do this.

I won’t.

I squeeze my eyes shut, gripping the note like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.

Room 513.

The thought hits like a flash of lightning—

Cutting through the static.

I don’t know why it matters.

Don’t remember why Jonah told me to find it.

But I know it matters.

I whisper it like a mantra:

“Room 513. Room 513. Room 513.”

I force the words into my brain.

Carve them into myself.

I will not let them slip away.

And then—

A flicker.

A blink.

A moment of nothing.

And when I come back—

I don’t remember what I was afraid of.

I don’t remember why I’m gripping the note so tightly.

I don’t remember what I was holding onto.

My breath shudders out.

I look down at the paper in my hand.

I know it’s important.

I know I wrote it.

But I don’t remember why.

Terror sinks its claws into my ribs.

It’s happening faster.

I clutch the note harder, my hands trembling.

What happens next time?

What if next time, I forget to look for it?

What if next time, I don’t come back?

10

ROOM 513

I keep my breathing slow. Measured.

The room is quiet except for the soft beeping of a monitor somewhere behind me. The scent of antiseptic clings to the air—sharp, artificial, sterile.

I count the seconds in my head.

One.

Two.

Three.

The nurse moves beside me, routine in her motions. I stay still. Eyes half-lidded. Muscles slack. I let my head roll slightly to the side, leaning into the fog of the drugs, pretending I’m still too groggy to function.

Inside, I am coiled. Waiting.

She unbuckles the strap on my left wrist.

She thinks I’m weak. She thinks I’m compliant.

She’s wrong.

The moment her grip loosens, I move.

Fast.

My hand snaps forward, latching onto her wrist. She gasps, jerking back—but too late. I’m already twisting, already wrenching my other arm free, my shoulder slamming into her chest.

She stumbles, crashing into the cart beside the bed. A tray of syringes and vials clatters to the floor.

I don’t watch her fall.

I’m already moving.

My feet hit the tile, legs unsteady from sedation, but adrenaline surges through my system, flushing out the lingering haze.

I reach the doorway. My hand fumbles against the metal handle—slick with sweat, trembling—but it turns.

I’m through.

The hallway stretches in front of me, sterile and bright under fluorescent lights that hum too loud.

I run.

No plan. No hesitation.

Just one thought pounding in my skull, over and over:

Room 513.

Behind me, the nurse shouts—muffled, already fading beneath the rush of blood in my ears.

I sprint past closed doors, past patients slumped in plastic chairs, heads lolling forward, drugged into stillness. None of them look up. None of them see me.

I round a corner too fast. My shoes skid across linoleum.

I know this hospital.

I’ve walked these halls before.

But something feels—

Off.

The air is too still.

The space is stretching.

The hallway ahead seems longer than it should be.

I take another step, and for half a second—

The walls pulse.

Just barely. Just enough to make my stomach twist.

I don’t slow down.

I can’t afford fear.

Room 513. Room 513. Room 513.

I whisper the number under my breath, forcing it into my bones. Into my spine.

Because if I lose that—if they take that—I’ll never find my way back.

The halls stretch too long.

I know this hospital. I know its turns, its dead ends, its whitewashed walls.

But now they’re changing.

The space bends like something alive, shifting when I’m not looking. Rearranging itself behind my back.

I don’t stop running.

Footsteps echo behind me.

Maybe a nurse.

Maybe an orderly.

Maybe nothing at all.

But I don’t look back.

Looking back means slowing down. And I can’t afford that.

Find Room 513.

I turn left.

I should be near the rec room by now. There should be a cluster of gray chairs. A scuffed chessboard. A flickering TV stuck on the news.

Instead—

The hallway stretches farther than it should.

Too far.

I keep moving.

I pass a door with no number. Then another. Then another.

They should have numbers. I know they should.

They didn’t look like this before.

I glance over my shoulder.

The corridor looks the same.

But wrong.

Like I’ve slipped into a slightly different version. One where the rules are starting to dissolve.

The hospital doesn’t want me to find it.

Room 513. Room 513.

I repeat it like a spell, like a prayer, like a hand reaching in the dark.

Up ahead—a turn.

I take it too fast. My shoulder hits the wall.

I push off. Keep going.

Breath burning.

Heart thundering.

The walls creak.

Or maybe that’s my pulse.

Or maybe the building’s breathing.

Or maybe—

No.

Don’t think about it.

Just move.

I push forward, lungs burning, legs screaming, until—

A door.

A number.

513.

It hits me like a punch to the chest.

Real. Solid. Unmistakable.

I grab the handle, half-expecting it to vanish, half-expecting my hand to pass through it like smoke.

But it’s real.

It’s cold.

I tighten my grip.

And push the door open.

The room swallows me. I stumble inside, breath ragged, heart hammering.

The first thing I notice is the air.

Different.

Not sterile. Not sharp with antiseptic.

Not dead with that strange, quiet rot.

No.

This air is stale.

Old.

Like the room has been sealed for years.

I brace myself against the doorframe, legs shaking from the sprint.

From the panic.

From the wrongness crawling over my skin like static.

The room is not what I expected.

No bed.

No restraints.

No IVs.

Instead—

A desk.

A chair.

A flickering lamp, casting long, uneven shadows against the walls.

And files.

Stacks of them.

Piles spilling across the desk. The floor. The shelves lining every wall.

I step forward.

My shoes scuff the tile.

The sound is jarring after the echo of footsteps, the rush of escape.

But here—

No alarms.

No yelling.

No pursuit.

Just silence.

Like I’ve stepped outside the hospital.

I swallow, throat dry as ash, and reach for the nearest file.

The paper crinkles under my fingers as I flip it open.

I don’t know what I expect.

But it’s not this.

A patient file. Clinical. Cold.

Name: Lucy Wren.

DOB: 1991.

Admitted: 2021.

Diagnosis: Dissociative Psychosis.

I stare at it.

My breath steadies. My pulse slows.

Okay.

I knew this.

I knew they had a file on me. This isn’t new.

But something about it feels wrong.

I flip to the next page.

And the next.

And then—

Another file.

And another.

And another.

I pull them from the stacks, flipping through them with shaking hands, my pulse climbing back into my throat.

Every single one—

Lucy Wren.

Again. And again. And again.

The first file has my name. So does the second.

The third.

The tenth.

All of them.

My name, printed over and over and over.

I stagger back, body trembling, mind scrambling to wrap itself around what I’m seeing.

This isn’t one file.

This isn’t my file.

It’s dozens.

Hundreds.

I drop one. My fingers go numb. My breath comes too fast. The papers scatter across the floor, pages fluttering, revealing tiny, quiet horrors I can’t make sense of—

Dates that don’t match.

Birthplaces that change.

Admissions I don’t remember.

One says I was admitted in 2019.

Another says 2015.

One says I’ve been here for months.

Another—years.

One file says I was born in 1987.

Another says 1995.

No.

No. That’s not right.

That’s not possible.

I take another step back. My heel catches on a chair leg. I stumble, catch myself on the desk, nausea curling tight in my gut.

This isn’t a patient record.

This isn’t my history.

It’s versions of me.

Copies.

Rewritten. Replaced.

Again and again.

I grip the desk so hard my fingers ache.

The files don’t stop.

Proof of something I can’t process.

Something I don’t want to process.

How many times have I disappeared?

How many times have they reset me?

How many times have I started over—without even knowing?

The room is too small. The air is too thin.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images won’t leave.

Page after page of my name.

File after file of my life.

But none of them are mine.

I force myself to breathe.

To steady my hands.

To keep reading.

But the files don’t stop.

They multiply.

They stack.

They breathe.

The lamp flickers. Shadows twist over the pages.

The words seem to move—shifting, rewriting themselves as I read.

I grab another.

Lucy Wren.

Again.

But this one’s different.

DOB: 1993.

No. That’s not right.

I flip through clinical notes, progress reports, assessments.

Admitted: August 2016.

No.

I drop it and grab another.

Lucy Wren.

Another birth year. Another admission date.

In the margins—

Messy handwriting.

Words scribbled out.

Sentences rewritten.

Thick black marker lines slashing through entire sections.

I grab another.

And another.

Every single one is me.

And none of them are me.

Some are older. Some are younger.

Some have been here before.

Some have never left.

I flip another page. My eyes catch on a typed assessment:

“Patient exhibits increased paranoia regarding reality distortion. Believes facility is manipulating memories. Persistent delusion of prior admissions. Recommending further observation.”

I swallow hard. My pulse thunders.

Another report:

“Subject shows heightened awareness of inconsistencies. Procedure will be required sooner than anticipated.”

My breath catches.

Procedure.

I don’t know what it means.

But I know what it means.

I drop the file.

I stumble back.

My hand hits the desk, knocks over a stack of papers. They scatter like dead leaves.

A note slips free.

Handwritten.

Ink smudged like someone gripped it too tightly.

I crouch down, heart pounding, and lift it with trembling fingers.

The handwriting is mine.

I read the message, scrawled in frantic, uneven strokes:

THIS ISN’T YOUR FIRST TIME.

GET OUT BEFORE THEY RESET YOU AGAIN.

My body goes cold.

I don’t remember writing it.

But I know I did.

I squeeze my eyes shut, press my hand to my forehead, trying to hold onto something—

anything—that still belongs to me.

But the truth is already there.

Spreading like ice in my veins.

I’m not the first Lucy Wren.

I’ve done this before.

Too many times.

I can’t breathe.

Room 513 closes in around me.

The air presses against my chest, heavy and unnatural.

The files are everywhere.

Scattered across the shelves. The desk. The floor.

My name, printed over and over and over.

But it’s not just my name.

It’s versions of me.

Each one a different life.

A different timeline.

A different Lucy Wren.

I force myself to keep going.

My hands shake as I flip through the records.

My pulse pounds like a war drum in my skull.

I read another.

And another.

And another.

Cold. Clinical. Detached.

SUBJECT: WREN, LUCY

DOB: 1995

Admitted: 2020

Diagnosis: Dissociative Delusions – Believes She Has Lived Multiple Lives

No.

I grab another.

SUBJECT: WREN, LUCY

DOB: 1989

Admitted: 2015

Diagnosis: Memory Fragmentation – Increasing Paranoia

I swallow.

Faster now.

Desperate.

Digging.

Every file I open shifts slightly—

Details sliding out of place.

Dates that don’t align.

Timelines that don’t hold.

Realities that don’t agree.

Some say I’m a new patient.

Others claim I’ve been here for years.

A timeline that doesn’t add up.

A past that won’t hold still.

I keep going. Keep digging.

But the deeper I go, the less real I feel.

Who am I?

Which version am I?

A cold sweat breaks out along my spine. I grip the edge of the desk to steady myself, but my vision tilts. The flickering lamp makes the words swim across the pages, the light too unstable to trust.

And then—

A file catches my eye.

Older. Different.

The paper is yellowed, soft at the corners, creased from too much handling.

I reach for it, heart hammering.

The name at the top stops me cold.

SUBJECT: WREN, LUCY

DOB: 1984

Admitted: 2008

No.

No, no, no.

That’s not possible.

That’s not me.

But it is.

I flip to the next page, hands shaking. My stomach twists as I scan the notes.

“Patient is exhibiting increased distress after latest procedure.

Continues to believe she has only been here for a short period, despite clear evidence to the contrary.”

“Memory resets appear to be taking hold, but inconsistencies remain.

Subject has retained more awareness than anticipated. Further intervention required.”

My whole body locks up.

The room is too quiet.

The weight of it—these words, this file—presses against my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.

Memory resets.

Intervention.

I flip back to the first page, gripping the paper so tightly it crinkles in my fists.

If this is real—

If these dates are real—

Then I wasn’t admitted in 2021. Or 2019. Or 2015.

I’ve been here longer.

Much longer.

A wave of nausea crashes over me.

Everything goes numb.

I am not a patient.

I am a project.

Erased.

Rewritten.

Again and again.

I drop the file.

Stumble back.

My breath comes ragged and uneven.

The papers blur around me, a hurricane of dates and diagnoses and lies.

I grip my head, squeeze my eyes shut.

I need to think.

I need to hold onto something real.

But what if there’s nothing real left?

What if I’ve been here for years—and I just don’t remember?

My whole body trembles.

My nails dig into my palms.

My breath comes too fast, too shallow.

I want to believe there was a life before this.

A real life.

But how can I be sure?

How can I trust anything?

I force my eyes open.

The files are still there.

The words haven’t changed.

SUBJECT: WREN, LUCY

I swallow down the terror clawing up my throat.

I don’t know how many times they’ve erased me.

I don’t know how much of myself I’ve already lost.

But I know this—

They are not going to do it again.

I can’t breathe.

The files surround me.

My name is everywhere—

Too many variations.

Too many versions.

Too many years I don’t remember.

I stare down at the last file I opened.

Admitted: 2008.

Fifteen years ago.

My entire body locks up.

That can’t be right.

That isn’t right.

I reach for the file again, my fingers shaking as I trace the printed words.

My name.

My face.

But the details—

Wrong.

The date of birth doesn’t match.

The timeline doesn’t match.

Or does it?

A sharp wave of nausea twists through me.

Cold. Relentless.

What if this is the truth?

What if I didn’t arrive in 2021?

What if I didn’t arrive in 2019, or 2015, or any of the other dates I’ve clung to?

What if I’ve been here for so much longer?

My knees nearly give.

I slam a hand against the desk, gripping it until my knuckles go white.

The words blur. The papers bleed together, page over page, fact over fiction, everything tangled and false.

But that’s the trick, isn’t it?

It’s not a contradiction.

It’s the pattern.

They erase me.

They rewrite me.

They do it again.

And again.

And again.

I grip my head, pressing my palms against my temples, panic building until it nearly chokes me.

How many times?

How many times have I woken up here, thinking it was my first day?

How many times have I asked the same questions?

Run the same halls?

Found Room 513 like it was an answer—only to learn it was just another loop in the cycle?

How many Lucys have disappeared?

I press harder, as if I can force the memories back.

As if I can claw my way to the truth.

But there is no truth.

Only blank spaces.

Only missing time.

Only resets.

I suck in a sharp breath. My chest heaves.

I was never going to escape.

Not really.

Because I never have before.

I’ve done this before.

I’ve done this too many times.

A sound slips out of me—half a laugh, half a sob.

The weight of it all presses down, crushing me inward.

My lungs feel too small.

My body feels too temporary.

I don’t know if I’m the first Lucy Wren.

But I know I’m not the last.

I stare at my hands, gripping the edge of the desk.

My pulse is a drumbeat beneath my skin.

If I don’t stop this—

If I don’t break this—

Then the next Lucy Wren will wake up in my place.

And she won’t remember me at all.

11

THE OTHER LUCYS

I don’t move.

I can’t.

I stand in the center of Room 513, surrounded by the wreckage of myself. Papers are scattered across the floor, my name printed in endless loops. Each file a different version of me. Different birthdays. Different admission years. Different diagnoses.

Different lives.

I was never just one person.

I was never just Lucy Wren.

I have been here before.

I have always been here.

The thought slams into me—too big to hold, too massive to process. My breath comes in sharp, shallow bursts. My fingers grip the edge of the desk like it’s the only thing keeping me from collapsing.

This isn’t just memory loss.

This is erasure.

Not a single reset. Not even dozens.

Hundreds.

Maybe more.

A cold wave of nausea rises in my gut. I press a hand against my stomach, trying to ground myself, but my body doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

How many times have I disappeared?

How many times have I stood right here, staring at these same files, realizing this same unbearable truth—only to have it scrubbed clean from my mind?

My legs give out.

I crash to my knees, papers crumpling beneath me. I grab one at random, hands shaking as I unfold it.

Lucy Wren. DOB: 1990. Admitted: 2017.

I grab another.

Lucy Wren. DOB: 1987. Admitted: 2013.

Then another.

And another.

My breath is too fast now, panic slicing up my throat like broken glass.

None of them are the same.

None of them are me.

But all of them are.

I let the pages slip from my fingers, staring at the mess around me—my own name repeated so many times it stops meaning anything.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Grip my head. Press my palms against my temples like I can hold myself together.

But I am not together.

I have been pulled apart.

Cut open.

Rewritten.

Again and again.

And if I don’t stop this—if I don’t break it—

Then I won’t be the last.

I will disappear.

And the next Lucy Wren will wake up, just as lost. Just as broken.

And she won’t remember me at all.

I sit in the wreckage of myself.

Files cover the floor. Crumpled paper beneath my knees. The overhead light flickers above me, buzzing softly—steady, impersonal. The only sound in Room 513 besides my ragged, fractured breathing.

I want to move. I need to.

But I can’t.

Because the moment I stand up, the moment I take a single step away from this, I’ll have to decide what comes next.

And I don’t know what comes next.

I squeeze my eyes shut harder. Fingers pressing into my temples.

Think.

Hold onto something.

Anchor yourself.

I was married. Wasn’t I?

I killed Daniel.

Did I?

The thought should feel solid. Heavy. Unshakable.

But it doesn’t.

It flickers—here, then gone. Like a name on the tip of my tongue that vanishes every time I reach for it.

Daniel’s face blurs.

I try to summon his voice. His scent. The way his hands felt wrapped around mine. The moment I—

No.

I slam my palms against the desk, the jolt rattling through my bones. My breath spikes—too shallow, too fast. Panic presses up under my ribs, wedges itself behind my eyes.

This is what they do.

They carve pieces out of me.

They take what they don’t want me to keep.

And they leave just enough behind for me to function.

Just enough for me to believe I’m whole.

I look down at the files again. The mess of my name printed over and over.

So many versions.

So many lies.

How much of me is even real?

Another wave of nausea rolls through me. I grip the desk until my knuckles go white.

If I can’t trust my past—if I can’t trust my memories—

Then what’s left?

Breathe.

One step at a time.

Find something. Hold it.

Room 513.

That’s real.

I made it here.

The files. The proof. The truth.

This is real.

I repeat it in my head again and again, trying to hammer it into place.

Because if I lose this—if they take this too—

Then I’ll wake up tomorrow as someone else.

And I won’t even know I was here.

I dig my nails into my palms. The pain is sharp. Grounding.

I won’t let that happen.

I can’t let that happen.

But how do you stop something that’s already happened?

How do you fight what you don’t remember?

I scan the room, desperate. Searching for anything—

A hidden door.

A camera.

A message from a past version of me, buried under the debris, waiting to be found.

But there’s nothing.

Just me.

Just the same dead-end realization I’ve probably had before.

I grit my teeth. Snatch a file off the floor.

If I can’t change anything—

I can at least understand it.

I flip through the pages, my fingers clenched too tight around the paper.

SUBJECT: WREN, LUCY.

PROGRESS REPORT – CYCLE #17

A chill crawls down my spine.

Cycle #17.

I turn the page.

“Subject continues to exhibit resistance to memory realignment. Awareness levels remain higher than expected. Adjustments will be necessary.”

“Persistent fixation on fabricated memories. Previous erasures unsuccessful.”

“Reset scheduled for 05:13.”

My stomach drops.

513.

It’s not a room number.

It never was.

I flip back to the first page. My pulse thunders in my ears.

The admission date is May 13th.

05/13.

This is the cycle.

Room 513 isn’t a place.

It’s a pattern.

It’s the number of times I’ve been erased.

The file slips from my fingers.

My body feels hollow.

My bones turned to dust.

My thoughts fraying at the edges.

Seventeen cycles.

Seventeen versions of me.

And I don’t even know if that’s the real number.

What if it’s higher?

What if this has been happening longer than I can even begin to comprehend?

I feel like I’m falling.

Like the floor has dropped out from under me and I’m plummeting into something I can’t escape.

Because I know what this means.

They don’t erase everything.

They leave pieces behind.

Just enough for me to think I’m real.

Enough for me to believe I’m someone new each time.

But I have never been new.

I have always been Lucy Wren.

And I have always been doomed.

I stumble back from the desk, my breath coming too fast, my body shaking.

I want to run.

I want to tear through the hospital, screaming, breaking things—

Making them see what they’ve done to me.

But I already know how that ends.

I’ve done it before.

And all it got me was another cycle.

Another version.

Another Lucy Wren.

A ragged breath shudders out of me.

I am standing at the edge of a choice.

Do I keep fighting?

Or do I accept that this will never end?

I tighten my fists, nails biting into my palms.

Hard. Deep. Sharp.

No.

I refuse to let them erase me again.

If I go down, I will go down remembering.

I will go down knowing.

And that means—for the first time—I have something they don’t expect.

A version of me who refuses to forget.

I will not disappear.

I press my hands against my temples, breath jagged and fast.

The numbers won’t stop circling in my head.

05:13. Room 513. Seventeen cycles.

I wasn’t looking for a room.

I was looking for a pattern.

And I found it.

But now that I have—

I wish I hadn’t.

I stand in the middle of Room 513, legs trembling beneath me.

The air smells like old paper and something colder, metallic beneath it.

The files are everywhere.

Torn from shelves.

Scattered across the floor.

The wreckage of a life I can’t even remember.

Because it isn’t just one life.

It’s so many.

I force myself to breathe.

To focus.

I am Lucy Wren.

I repeat the name in my head, gripping it tight.

Making it mine.

But it isn’t.

Not really.

Because—

Which Lucy Wren am I?

I look down at the file still crumpled in my hand.

The paper soft with age. The ink smudged by my grip.

But the words are clear:

Cycle #17.

This isn’t my first life.

It’s not even my second.

I have lived this before.

I have died this before.

I stagger back, bumping into the desk, sending another stack of files tumbling to the ground.

The papers fan out around my feet, their contents bleeding together.

I reach for another file.

Flip it open.

Another Lucy Wren.

Another life.

Another failed escape.

“Subject continues to show resistance to memory realignment. Despite procedural intervention, residual awareness remains. Further adjustments will be necessary.”

“Persistent fixation on fabricated memories. Previous erasures unsuccessful.”

“Subject does not retain full timeline recognition. However, pattern repetition has resulted in heightened paranoia regarding resets.”

I swallow hard. My throat feels like dust.

Pattern repetition.

I flip to another page.

“Subject’s awareness cycle peaked on Day 16 before last reset. Recovered memory fragments indicate breakthrough moment before intervention.”

My hands tremble as I clutch the paper tighter.

Day 16.

Yesterday.

I turn the page with shaking fingers.

“Subject regained knowledge of prior resets. Required immediate action. Memory cycle terminated at 05:13.”

Memory cycle terminated.

It’s a record of my own erasure.

I was here before.

I figured this out before.

And they wiped me.

My stomach turns. I shove the file away like it burns to touch, my head pounding, vision flickering like the world itself is unraveling.

I’ve been doing this over and over.

Every time I get too close,

Every time I begin to remember—

They reset me.

Every version of me ends here.

In this room.

Looking at these same files.

Realizing the same impossible truth.

And then—

Gone.

A clean slate.

A fresh start.

Lucy Wren, waking up in a hospital bed, believing it’s the first time.

But it’s never the first time.

It’s never the first time.

I lurch forward, grabbing the desk for balance, panic clawing up my throat.

I need to get out.

I need to move.

Because I know how this ends.

If I don’t do something now—

They’ll wipe me again.

And I won’t remember any of this.

I won’t remember who I am.

Or worse—

I’ll wake up thinking I’m someone else.

The thought slams into me.

So hard I nearly double over.

This isn’t just about forgetting.

They don’t erase me.

They rewrite me.

My hands shake as I dive for the files again, flipping through them like the answers might still be there—hidden, waiting.

Page after page.

And then—

I see it.

A name.

Not mine.

But it should be.

WREN, LUCY – Cycle #4.

I freeze.

My pulse roars in my ears as I scan the page, eyes locking onto the words.

“Subject responded well to initial cycle placement. Reassignment successful. Previous identity fully integrated into new framework.”

“No recovery of past memories detected at this time. Full assimilation likely.”

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

Reassignment.

Integration.

A previous identity.

The words feel too big. Too impossible.

But they’re not.

Because I know what they mean.

I wasn’t always Lucy Wren.

I was someone else before this.

And I don’t remember who.

A scream builds in my throat, hot and sharp—

But I choke it down.

Shake my head.

Try to force my thoughts back into some kind of order, try to hold onto something, anything.

I dig my nails into my palms.

Hard.

Sharp.

Pain flaring just enough to remind me I’m still here.

But how long will I be?

I look back down at the paper, chest tightening.

If I was someone else before this—

Then who’s to say this version of me is even real?

What if I wake up tomorrow, and Lucy Wren is gone?

Just another file.

Another failed experiment.

I suck in a shuddering breath, gripping the edge of the desk until my knuckles go white.

I am not the first Lucy Wren.

I am not the only Lucy Wren.

And if I don’t do something now—

I won’t be the last.

I can’t feel my hands.

I see them—curled tight, nails dug into skin, blood rising in thin red crescents—

But they don’t feel like mine.

Nothing does.

Not the file in my grip.

Not the cold air brushing my arms.

Not the sound of my own breathing—rapid, shallow, panicked.

Because if what I just read is true—

If I was someone before this—

Then I am someone else now.

A deep, nauseating dread coils in my gut, winding around my spine, crushing the air from my lungs.

I stare down at the file in my hand.

Lucy Wren.

Printed neatly across the top.

But it’s not my name.

Not really.

Not anymore.

Maybe it never was.

I stumble back, vision tilting, the room twisting around me.

The walls feel too close.

The air too thick.

How many times have they done this to me?

How many people have I been?

I drop the file.

My pulse pounds like thunder in my ears.

They don’t just reset me.

They replace me.

I dive for another file, hands trembling, breath breaking apart in gasps.

Cycle.

Version.

Cycle.

Version.

And then—

A name.

Not Lucy Wren.

A name I don’t recognize—

But somehow, I do.

SUBJECT: MARLOW, EVE

I freeze.

The breath leaves my body all at once.

My limbs lock.

My vision tunnels.

Eve Marlow.

The file trembles in my grip.

I don’t know why it hits so hard.

But the second I see it, a sharp, white-hot pain explodes behind my eyes—

Splitting. Blinding.

A flash—

A girl by a window, fingers pressed against the glass.

Sunlight in her dark hair.

A laugh, distant and familiar.

A voice—my voice, but not mine—whispering something I can’t quite hear.

And then—

Gone.

I gasp.

Nearly drop the file.

A tremor rolls through my body like an aftershock.

The memory—if it was a memory—is gone the moment I reach for it.

But the name stays.

Marlow, Eve.

Not Lucy Wren.

Not a cycle.

Something else.

Something before.

Something real.

The room tilts again.

My mind fractures.

I don’t know who I am.

I don’t know if I ever did.

But I know this:

Lucy Wren was never me.

I clutch the file tighter, the paper crumpling in my fists.

Eve Marlow.

It echoes in my skull, looping, twisting, refusing to let go.

It shouldn’t mean anything.

But it does.

It does.

A cold shudder ripples through me, slow and suffocating.

I try to piece myself back together—

But my mind won’t hold still.

It shifts, slips, like something inside me is fighting.

I force a breath.

Force myself to look back at the page.

SUBJECT: MARLOW, EVE

DOB: 1986

Admitted: 2004

Reassignment Date: 05:13

Reassignment.

I’ve seen that word before.

I flip through the rest with shaking hands, heart thundering in my ears.

The margins are messy.

Scrawled notes.

Sentences crossed out.

Sections rewritten.

“Subject reassigned following procedural failure.”

“Lucy Wren integration successful. Marlow identity fully dissolved.”

I can’t breathe.

The walls of Room 513 press in, tighter, closer.

Like the room itself is collapsing in on me.

Fully dissolved.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

A flicker—

A girl at a desk.

A pen shaking in her hand.

A notebook half-filled.

Words scratched out in desperation.

A whisper:

“They’re watching. They’re waiting. I have to remember.”

Then—

Snap.

Like a reel burning out.

Gone.

I stumble back, the file slipping from my hands.

I don’t remember that.

I don’t remember any of it.

But I should.

Because that girl—

That girl was me.

I grip the edge of the desk, nails biting into the wood.

The room spins.

Everything blurs.

Lucy Wren isn’t real.

I was someone else before this.

And they took her from me.

They didn’t just trap me in this hospital.

They made me.

A violent shudder racks through me.

The truth is too big.

Too sharp.

It tears through the lies I’ve been fed like a blade.

Every file.

Every Lucy Wren.

Every cycle.

Every reset—

Built on a lie.

I was never Lucy.

I was Eve Marlow.

And now—

I am nothing.

I press a trembling hand to my chest.

My heartbeat stutters beneath my fingertips.

There is no flood of memories.

No final piece sliding into place.

They took too much.

They took everything.

All that’s left is the echo of a name I barely recognize.

The shadow of a life I’ll never get back.

I stumble forward, hands shaking as I shove the files away.

As if pushing them out of sight might make the truth disappear.

But it doesn’t.

It never will.

I was someone before this.

I was Eve.

And if I don’t get out of here soon—

I won’t be anyone at all.

12

THE TEST

They don’t restrain me this time.

The orderlies drag me into Mercer’s office, but there are no straps. No needles. No sedation waiting on a silver tray. They drop me into the chair across from him and leave without a word.

No restraints.

No guards.

Just Mercer.

He sits behind his desk, hands folded, watching me like I’m a puzzle missing pieces. An experiment mid-trial. A subject he’s observed a thousand times but still hasn’t cracked.

I brace for the obvious. For accusations.

You broke into Room 513.

You know things you shouldn’t.

You’ve gone too far this time, Lucy.

But he doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, he tilts his head slightly and says, “You’ve been busy.”

A pause.

“Looking for answers. Finding the wrong ones.”

The words hit low. Quiet. Measured. A chill moves down my spine.

I don’t answer.

What would I even say?

I sit still, muscles locked, bracing for a fight. But Mercer doesn’t move. His face is calm. Too calm.

He gestures to the chair across from him—like I’m not already in it.

“I have a question for you,” he says. “Just one.”

I don’t move.

“If you answer it, I’ll let you leave.”

The way he says it—it’s not a command. Not a threat. Just an invitation.

I glance at the door. The orderlies are gone. It’s only the two of us now.

A trap. It’s a trap. I know that.

But I stay seated anyway.

Because what other choice do I have?

The chair is stiff beneath me, too upright, too deliberate—like it was designed to keep patients from getting comfortable. I grip the armrests, grounding myself in the texture of the fabric, but even that doesn’t feel real.

None of this does.

Mercer watches me, silent, patient. Studying.

I try to keep my breathing even.

Try to ignore the pulse hammering in my throat.

Try not to think about the files in Room 513.

Try not to think about the truth—

That I was never Lucy Wren.

I wait for the question. Something sharp. Something laced with control.

Why were you in Room 513?

What did you find?

What do you remember?

But Mercer just opens a leather-bound notebook and clicks a pen.

Then, with terrifying simplicity: “What’s your full name?”

I blink.

The question is too easy.

A trick. It has to be.

Still, I answer. I hesitate only half a second before I force the words out.

“Lucy Wren.”

It feels foreign on my tongue, like trying on someone else’s voice.

Mercer watches me closely, eyes narrowed, expression unreadable.

A nod. He scribbles something in his notebook.

“Good,” he says, approving. “What year is it?”

Again—too easy.

My fingers tighten around the armrests. My mouth opens, and the answer comes before I can second-guess it.

“2023.”

Another nod. Another line of ink.

The air feels thicker now. Heavy against my skin.

Mercer doesn’t look up.

“What was your husband’s name?”

A sharp spike of pain drills into my skull.

I flinch.

Daniel.

The name flashes through my mind, solid and clear—but when I try to say it—

Pain.

A pressure, cold and surgical, behind my eyes. Not a headache. Not natural. Something…installed.

Still, I force the word out.

“Daniel.”

The pain sharpens—just for a second—then vanishes.

Mercer watches.

I don’t react. I keep my face still. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

He writes something else down. Looks back up.

“Good. Next question.”

His voice is light. Too casual. Like we’re playing a game only he understands.

“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

I open my mouth—

Nothing comes out.

I try again.

Still nothing.

The answer is there—I know it is. I can almost feel the shape of it.

But the moment I reach for it—

Silence.

My throat locks up. My lips won’t move. My brain shuts it down.

Like a warning light. Like a roadblock hardwired into my mind.

Mercer leans forward just a little.

There’s a glint in his eyes.

“Interesting.”

He expected this.

My whole body stills.

This isn’t just memory loss.

This is control.

And it’s inside me.

The silence thickens. Mercer waits, pen poised.

I try again.

Try to speak her name.

Still nothing.

Not fog. Not confusion. Just a sudden, absolute wall.

Like the answer was cut out of me with surgical precision.

I shift in the chair, my pulse hammering now.

Mercer tilts his head, tapping his pen against the desk.

“You don’t know?”

His voice is quiet.

But I hear what he’s really saying underneath.

You’re not in control.

Not of your answers.

Not of your memories.

Not even of your own mind.

His tone is almost gentle.

Like he’s offering comfort instead of confirming I’ve been stripped of autonomy.

I grit my teeth. I do know the answer.

But my brain won’t let me speak it.

I shake my head—not as an admission. As a refusal.

Mercer smiles, faint and unreadable. “That’s alright. Let’s try another.”

He flips to a new page in his notebook. Adjusts his grip on the pen like we’re still in some polite diagnostic exercise.

Then he asks, “How many times have you been here before?”

A violent shudder rips through me.

This question is different. It hits deeper. Not like a memory I’ve lost—but like a thought I’m not even allowed to have.

My mind clamps down. Something coils around my thoughts, squeezing tight. Suffocating.

I don’t even try to answer.

Because I already know I can’t.

My hands grip the armrests. Nails bite into the upholstery. A cold sweat beads along my spine.

Mercer sees it. I can tell. There’s a flicker of interest in his eyes now. Like the test is finally producing data.

He waits.

Then, lightly—almost offhand—he says, “What happens when you die?”

Pain.

Not emotional. Not metaphorical.

Real.

A sharp, electric stab tears through my skull, so sudden I jerk in the chair, nearly doubling over.

Mercer doesn’t blink. Just makes a note in his book. Calm. Detached.

The pain fades slowly, like a warning shot retreating back into the dark. What’s left behind is worse—a queasy, crawling sickness that settles deep in my stomach.

I feel wrong.

Not sick like fever. Sick like contamination.

Like something inside me is aware of what I tried to do.

Mercer leans in, voice even softer now.

“I’ll ask again.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to trigger whatever just lashed out in my brain. But Mercer doesn’t care.

“What happens when you die?”

My entire body seizes.

Not just my throat. Not just my voice.

Everything.

Frozen. Like something’s waiting inside me, ready to punish me if I even try to answer.

My lungs tighten. My throat seals. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. My vision tunnels.

I want to scream. To break through whatever this is. To override it.

But the moment I try—

A sharp, metallic ringing explodes inside my head.

So loud I feel it in my bones. A siren behind my eyes.

Like an alarm—except the threat is me.

My fingers tremble against the chair. I clutch the armrests to stay upright, fighting against the black edges creeping into my vision.

And then—

It’s gone.

Just like that.

The sound vanishes. The pressure lifts. As if it was never there at all.

I collapse backward, gasping, every breath ragged and thin. My skin is slick with cold sweat. My hands won’t stop shaking.

Mercer calmly closes his notebook. Taps the pen against the desk.

His voice is soft. Smooth. Satisfied.

“Interesting.”

I stare at him, chest heaving, heart pounding.

He knew.

He knew that would happen.

This wasn’t about testing what I could remember.

It was about proving what I’m not allowed to know.

This isn’t forgetfulness.

This is design.

A fracture splits through my thoughts.

Not cracks in memory—barriers. Locks. Code.

There are walls inside my mind. And every time I try to scale them, something yanks me back down.

Something built to keep me contained.

My breath stutters. My fingers twitch against the fabric of the chair.

I feel violated.

Not in body.

In thought.

The realization hits with a slow, sickening clarity. Like bone breaking beneath skin.

I’m not just missing memories.

I’m being stopped.

There is something inside me—mechanical, procedural. A failsafe. A firewall.

A program.

Something I didn’t know was there until I tried to breach it.

And Mercer?

He’s watching me wake up to it.

His expression doesn’t change. He just keeps tapping that pen. Light. Rhythmic. Like he’s giving my brain time to catch up to the truth.

And it does.

God, it does.

The resets weren’t just about forgetting.

They were about building.

Rebuilding.

Rewiring me.

Mercer clears his throat, gently—like he’s the one easing me through this.

“You understand now, don’t you?”

His voice is calm. Too calm.

Like a therapist guiding a patient toward the inevitable.

Like this conversation has happened before.

I don’t answer. I can’t.

Not because something is silencing me this time.

Because I don’t trust my own voice.

I don’t trust what I’ll say if I open my mouth.

Mercer leans back in his chair. His eyes flicker—not amusement. Not triumph.

Something colder.

Something clinical.

“You’re not ready for the truth yet, Lucy.”

A beat.

“But you’re getting closer.”

The world tilts.

Or maybe it’s just me.

My nails dig deeper into the chair. My skin is clammy. My throat feels raw.

I am being controlled.

Not just in what I remember.

Not just in what I say.

But in what I’m even capable of thinking.

The things I’m allowed to ask.

And worse—

The questions I will never be allowed to ask.

I’m not just trapped in this hospital.

I’m trapped inside my own mind.

And Mercer?

He’s the one holding the key.

Mercer doesn’t speak right away.

He lets the silence bloom, stretching the moment until it fills every inch of the room like fog.

I don’t move.

I don’t blink.

I don’t breathe properly until I force my lungs to obey.

My thoughts keep folding in on themselves, spiraling into the same dark loop, trying to push past the barriers I now know are real.

You’re not ready for the truth yet, Lucy. But you’re getting closer.

The words echo like a curse.

He said it like it was inevitable.

Like I’ll never be ready—but I’ll always be chasing it. Always stuck one step behind.

I don’t know if that terrifies me more—or pisses me off.

I grip the armrests tighter, nails biting into the fabric. I want to scream. To demand answers. To force the truth into the light.

But I already know what happens if I ask the wrong thing.

Nothing.

My mind will shut the door before I even reach it.

My own brain won’t let me say the words.

I look at Mercer. Really look.

He’s not smug. He’s not cruel. He doesn’t gloat.

He’s… curious.

Interested.

Like I’m an experiment that refuses to fail no matter how many times he resets it.

And then the truth slides cold and certain into the pit of my stomach.

This has happened before.

This moment. This conversation. This exact script.

And I’ve never remembered it.

Mercer leans back, smooths his coat sleeves. Every movement is deliberate. Practiced.

He knows how this ends.

He’s already seen it.

And that scares me more than anything.

I open my mouth. Finally ready to fight. To speak. To do something.

But Mercer just smiles.

Like he already knows what I’m going to say.

Then he stands.

Adjusts his cuffs.

Turns to leave.

I jerk forward, heart slamming against my ribs.

He’s leaving.

No punishment. No sedation. No consequences.

Just walking out like I’m nothing. Like I’ve always been nothing.

Like I’ve never once been a threat.

I push myself to my feet, breath catching in my throat. I try to speak—but before the words reach my lips, Mercer glances over his shoulder.

And says—

“I wonder what you’ll be next time.”

The floor vanishes beneath me.

My thoughts collapse in on themselves. My body goes rigid.

Next time.

Next time.

He’s going to reset me.

It’s already been decided.

I thought I was getting closer.

But I was just playing out another cycle.

Mercer doesn’t say anything else.

He walks out the door.

And I just stand there.

My heart pounding. My thoughts unraveling.

The door clicks shut behind him.

Still, I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I just stand there, frozen, feeling his last words settle into my bones like a weight I’ll never shake.

I wonder what you’ll be next time.

Not if.

When.

A slow, creeping dread curls around my ribs. Tightens.

I thought I had time.

I thought I could outrun this.

I thought I was fighting something I could break.

But I was wrong.

God, I was so wrong.

The reset is coming.

Again.

And when it happens—I won’t know.

I won’t remember Room 513.

I won’t remember Mercer’s test.

I won’t remember that I was never Lucy Wren.

I’ll wake up clean. Blank.

Just another version of myself.

Sitting across from him all over again.

And next time?

Next time, maybe I won’t even get this far.

Maybe I won’t question it.

Maybe I won’t fight at all.

A sharp, shaking breath stumbles out of me. My fists clench, nails slicing crescents into my palms.

I have to stop this.

I have to hold onto something before it’s too late.

But how?

How do I fight something I won’t even remember exists?

My vision blurs. My heart pounds against my ribs, wild and frantic, like it knows time is already running out.

I don’t trust my memories.

But worse—

I don’t trust my mind.

I don’t know what’s been taken.

I don’t know what’s been rewired.

And now?

Now I don’t even know what I’ll be next time.

A shudder rips through me.

I thought my thoughts were my own.

I was wrong.

13

THE MAN WITH NO FACE

I wake up wrong.

Not groggy—wrong.

Like my mind has been dismantled and put back together in the wrong order. The pieces are close, but they don’t quite fit. The air smells off—not just antiseptic, but cold, metallic. Like something sharp is nearby but hidden. I inhale again, testing it. The wrongness sinks deeper.

I don’t move. Not yet.

I let my senses recalibrate, waiting for my body to feel like mine again. My hands lie curled against the blanket, my legs heavy with the residue of sleep. But something inside me is already tightening, already retreating. Instinct whispering—something’s off.

The ceiling is the first thing I notice.

The tiles don’t match.

It’s subtle, but it’s there. The pattern is wrong. The tiles in my room had faint, speckled indentations—these are smooth. Unbroken. A tiny, irrelevant detail.

But it’s enough.

I turn my head. The walls are darker than they should be. The air feels denser. Heavy. Pressing in from all sides.

I reach for the light switch without thinking. My fingers brush empty space.

No switch.

Just cold, smooth wall.

A slow, creeping dread unfurls in my chest.

I move my hand further, reaching for something familiar—a bedside table, the stiff-backed chair they always leave by the wall. Nothing is where it should be.

My fingers tighten against the sheets.

This isn’t my room.

I push myself upright too quickly. The mattress is wrong. Firmer. The sheets too crisp, like they’ve never been slept in. The IV that should be in my arm is gone. I bring my wrist to my face—no puncture marks. No tape residue.

My stomach knots.

They moved me.

Or worse—they reset me.

The thought slices through me. I press my fingers to my temples, trying to steady my breath. Focus. Anchor. Find the last thing you remember.

Mercer’s office. His voice—calm. The test.

The blocks in my mind.

My thoughts refusing to cooperate.

And then—

Nothing.

A clean cut. A void where something should be. I don’t remember lying down. I don’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I recall is resisting—fighting to stay, to remember.

And now I’m here.

My pulse pounds against my ribs.

I don’t know how I got here.

Which means I don’t know what else they took.

I need to test myself.

I steady my breath, press my fingertips into the sheets—too stiff. The mattress—too firm. The air—still tinged with that metallic taste. I catalog every detail, but none of it tells me what matters most.

What did they take?

I start with the essentials. The things I refuse to lose.

Room 513.

The thought comes fast. Sharp. I see it—the door, the number etched into metal. The stacks of files. The endless versions of me.

That’s real. That happened.

The files. The weight of them. The crisp paper edges. The horror of flipping through my own name, again and again, stitched to lives that weren’t mine.

Still there.

Jonah.

His name hits like a blade. I hold onto it. I remember his smirk. His riddles. The way he never gave me a straight answer. He was here. He warned me.

Still there.

A breath shudders out of me. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.

My heart is pounding, but I know who I am.

I know what they did.

And then—I get to Mercer’s test.

And something shifts.

A flicker at the edge of my thoughts. A hollow space where something used to be. I push deeper, forcing myself to replay it.

What’s your full name?

Lucy Wren. That much is still mine.

What year is it?

Twenty… twenty-three. 2023.

What was your husband’s name?

Daniel. The memory lands hard. Pain flares, sharp and precise. A trap laid inside my own mind.

And then—

Nothing.

My throat tightens.

There was another question. I know there was. My brain expects it—like a missing step in a staircase. I should remember it. I should at least feel the shape of it.

But there’s nothing.

No blur. No static. Just—absence.

A hole so cleanly carved out that I can’t even guess what used to live there.

My stomach turns.

This is worse than forgetting.

Forgetting is human. Forgetting means it was once there, even if it’s gone now.

But this?

This is erasure.

I clutch my wrist, thumb pressing hard into my pulse. Ground yourself. Don’t spiral.

How many times has this happened?

How many pieces of me have already been carved away?

How much of me is still real?

A wave of nausea rises in my throat. I swallow, but it doesn’t pass.

I used to fear the resets—waking up with gaps, with memories missing.

But this is worse.

They aren’t just taking memories.

They’re removing the ability to even ask.

And if I can’t ask the right questions—

How will I ever find the truth?

I need proof.

I need something real.

Something solid. Something I can see with my own eyes.

The nausea is still there—thick and slow, coiling inside me like something waiting to hatch. But I push through it. My body feels unsteady, like I’ve surfaced from too deep underwater. Still, I force my legs over the edge of the bed.

The floor is cold beneath my feet. Not just cold—seeping. The kind that slips through skin, burrows into bone. I wasn’t wearing socks before.

Another tiny detail.

Another thing out of place.

How many changes have been made without my knowledge?

I press my palms into my knees, grounding myself. Breathe. Focus. Move.

The room around me is still. Too still.

Hospitals aren’t silent. Not really. There’s always something—the soft murmur of voices, the distant beep of a monitor, the faint hum of fluorescent lights.

But here?

Nothing.

A silence so deep it doesn’t feel accidental.

It feels engineered.

My pulse picks up.

I rise slowly, pushing through the stiffness in my muscles. I take one cautious step, then another. My bare feet make no sound on the floor.

The door looms ahead.

I press my fingertips against it first—just to feel something real. The wood is smooth beneath my skin, but colder than it should be. Like it hasn’t been touched in a long time.

My heartbeat pounds against my ribs.

I lean in, pressing my ear to the door.

Listening.

For anything.

For proof that I’m not alone in whatever this is.

Silence.

No voices.

No footsteps.

Not even the hum of power behind the walls.

The kind of silence that makes your skin crawl. That whispers something is missing. Or worse—something is waiting.

I swallow, force my breath to slow, and move.

My fingers find the edge of the handle.

I hesitate.

Then—slowly—I crack the door open an inch.

A sliver of light spills in from the hallway.

White walls. Sterile floors. Familiar.

At least, it looks familiar.

But my skin prickles.

Because something is off.

I just don’t know what yet.

At first, the hallway seems empty.

The overhead lights buzz faintly, casting a pale glow across tile that stretches endlessly in both directions. Clean. Bright. Too clean. Too bright.

Too still.

The silence presses against my ears like a vacuum.

I inch the door open a little more. My chest is tight. My heartbeat is too loud.

Still—nothing moves.

Then I see him.

A figure. Further down the corridor.

Facing me.

I freeze.

The air in my lungs turns to concrete.

He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t speak.

He just stands there.

At first, I think he’s a patient—same scrubs, same bare feet against the tile. Arms slack at his sides.

But something is wrong.

Deeply wrong.

His posture is too rigid. Too precise.

Like he was placed there.

Like he’s been waiting.

A slow chill creeps up my spine.

I don’t want to look at his face.

But I have to.

I focus—

And everything inside me locks up.

Because where his face should be—

There’s nothing.

Not a blur.

Not a shadow.

Not skin.

Just a flickering smear of static.

A distortion in the air, like a screen stuck between channels. Unstable. Unformed. The space where his features should be is wrong, flickering at the edges, like something trying—and failing—to be real.

But he’s looking at me.

I know it.

I feel it.

A deep, sickening weight sinks into my stomach.

I’ve seen things in this hospital. Things I cannot explain.

But this—

This is worse.

This is wrong on a level my brain can’t process. A kind of wrongness that makes my entire body want to reject it. Step back. Shut the door. Erase him.

But I don’t move.

Because I can’t.

The silence stretches between us.

Thick. Suffocating. A vacuum pressing into my skin.

He doesn’t move.

Neither do I.

The static where his face should be shifts—just barely. A flicker at the edges.

Like the image is unstable.

Like reality is trying to hold him in place and failing.

A deep, instinctive horror rises inside me.

I’ve seen impossible things in this hospital.

Walls that stretch when I’m not looking.

Time that slips through my fingers.

Memories carved so cleanly I can’t even recall their shape.

But this—

This is different.

This is something wrong on a level I don’t understand.

Something not meant to exist.

The man is too still.

Too precise.

Like a prop someone forgot to animate.

And then—

He tilts his head.

Just slightly. Just enough.

A slow, deliberate shift, like he’s processing me.

It’s not natural.

Not the casual tilt of someone hearing a voice.

Not curiosity.

Not recognition.

Something else.

Something that sends a bolt of cold through my spine.

I don’t even realize I’m moving until my foot knocks into the bed.

A clumsy, reflexive step back.

The door creaks open wider.

Light spills into the room, catches the blur of his face—and it flickers.

Just for a second.

Just enough to make me feel like I’ve glimpsed something I shouldn’t.

Like the image is breaking.

Like something underneath is trying to push through.

My breath stumbles.

I should shut the door.

I should slam it shut, turn away, scrub the sight of him from my brain before it roots there.

Before it becomes something permanent.

But I don’t.

Because a thought slams into my skull—fast and sharp and impossible to ignore:

What happens if I look away first?

It hits like impact.

Like truth.

It feels important.

Essential.

Like something I’ve learned before.

Like something I’ve forgotten.

If I look away—will he move?

Has he moved before?

The nausea coils tighter.

My pulse stutters, sharp and frantic in my throat.

The wrongness of him is pressing into me now.

Seeping into my lungs.

Wrapping around my ribs.

He is watching.

He has always been watching.

And I don’t know what happens next.

I don’t move.

Neither does he.

The silence between us is thick.

Suffocating.

A void where sound should live.

I should shut the door.

End this.

Sever whatever unseen thread has linked us together.

But my hands won’t obey.

My body won’t move.

Because something is surfacing.

He tilts his head again.

The same slow motion—except this time, it feels different.

Intentional.

A signal.

A memory slams into me so hard I stagger back.

Not clear. Not complete.

Just a flash—raw and jagged.

A shadow in the hallway.

A flicker outside Room 513.

A presence I almost saw.

A shape I almost recognized.

And then—

The moment before the last reset.

He was there.

The nausea rolls through me, thick and cruel.

My breath hits the back of my throat and stops.

Not just yesterday.

Not just outside Room 513.

Other times.

Other resets.

I feel it now.

The shape of something that’s always been there.

Always watching.

I just never remembered.

Until now.

My pulse crashes in my ears.

The resets aren’t clean.

They don’t wipe everything.

Some things stay.

He stays.

A shudder cuts through me.

I don’t want to think about what that means.

How many times he’s watched me wake up.

How many times he’s seen me lost, blank, empty.

How many times I’ve looked at him just like this—

And forgotten.

The static where his face should be twitches.

Like interference.

Like a glitch in the feed.

Like something about me isn’t processing him correctly.

A wave of terror crashes down.

I need to end this.

Now.

My body moves before my mind catches up.

I slam the door.

The sound is deafening.

It echoes off the walls, too sharp in the engineered silence.

I stumble back, bracing both hands against the wood like I can hold him on the other side.

Like I can contain him there.

My breath comes fast and jagged.

My hands are shaking.

My entire body feels wrong.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I will not forget this.

Not this time.

Because he is still out there.

Waiting.

Watching.

And next time—

He’ll be waiting again.

14

THE FORBIDDEN WING

I don’t know how long I stand in the doorway.

Seconds? Minutes? Longer?

Time doesn’t feel real here. Not anymore.

The hallway holds still. Silent. The air carries that electric kind of waiting that makes your skin prickle. My pulse thuds slow and heavy at the base of my throat.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

He does.

The Man with No Face turns.

Not sharply. Not suddenly.

A slow, deliberate shift, like he’s moving through something thicker than air. Like gravity works differently around him. His steps make no sound against the linoleum—not a creak, not even a whisper.

He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t speak.

But I know.

He wants me to follow.

A pulse of cold unfurls through my stomach. I should slam the door. I should step back. I should pretend I never saw him.

But I don’t.

Because something in me—deep, instinctive, not entirely my own—whispers:

Go.

And before I even decide to move, my feet are already stepping forward.

One after another.

Like I’ve done this before.

Like I was always going to.

The hallway is too quiet.

No distant voices. No beeping machines. No shuffling footsteps or squeaking wheels. A hospital should never sound like this. There should be signs of life. The hum of systems.

Something.

But here—nothing.

Just me.

And him.

He moves with that same slow, deliberate pace. Unbothered. Unchanged.

Like we have all the time in the world.

I follow. Not too close. Not too far.

Close enough to see him.

Close enough to feel the gravity he carries, bending the air ahead of me.

The environment changes first in ways I barely register.

A shift in the light. A drop in the air pressure.

The buzz of the overhead fluorescents dips into a low drone. The glow dims.

The air is colder now. Thinner.

And it smells wrong.

Dust. Metal. Old paper. A scent like something sealed away too long.

I glance at the walls. They’re… different.

Not drastically. Not all at once. But the change is there.

The paint is duller. The corners darker. The shadows are thicker than they should be.

I swallow, throat dry.

I know this place.

Don’t I?

I’ve walked these halls. Haven’t I?

But with every step, the answer gets murkier.

The farther we go, the more I realize—

This isn’t the hospital I woke up in.

It’s older.

Deader.

Like a place designed to be forgotten.

He stops.

At first, I think it’s for me. That he’s letting me catch up.

But then I see what’s in front of him.

A door.

Unmarked. No number. No label.

Just there.

Waiting.

He stands beside it, still and silent. Watching.

Not me.

The door.

Something trembles under my skin. I don’t know if it’s fear or memory.

Maybe both.

This is a mistake.

But I step forward anyway.

My hand shakes as it reaches for the handle.

It turns too easily.

Like it was expecting me.

The moment I cross the threshold, the air thickens.

It doesn’t hit all at once. It creeps in—at the edges of my skin, beneath my fingernails, in the hollow space between each breath.

Like static clinging to me. Like something unseen is taking inventory.

With every step forward, it gets heavier. Denser.

Colder.

This isn’t just a different hallway.

It’s a different place.

I don’t know how I know that.

But I do.

The feeling is instant. Deep. Cellular.

Like my body recognizes it before my mind does.

The Man with No Face moves ahead of me, his pace unchanged.

Silent. Steady.

Nothing about him hesitates.

But I do.

Something’s wrong.

The walls here aren’t right. Not just older—wrong.

The paint is curled at the edges, peeling like it’s been rotting from the inside out. Faded shapes stain the surface—old outlines where plaques used to hang, like this hallway once had a name and someone tried to erase it.

The floor creaks beneath my feet, soft in places where it shouldn’t be.

Not because I’m heavy.

Because it’s breathing.

Like something beneath the tiles is shifting in its sleep.

I stop walking.

My breath falters.

I shouldn’t be here.

I feel that in my bones. In my teeth. In the lining of my skull.

This wing wasn’t made to be found.

It was buried.

But I’ve already stepped inside.

And he hasn’t stopped.

The Man with No Face moves like none of this matters.

Like the warping walls and the collapsing distance mean nothing.

Like the hallway can shift, stretch, narrow, breathe—and it changes nothing for him.

Because this is his domain.

He belongs here.

I take a shaky breath and look back.

The hallway behind me is longer than it should be.

Too long.

The door I came through—gone.

Just wall now.

Unbroken. Featureless.

Panic crawls up my throat.

No. No, I didn’t turn. I didn’t change direction. I walked in a straight line.

I should be able to go back.

But the way back isn’t there.

I’m sealed in.

I force myself to face forward again.

The hallway narrows as I move. The ceiling dips lower.

The light overhead doesn’t go out—it just dims. Like it’s losing confidence.

Like light itself isn’t welcome here.

The Man with No Face reaches the end.

And there it is.

The door.

Not just unmarked.

Wrong.

It doesn’t fit with the rest of the space.

It’s too plain. Too clean. Too deliberate.

Like the hospital was built around it.

Like it was hidden on purpose.

The edges are smooth. The frame too tight. The color a pale, unnatural white that almost glows in the dark. The handle is untouched—no scratches, no wear.

It doesn’t belong.

Not just to this wing.

To anywhere.

A slow, cold wave rolls through my chest.

This is it.

The place I was never supposed to find.

The Man with No Face stands beside the door, motionless. His head tilts slightly—just enough to acknowledge me.

Just enough to let me know that this is the destination.

That this is the point of all of it.

The flickering lights above us cast long, twitching shadows.

The floor pulses beneath my feet.

This door isn’t hidden.

It’s waiting.

I don’t want to reach for the handle.

But my hand moves anyway.

The metal is ice-cold.

Not like it’s been sitting unused, but like it was made to be cold. Like it wants to reject touch.

I wrap my fingers around it, and twist.

There’s no resistance.

No click.

The door wasn’t locked.

It was never meant to keep me out.

Just keep me unaware.

I push it open.

And step inside.

The air on the other side is wrong.

Heavy.

Dead.

Like it’s been sealed for a long time and shouldn’t have been let out.

My breath catches in my throat. The stillness presses down on me like a weight, like a room underwater. My eyes take a moment to adjust—too dim, too washed out.

There’s a desk in the center.

Plain. Wooden.

A single folder resting on top.

No labels. No markings. No locks.

Just waiting.

I move toward it. Each step loud in the silence, even though my feet make no sound.

I reach for the folder with hands that don’t feel like mine.

And open it.

The photograph shakes between my fingers.

Not from the cold.

Not from fear.

From something deeper.

Something worse.

I know what I’m going to see before I look.

But I look anyway.

The girl in the photo isn’t me.

But the name printed below is:

Lucy Wren.

The original.

Not me.

My stomach turns. My vision tunnels. The edges of the room curl inward like burned paper.

The words on the page are clear, but they feel like they’re speaking a different language. The timeline. The behavioral summaries. The reference codes. The reset logs.

All tracking her.

Her.

The girl I’ve been pretending to be.

The girl whose life I’ve been wearing like a costume.

The girl I am not.

The file stays steady in my hands, but I am not steady.

A single thought crashes through me like a wave—

What am I?

Not who.

What.

I squeeze my eyes shut. My fingernails dig into my palms, grounding myself in the sharp bite of my own body.

Pain is proof.

Pain means I’m real.

…Doesn’t it?

I try to breathe.

It doesn’t help.

I flip through the file, desperate for something I can hold onto. But the words blur. The pages warp. The ink feels like it’s moving—slipping just out of reach.

Like the truth wants to stay hidden.

Then—

A breath of air.

A flicker in the corner of my vision.

I freeze.

Something is here.

I don’t want to look.

I have to.

I lift my head.

He’s there.

The Man with No Face.

Standing in the doorway. Still. Silent. Watching.

He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t speak.

He’s just—presence.

Like he’s always been here.

Like he knew I would end up in this room.

Like this is exactly what he’s been waiting for.

My lungs turn to ice. My fingers tighten around the file.

I wait for him to step forward. To react. To stop me.

He doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t need to.

Because this was never about keeping me out.

It was about getting me here.

And now that I’m here—

Now that I’ve seen it—

He watches.

Like he’s waiting for me to understand.

I don’t blink.

I don’t breathe.

Because now I know the truth.

The resets didn’t erase everything.

Some things stay.

Like him.

And worse—

He wants me to remember.

15

MERCER’S WARNING

They don’t sedate me this time.

The hands on my arms are firm but not rough, guiding me through the halls with quiet efficiency. Not dragging, not shoving. That unsettles me more than if they had. I know how it’s supposed to go—the struggling, the shouting, the sharp prick of a needle before the world tilts sideways and disappears.

But this?

This is different.

The orderlies don’t speak. They don’t even look at me, not really. Just grip my arms, steer me forward, like they’re moving furniture. Like I’m not worth the effort of force.

A fresh, crawling dread sinks its claws into my chest.

They aren’t restraining me because they don’t have to. Because whatever comes next, they already know how it ends.

I swallow hard, pulse hammering against my ribs. I try to count my steps—something solid, something real—but the sound disappears into the silence pressing against my skin. The halls stretch too long. Or maybe that’s just in my head. Maybe it’s always been like this, and I’m only noticing now.

We turn a corner.

The door is already open.

Mercer is waiting.

He sits behind his desk, calm, composed, like this is nothing more than another routine check-in. No anger. No surprise. He doesn’t even straighten when they bring me in. Just watches—fingers steepled, expression unreadable.

A teacher with a failing student.

A scientist with an experiment gone stale.

“This is getting predictable, Lucy.”

His voice is smooth. Patient. Almost disappointed. Like I’ve let him down somehow. Like my rebellion isn’t defiance—it’s a tedious loop we’ve played too many times before.

A cold weight settles in my stomach.

How many times have we had this conversation?

I don’t know where the thought comes from, but it hits like a hammer to the chest. Not a memory—something older. A whisper beneath my skin. A muscle memory of something I don’t recall doing but have done all the same.

I stare at him, suddenly unable to breathe.

Mercer tilts his head slightly, studying me. Then he exhales through his nose—not quite a sigh, but close. Something resigned.

He lifts a hand, flicks his fingers.

The orderlies release me instantly, stepping back in unison. A reflex. A rehearsal.

They weren’t holding me to keep me from running.

They were holding me to deliver me.

My throat is dry. My skin is cold. But I force myself to stay standing.

Mercer gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit.”

I don’t move.

A flicker of amusement passes through his eyes. “Do you think refusing will change anything?”

I don’t know what to say.

The room feels too small. The air too thin.

How many times have I sat in that chair?

The thought hits again—sharp, jarring, too loud inside my head. My knees almost give out from the force of it.

I don’t remember.

But I know.

And that’s worse.

Mercer gestures again, slower this time. Deliberate. Sit.

I should refuse. I should stand my ground. But my body’s already moving, lowering into the chair like it was always going to. Like I was never going to do anything else.

I grip the armrests, nails pressing into the wood. My hands are shaking. I don’t know why.

Mercer exhales again, softer now. Like a parent breaking bad news gently. He reaches into his desk, pulls out a file. The same kind I found in the Forbidden Wing. Thick. Heavy.

He slides it toward me.

My name is on the front.

I don’t want to touch it.

Mercer watches. Waits. His voice is quiet when he speaks.

“How long do you think we’ve been doing this, Lucy?”

The room tilts. My stomach lurches. I don’t answer.

Because suddenly, I’m afraid I already know.

I don’t sit.

Not yet.

The chair across from Mercer feels like a trap—one I don’t fully understand, one I’ve probably walked into before. I hover in place, legs tense, fists clenched at my sides. I half expect him to snap his fingers like I’m some disobedient pet.

But he doesn’t.

He just watches me. Patient. Expectant.

Like he has all the time in the world.

Like he’s done this before.

A sharp pulse of nausea rolls through me.

I shouldn’t be here.

Not because I broke the rules. Not because I was caught.

Because it doesn’t matter.

I suck in a slow, uneven breath. Tell myself this is just another interrogation. Another attempt to break me down. That if I hold my ground, if I don’t let him into my head, I’ll find a way out of this.

But my mind whispers something else.

How many times have we had this conversation?

I freeze.

The thought slams into me, sudden and uninvited, forming without permission. A memory that doesn’t belong to me. Or maybe it does.

I don’t remember saying it.

But it feels like I have.

Mercer exhales—slow, measured. He leans back in his chair, dragging a hand down his face.

And for the first time, he looks tired.

Not frustrated.

Just waiting for me to catch up.

I don’t like that.

Not at all.

The air in the office feels heavier now, pressing in from all sides. The light overhead buzzes faintly, flickering once. I fight the urge to look back at the door.

I already know what I’ll see.

A closed door. No lock. But no escape.

Mercer slides something across the desk.

A file.

Thin. Plain. The kind I’ve torn through before with trembling hands, searching for answers that only led to more questions.

I don’t reach for it.

Because I already know.

It’s about me.

Mercer doesn’t push. He just folds his hands over the desk and waits.

His patience is suffocating.

I force my feet to move. One step. Then another. I lower myself into the chair, my body stiff, every muscle braced for something I can’t name.

The moment I sit, Mercer speaks.

Calm. Steady.

Like we’re just continuing a conversation we’ve already had.

Because maybe we are.

“This is getting predictable, Lucy.”

I don’t respond.

Because I don’t know if I have before.

And worse—I don’t know if it matters.

I don’t move at first.

The file sits between us, its edges slightly curled, the paper soft with age. It looks no different from the others I’ve seen. No different from the ones I found in Room 513.

But this one is.

Because this one is mine.

I can feel it.

The weight of it.

Even before I touch it.

Like something alive, pressing against my skin.

I don’t want to open it.

I already know it’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear.

Mercer doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t push it closer. Doesn’t demand I pick it up.

He just waits.

Hands folded. Watching with that same impossible patience.

Like he’s seen this moment before.

Like he already knows how it ends.

A slow, sick feeling curls in my stomach.

I press my nails into my palms and force my fingers to move.

The file feels heavier than it should. The paper is cool against my skin—

But it might as well be burning.

I swallow hard. My throat is dry. My breath too loud in the hush of the room.

Then I open it.

The first thing I see is my name.

Lucy Wren.

It stares up at me—neat, clinical, black ink on white paper. Something about it feels wrong, but I can’t name why.

Then I see what’s beneath it.

A list.

A long, endless list.

Cycle #403.

Cycle #404.

Cycle #405.

My breath stumbles.

I flip the page.

Another list.

And another.

Pages and pages of me.

I feel like I’m falling.

Like the floor has vanished beneath me, and I’m plummeting into something I can’t escape.

I dig my nails deeper into my palms, grounding myself in the sting of pain. But it doesn’t help.

The words don’t change.

The pages don’t disappear.

I’ve been here before.

Not once.

Not twice.

Hundreds of times.

The nausea rolls higher, thick and suffocating. My pulse pounds against my ribs.

I look at Mercer. My hands are shaking.

“These are all me.”

My voice barely comes out. Just a whisper. A breath.

Mercer tilts his head slightly. He isn’t smiling, but I can see the amusement in his eyes—

The quiet satisfaction of a teacher watching a student finally understand the lesson.

“No.” His voice is even. Steady. Certain.

“These are all versions of you.”

The words slam into me like a fist to the ribs.

Versions.

Not me.

Versions of me.

Something in my brain locks up.

Refuses to process what I’m seeing. What he’s saying.

Because it isn’t possible.

But I know that it is.

I’ve seen the erased Lucys. The names. The dates. The files filled with my life rewritten again and again.

I just never asked why.

Never wondered why I was still here when the others weren’t.

I force myself to look down at the list again. My vision blurs at the edges.

“My name. My handwriting. My memories.”

I swallow hard.

“But were they ever mine?”

Mercer exhales through his nose—almost a laugh.

His next words are soft.

Almost kind.

“All the others? They didn’t make it past Cycle 100.”

His eyes flicker.

Dark. Knowing.

“But you… you’re something else entirely.”

The room is too small.

The air is too thin.

I grip the edge of the file like it’s the only thing anchoring me to the world.

Because if this is true—

If I am something else entirely—

Then what the hell am I?

The words don’t land all at once.

They seep in.

Slow and corrosive.

Like water slipping into the cracks of a foundation and rotting it from the inside out.

I try to breathe, but the air feels different now.

Heavier. Hungrier.

Like it’s waiting for me to collapse.

I’m still staring at the file, but I’m not reading anymore.

The names, the numbers, the cycles—

They don’t mean anything now.

Not when I don’t even know if I’m real.

Not when I don’t know what’s keeping me here while every other Lucy has been erased.

I open my mouth. I don’t know what I’m about to say. I don’t even know if I can speak.

But Mercer beats me to it.

He leans back in his chair, taps his fingers against the desk, his expression unreadable.

Then, casually—like he’s asking me about the weather—

“Do you remember Jonah?”

The question slices through me.

I jerk my head up so fast the room tilts. My pulse stumbles. My breath catches.

Suddenly I’m gripping the edge of the desk like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.

Jonah.

His name rings in my skull, sharp and familiar.

Like an old wound torn open.

Jonah.

I remember the way he looked at me. The way he spoke.

The way his presence in this place made sense when nothing else did.

Jonah.

I remember—

I remember—

His face.

My stomach lurches.

I can’t see it.

I try—

But it’s like looking through fogged glass.

Like a photograph with all the details smudged away.

A void where his features should be.

My breath stumbles out of me. My fingers dig into the desk.

“I remember his name,” I whisper. My voice is too thin. Too unsteady.

“I don’t remember his face.”

Mercer hums, tilting his head—

Like I just solved half of a riddle.

I shake my head, my pulse spiking.

No.

No, that’s not right.

Jonah was real. He sat across from me. He spoke to me. He—

“I don’t remember if he was real.”

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

And the second they do—

Something inside me cracks.

Because I mean them.

Because I don’t know.

Jonah was here. I know that.

But was he ever anything more than that?

Was he ever real?

I look at Mercer.

His expression hasn’t changed.

But I know.

I know he already has the answer.

I don’t want to hear it.

But I do.

I have to.

Mercer leans forward. Just slightly. Just enough to make the air between us heavier.

“Why do you think that is, Lucy?”

His voice is soft. Patient.

A knife wrapped in silk.

I shake my head again, harder this time.

My thoughts are a wreck—train cars derailed, crashing into each other at full speed.

There’s an answer. I know there is.

It’s right there, just out of reach, sitting at the edges of my brain, waiting for me to grasp it.

But every time I try—

Nothing.

I feel sick. My body sways, and I don’t know if it’s the dizziness or some deeper instinct—some quiet part of me trying to shut down before I can fully understand.

Mercer watches me.

The moment stretches.

Taut. Suffocating.

Then—

He speaks.

And the words slide under my skin like a needle.

“What if Jonah was just another version of you?”

Silence.

Not the silence of a quiet room.

Not the silence of waiting.

The silence of the world splitting apart.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I just exist in the space between before and after.

Jonah wasn’t real.

Jonah was me.

Not a person.

Not an ally.

Not someone with answers.

Just another Lucy.

Another cycle.

Another reset.

Another failure.

I can’t breathe.

The edges of my vision blur. My body feels wrong—too light and too heavy all at once, like I’m floating and sinking at the same time.

Because if that’s true—if Jonah was just another version of me—

Then I was never talking to a real person.

I was talking to an echo.

A ghost.

A shadow built from discarded memories.

A mistake.

A failure.

And the worst part—

The part that shatters something deep inside me—

I never even realized.

A strangled breath claws its way out of me.

And for the first time, I want to scream.

But the scream never makes it past my throat.

It coils there.

Snarled.

Trapped.

I can’t move.

I am frozen.

I am breaking.

Jonah was never real.

Not a person.

Not separate from me.

Just another Lucy.

Another face.

Another failed cycle.

I grip the desk so tightly my nails bite into the wood—

But I don’t feel it.

I don’t feel anything.

My body is slipping away.

Weightless.

Numb.

Like I’m sinking into a place I’ll never claw my way back from.

No. No, no, no.

Jonah had thoughts. Jonah had memories. He had secrets.

Didn’t he?

My mind races. Desperate. Grasping.

Looking for something to anchor me—anything that proves he was more than a shadow of me.

But every memory has holes.

I remember the words he said—

But not the voice that spoke them.

I remember the way he looked at me—

But not the eyes that did it.

I remember his presence—

But I can’t picture the shape of him.

Because there was nothing to picture.

A shaky breath escapes my lips, barely audible.

I stare down at the desk.

The file is still open in front of me.

Pages and pages of cycles.

I see the numbers. The resets.

My name stamped across every single one.

But now—

Now I see what’s missing.

Jonah isn’t in the records.

Because Jonah was never a separate person.

He was just another name I wore.

Another identity stitched from whatever scraps were left of me after the last reset.

My stomach twists. My vision tilts.

If Jonah wasn’t real—

How do I know that I am?

The thought slams into me.

And I know it’s always been there, just beneath the surface, waiting for this moment.

I grip the desk harder.

I need something real. Something solid.

But even my own body doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

Jonah was Lucy.

Lucy was Jonah.

I am Lucy.

But I was someone else before that.

Wasn’t I?

I press a hand to my chest.

As if I’ll feel something steady there.

Something true.

But my heartbeat is off-rhythm.

My ribs feel too fragile.

Like I’m something borrowed.

Something stitched together from the wreckage of myself.

Mercer watches me, calm as ever.

He knew this would happen.

He’s seen it before.

He’s watched me fall apart.

And now I know why.

Jonah—past Lucy—never realized what he was.

Will I?

Or will I forget again?

Will I wake up in this same chair, staring into Mercer’s expectant eyes, playing out the same conversation—again and again?

My breath stumbles.

My mind is unraveling.

Because if I was Jonah—

If Jonah was just another me—

What does that make me now?

Just another version?

Another failed cycle?

Another identity waiting to be stripped away and repurposed?

My pulse slams against my ribs—fast, frantic, fragile.

I am losing myself.

Losing everything.

I don’t know where I end and where the next version begins.

I don’t even know if there’s a difference anymore.

I suck in a breath.

Try to hold on to something.

But Mercer stands.

And I know—

With a sickening certainty—

He’s already moving on.

He stretches his arms, like someone finishing a tedious task.

Like this wasn’t a conversation that shattered my entire existence.

Like it was routine.

Because maybe for him, it was.

He straightens his cuffs. Rolls his shoulders back. Unbothered. Unchanged.

Like he already knew how this would end.

I try to speak.

But my throat closes around the words.

There’s too much.

Too much unraveling at once.

Jonah was never real.

Jonah was Lucy.

Lucy was Jonah.

I was Jonah.

So what am I now?

Mercer picks up another file, flipping it open like I’m no longer here.

Like I don’t matter.

Maybe I don’t.

Maybe I never did.

I swallow hard. My body trembles. My hands clench at my sides, nails biting into my palms—

But the pain feels distant.

Like it belongs to someone else.

I try to hold on.

But it’s all slipping.

My sense of self peeling away like old wallpaper, layers of identity stripped back until I don’t know what’s underneath.

I thought I was Lucy Wren.

But maybe Lucy Wren was never real.

Maybe I’m not real.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I am still here.

I am still here.

I am still here.

But for how much longer?

Mercer sighs.

The sound is almost bored.

Like he’s seen this play out too many times.

Like he already knows how it ends.

He glances at me. Tilts his head slightly. Considering.

And then, in that infuriatingly patient voice, he says—

“Maybe this time, you’ll finally understand what you are.”

My body locks.

Maybe this time.

This time.

Like I’ve failed before.

Like I’ve been here before.

Staring into the abyss.

Trying to claw my way out.

And every time, I’ve fallen.

Forgotten.

Started over.

No. No.

I lurch forward. Grab the edge of the desk.

My knuckles go white.

I need to hold onto something.

Anything.

My voice rasps from somewhere deep and scraped raw.

“You can’t just—”

Mercer doesn’t look at me.

He just closes the file.

Slides it into the stack.

And dismisses me with a glance toward the door.

“See you soon, Lucy.”

The finality in his voice lands like a hammer to the ribs.

A promise.

A death sentence.

The end.

My breath shudders.

The room is spinning.

My thoughts splintering.

And then—

Like a whisper sliding between my ribs—

A new fear blooms.

If Jonah wasn’t real…

How do I know that I am?

16

THE ARCHIVE

The hospital isn’t silent at night. Not really.

Even now, even here, I can hear it breathing. The hum of machines. The low mechanical thrum beneath the floors. The distant hiss of vents exhaling something stale and artificial.

But the people—they’re gone.

No nurses. No patients. No footsteps echoing behind me. No rustling charts. No hushed voices behind closed doors.

It’s just me.

And I don’t know if that makes me safer—or if it means I’ve already lost.

I move quickly, hugging the edges of the hallway. My fingers skim the wall, just enough to keep me grounded. I don’t need the stolen map—I’ve memorized it, burned every line and corner and hidden door into my brain—but I keep it clutched in my palm anyway. A crumpled lifeline.

Down.

That’s where they buried it.

I reach the stairwell and slip inside. The door clicks softly behind me. I exhale. Slow. Measured. My pulse, too loud in my ears.

I start descending.

The deeper I go, the heavier everything becomes.

The air changes first. Denser. Staler. Like I’m breathing dust instead of oxygen. The sterile, antiseptic scent fades, replaced by something older. Something wrong.

Decay.

My stomach knots. I grip the railing tighter, fingers curling around the cold metal as I move down, down, down.

The stairs stretch beneath me.

Too long.

I know it’s just in my head—the pressure of the walls closing in, the dimming lights, the growing wrongness in the air. But knowing doesn’t stop the feeling.

It’s like I’m descending into something the hospital tried to forget.

A place I was never meant to find.

At the bottom, the air settles.

The hospital’s hum fades, distant now—like it belongs to another world.

I step forward.

The hallway is narrow. Concrete instead of tile. The flickering overhead lights cast long, warping shadows. The pressure in my chest tightens.

And then—I stop.

There’s nothing in front of me.

Just a blank wall.

I stare at it, cold blooming in my gut. No door. No signage. No markings at all.

But that’s wrong.

The map says—

I reach out. My fingers find smooth, cold metal. I press my palm flat, push harder.

And then—

A seam. A whisper of movement beneath my touch.

The wall shifts.

A hidden door.

A rusted plaque, half-obscured by dust, bolts into the metal surface.

ARCHIVE

A shiver climbs my spine.

I don’t want to touch it.

(I have touched it before.)

No. No, I haven’t.

(But what if I have?)

I swallow hard. My fingers close around the handle, trembling.

It’s freezing.

The kind of cold that lives in bone. That feels untouched by time.

Or maybe that’s the lie.

Maybe I’ve touched it before.

Maybe I’ve always known this door.

I take a breath.

And I push it open.

The sound it makes doesn’t belong.

Not a groan. Not a creak. Not the quiet clunk of a neglected lock sliding free.

It’s softer.

A sigh.

Like something exhaling.

Like something had been waiting.

I hesitate. The frozen bite of the handle still lingers in my palm. The air inside is different—too still.

Like nothing has breathed here in a very, very long time.

I step forward.

The Archive is massive.

Not a records office.

Not some neat little file room where patient folders rest quietly in rows.

This is something else.

Something buried.

The shelves stretch in every direction, swallowing the dark. Too tall. Too wide. Too many. The lights overhead flicker with a sickly yellow glow—not illumination, exactly. Just enough to keep the dark from swallowing everything whole.

I step inside.

The smell hits me like a wall.

Not sterile. Not even musty like old paper.

It’s heavier.

Rot. Dust. Something that doesn’t belong in a place made to hold names.

My throat tightens. I keep moving, boots nearly silent on the cold concrete. I reach out, brushing the nearest shelf. The metal is cold—too cold.

Files. Stacked high. Row after row after row, vanishing into shadow.

I pull one free.

Its spine is rough. The cardstock thick, the edges curled with age. The name is too faded to read.

I slide it back. Reach for another.

This one is clearer. Block letters stamped across the front. A name. A number. A date.

And beneath it—

RESET COUNT: 7

STATUS: ERASED

A knot pulls tight in my stomach.

Erased.

Not discharged. Not deceased.

Erased.

I put the file back.

My breath comes faster. My fingers tremble as I move along the shelves, skimming spine after spine. Some names are still clear. Others are ghosts—barely there, ink worn down to shadows.

Some have been erased so many times, they’re almost gone.

My hands shake.

How many?

How many people have they done this to?

How many versions of them have existed in this place before?

How many versions of me?

A cold shiver traces my spine. The thought latches on like a hook in the back of my brain.

I don’t remember coming here before.

(That doesn’t mean I haven’t.)

I take a step back. The lights flicker again, just once—and for a heartbeat, the shelves seem taller.

The shadows stretch farther.

I need to keep going.

Somewhere in this graveyard of paper and ink, this burial ground of rewritten names, the truth is waiting.

I just have to find it before it finds me first.

I move again.

The shelves stretch endlessly, swallowing the air. Swallowing me.

My fingertips trail along spines.

Ink ridges. Cracked labels. Warped corners.

Some names I recognize.

Some I don’t.

Some are barely names at all.

Just the ghosts of people who were erased too many times to stay.

A sick feeling coils in my stomach.

They tried to erase Jonah.

Tried to erase me.

I don’t know what I’m looking for.

But I’ll know it when I see it.

And then—

I do.

The name hits me like a blade.

Sharp. Immediate.

My breath catches.

JONAH VALE

My fingers hover over the folder. My whole body locks.

I don’t want to touch it.

I have to touch it.

I slide the file from the shelf. My hands shake. My pulse hammers in my ears. The paper is thick. Heavy. I exhale slowly and flip it open.

JONAH VALE – PATIENT #312

Reset count: UNKNOWN

Status: MERGED

The word punches straight through me.

Merged.

Not erased.

Not reset.

Merged.

The file trembles in my grip. My breath stutters.

Merged with what?

I scan the document again, desperate for context, for explanation—anything to anchor this to reality. But there’s nothing.

Just that one word.

And somehow, that’s worse.

I clutch the folder tighter, knuckles gone white. My mind scrambles, trying to make it fit, trying to force the pieces into some kind of shape—but—

No.

No, this is wrong.

Jonah isn’t just gone.

He isn’t just deleted.

They didn’t remove him from the system.

They put him back in.

Something inside me fractures.

Memories that don’t belong to me flicker behind my eyes.

Jonah’s voice in my head.

His words echoing in my thoughts before I even said them.

The way he always knew what I was going to do next.

Because he wasn’t just another patient.

He wasn’t just another Lucy reset.

He was absorbed.

He was inside me.

The file slips from my hands.

It falls to the floor.

Papers spill out, folding over one another like broken wings.

Inside me.

Inside me.

A tremor rips up my spine, through my skull.

The static in my brain intensifies—too many thoughts, too many voices, all trying to exist in the same space.

Jonah didn’t disappear.

He became part of something else.

Part of me.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

The walls lean in. The lights buzz too loud. The ceiling feels closer than it was a second ago.

How much of me is really me?

I clutch my head. My breath shatters. My thoughts fragment.

Jonah’s voice.

Jonah’s thoughts.

Inside me.

I feel wrong.

I feel wrong.

I stumble back. Another step. Another. I need to move, to run, to—

I turn too fast.

The shelves stretch too tall.

Too close.

The room is swallowing me whole.

And I don’t even know if I was ever real to begin with.

I can’t stay here.

The files press in—names and names and names.

Too many lives. Too many versions.

Too many people they erased.

Jonah wasn’t erased.

He was merged.

Into me.

The thought spreads through me like poison.

Like static in my blood.

Like something foreign in my bones.

My stomach twists. My lungs stutter.

How much of me is actually me?

I lunge forward, shoving through the rows, fingers trembling as I scan the shelves.

I don’t know what I’m searching for.

But it’s here.

I know it is.

And then—

I see it.

The name burns straight through me.

Too familiar. Too sharp. Too final.

LUCY WREN

A cold shiver stabs through my spine.

But something’s wrong.

This file—it’s different.

No cycle number. No reset stamp.

Just one word. Scrawled in uneven, trembling ink:

ORIGINAL

My body freezes.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t move.

The word sears into my brain, like it’s been waiting there all along.

Original.

Not Cycle 14.

Not a clone.

Not a test subject waiting for the next reset.

Original.

I wasn’t supposed to find this.

My fingers tremble as I reach for it.

I don’t want to touch it.

(I have to.)

I slide the file from the shelf.

It’s heavier. Thicker than the others.

The air shifts.

Something changes.

Like the whole hospital is holding its breath.

I flip it open.

Inside—

Not data.

Not charts.

Not files.

A photograph.

I freeze.

Grainy. Black and white. Faded with time.

The kind of photo that belongs to another era.

And the girl in the picture—

She has my name.

But I have never seen her before in my life.

My stomach drops.

A deep, sick plunge like the world just cracked in half beneath me.

This isn’t possible.

(This is real.)

I stare at the photo. My hands clench around the edges. My pulse slams in my throat.

She doesn’t look like me.

Not exactly.

The face is familiar—but wrong.

Sharper jaw.

Darker eyes.

Hair neater, cleaner.

Styled differently.

Like a version of me that was never supposed to survive.

Like a version of me that was never supposed to remember.

A wave of cold crashes over me.

The lights flicker. The shadows stretch.

My head spins. My vision tilts.

I was never Lucy Wren.

I was just built from her.

I drop the file.

It hits the floor with a dull, final thud.

Everything I thought I knew about myself—

It was never mine to begin with.

The photograph stares up at me.

I want to look away.

I can’t.

That girl is Lucy Wren.

The real one.

My hands tighten around the folder. The paper digs into my skin. My breath comes too fast, too shallow.

The world around me blurs—

The shelves, the yellow light, the dead air.

It all fades.

Because this moment swallows everything.

I search the girl’s face for something familiar.

A flicker of recognition. A sliver of memory.

Nothing.

She’s a stranger.

But she has my name.

My stomach twists. Drops.

I flip the file open with shaking hands. The pages whisper as they turn—thin, yellowed, fading with age. But the words are still there.

They were always there.

I just wasn’t supposed to find them.

SUBJECT: LUCY WREN – ORIGINAL

DATE OF INITIAL TRIAL: [REDACTED]

STATUS: FILE CLOSED

My head spins.

Closed.

Not erased.

Not reset.

Closed.

Like a file that doesn’t need updating.

A finished project.

My breath shudders out of me.

The truth is here.

On paper.

In ink.

Stamped. Filed. Final.

Because that’s what this was.

What I am.

An experiment.

The floor tilts beneath me. My heartbeat crashes in my ears, thick and suffocating.

I flip another page.

And another.

The sentences blur. Words slide out of focus. My brain refuses to accept them, like it’s trying to protect me from the truth.

I force myself to keep going.

Project WREN Initiative: Cycle 1

Primary Subject: LUCY WREN

Subsequent Cycles: [REDACTED]

My fingers lock up.

Subsequent.

The word sinks in like ice.

I’m not Lucy Wren.

I never was.

I was just—

A cycle.

A version.

A copy.

The photograph trembles in my hands. My breath catches. My ribs feel too tight, like something inside me is about to crack.

The real Lucy Wren is gone.

And I’m what they built in her place.

The realization slams into me, violent and sharp. I drop the file without thinking. Pages spill across the floor, fluttering like broken wings.

The room contracts.

The air thickens.

I’m shaking.

My skin feels wrong.

Because what if this isn’t the first time I’ve found this file?

What if I’ve seen it before?

What if they erased me—again and again—just to make sure I’d forget?

A cold dread slithers around my spine.

Paralyzing. Icy.

The lights flicker again.

A shadow shifts at the edge of my vision.

And then—

A voice.

Calm.

Steady.

Like it’s been waiting.

“You were never meant to escape, Lucy.”

My whole body freezes.

I know that voice.

Mercer steps forward, face half-lit by the yellow haze.

He doesn’t look surprised.

Or angry.

He looks—relieved.

Like I finally understand.

Like I finally know the truth.

“You were meant to evolve.”

The word evolve stretches, twists.

It reshapes itself into something worse than I want to understand.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

My pulse hammers against my ribs, ragged and uneven, like it’s trying to escape my chest.

Mercer watches me.

Not like a person.

Like a scientist watching data recalibrate.

I force my mouth to work, but my throat burns.

My voice is a whisper. Cracked.

“You knew.”

He tilts his head. “Of course.”

Of course.

Like it was always part of the plan.

The air compresses. The room shrinks.

The walls close in with the weight of all those files.

All those names.

They aren’t patients.

They’re versions.

They’re failures.

Or maybe—

They’re me.

A wave of cold ripples through me.

I dig my nails into my arms, trying to hold myself together.

Trying not to split open.

I was never Lucy Wren.

I was made from her.

I shake my head. “No. No, that’s—”

Mercer exhales. Not annoyed.

Just tired. Disappointed.

Like I should be further along by now.

“Tell me, Lucy,” he says gently. “How many times do you think you’ve been here?”

The words strike deep.

Sink their teeth in.

I can’t answer.

Because the truth is already unraveling inside me, dragging itself out of the static, assembling itself from every missing moment.

I feel it.

The wrongness in my body.

The flicker in my memory.

The pieces that never stayed where I left them.

How many times?

How many times have I found this file?

How many times have I stared at that photograph and realized she was more real than I could ever be?

How many times have they wiped me clean and started again?

My legs wobble. My breath fractures.

Mercer doesn’t move.

He just waits.

Because this is part of it.

This moment.

This unraveling.

“You were never meant to escape, Lucy.”

His voice is too calm.

Too certain.

Because he knows.

Because I know.

I was never meant to leave.

I was meant to learn.

To evolve.

To fail, to break, to be reset—again and again and again—

Until I became something else.

Something better.

Something perfect.

I stagger back. The room tilts. My skin doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

I feel wrong.

I feel unfinished.

Mercer watches me fall apart.

And I finally understand—

That’s what he was waiting for.

17

THE REAL EXPERIMENT

I shove the file away like it might bite.

The papers scatter across the table. The photograph slips free, landing face-up.

Lucy Wren — Original.

Not me.

Never me.

My breath stutters, fast and shallow. My body isn’t working right. My hands won’t stop shaking. My pulse pounds—throat, wrists, behind my eyes—like it’s trying to claw out.

I need to get out.

Now.

I push away from the table, nearly knocking the chair sideways. My legs barely hold me. Some part of me—older, deeper—knows something’s coming before my thoughts can name it.

The air shifts.

Not colder. Not warmer.

Just… heavier.

Like the pressure in the room thickens by degrees, pushing against my lungs, making every breath drag like it’s being pulled through water.

Then—footsteps.

Slow. Measured.

Not searching. Not rushing.

Just coming.

Like they already know exactly where I am.

A shiver rips through me. I step back, heart hammering against my ribs. My fingers curl around the edge of the table, gripping too tight.

The footsteps stop.

Silence.

And then—the door swings open.

No urgency. No chaos. Just a smooth, controlled motion.

Mercer steps inside.

He doesn’t scan the room. Doesn’t react to the mess of papers or the photo on the table. Because he isn’t surprised.

He’s expected this.

His face is unreadable. Not angry. Not even disappointed.

Just… waiting.

My breath catches in my throat.

His gaze drifts from me to the file I shoved aside. The photograph. My name.

Then back to me.

And something cold settles behind his eyes.

When he speaks, his voice is calm. Even. Like this is just another routine checkpoint on a chart he’s been updating for years.

“You always come back here eventually.”

A sharp, electric chill runs down my spine.

Not You weren’t supposed to find this.

Not What have you done?

Just—You always come back here eventually.

Like this has happened before.

My stomach drops.

I grip the table harder. My nails dig into the wood. My throat clogs with static.

I should scream. Demand answers. Tell him to stay the hell away.

But instead—

A thought slides into my brain.

Sharp.

Unwelcome.

How many times have we had this conversation?

The room tilts.

No. No, that can’t be—

My breath stumbles. My hands lock in place.

This is the first time.

It has to be the first time.

But Mercer just watches me.

Steady. Still.

Like he’s waiting for the realization to finish sinking in.

Waiting for me to catch up.

He doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t try to stop me from running or falling apart.

He just watches.

Studying.

Like I’m the subject now.

My whole body is frozen, breath locked in my chest, hands still clenched against the edge of the table like it’s the only thing anchoring me to this moment. Because I can feel it—if I let go, I’ll fall straight through.

The file is still open.

My name printed across the front.

LUCY WREN — ORIGINAL.

The photograph stares up from the papers. The girl who isn’t me.

A life I don’t remember.

A self I’ve never been.

And Mercer—he doesn’t even glance at it.

Because the file was never the point.

I was.

I swallow hard and force my voice to work. “What do you want?”

Mercer doesn’t answer right away. He just tilts his head slightly, like he’s deciding how much to say.

And then—a small smile.

Barely there.

“You want the truth?” he says. “Fine. But let me ask you this, Lucy—if you weren’t real, would it even matter?”

Something sharp and cold tears through my chest.

I try to blink. Try to breathe.

But the words root themselves in my skull like hooks.

If you weren’t real, would it even matter?

I shake my head, shove the thought away. “That’s not an answer.”

His smile lingers.

“Isn’t it?”

I don’t realize I’ve stepped backward until my back hits the shelves.

The files rattle. A dry, hollow sound.

“I don’t need riddles,” I snap. My voice shakes. Thin. Cracked. “I need you to tell me what I am.”

The words hang there.

Mercer exhales softly.

Then—he moves.

Not toward me.

Just to the chair across the table.

He pulls it out and sits down. Calm. Relaxed.

Not defensive.

Not cautious.

Like we’ve done this before.

Like the answer is already inside me, and he’s just here to watch me find it.

“You were never meant to escape, Lucy,” he says.

The room sways. The floor ripples under my feet. The lights overhead flicker.

Mercer leans forward, lacing his fingers together on the table.

“You were meant to evolve.”

The words hit like a strike to the ribs.

My chest tightens. My skin feels stretched. Wrong.

Like it doesn’t fit right over whatever I really am.

“I—” My voice catches. My head shakes before I can stop it. “No. No, that’s not—”

Mercer watches quietly.

Not with cruelty.

With patience.

Like he knows what happens next.

“You already know, don’t you?” he says.

And he’s right.

I do.

Somewhere inside me—I’ve always known.

But if I admit it…

If I let myself see it…

I can never go back.

Mercer leans back in his chair.

Still watching.

Still waiting.

Like nothing about this is surprising.

Like this moment doesn’t belong to me at all.

The floor feels unsteady beneath me, even though I know it isn’t moving.

My whole body is wired too tight. My lungs keep pulling in breath after breath that never quite reaches my chest.

I want to speak. To push back. To demand answers.

But my throat won’t cooperate.

Because something worse is already unraveling inside me.

A new thought.

Sharp. Awful. Familiar.

I do know.

I don’t want to.

But I do.

Mercer’s gaze flicks toward the table.

The file.

The proof.

The photograph.

Lucy Wren.

The original.

Not me.

The weight of it slams back into my chest. The name. The paper. The life that doesn’t belong to me but somehow does. Pressing into my skin, into the hollow places I can’t seem to fill.

I snap the folder shut and shove it away like it might burn me.

But Mercer doesn’t flinch.

Because the file isn’t the point.

I am.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, blocking out the flickering lights, the shifting walls, the way the room feels too big and too small all at once.

And then—he says it.

His voice is lower now. Steady. Almost kind.

“Tell me, Lucy. Do you still hear Jonah’s voice in your head?”

Something inside me fractures.

My hands drop from my face.

I stare at him, heartbeat crashing against my ribs.

What?

The word barely makes it out. Just a breath. Just a crack in the air.

But Mercer doesn’t press.

He just watches.

Waiting.

Like he knows the realization is already blooming.

My breath catches. My skin goes cold.

I try to say no.

But the word doesn’t come.

The room tilts. The light flickers. My thoughts twist.

Jonah’s voice.

Echoing in my head.

His words. The things he said—the way they mirrored mine too perfectly. Like we were always reaching for the same thing at the same time.

Because we were.

Because—

They weren’t his.

They were mine.

My fingers curl into the table, nails digging deep into the wood.

“No.” I shake my head, sharp and violent. “That’s not—he’s not—”

Mercer tilts his head. Smiles.

Not wide.

Not cruel.

Just… like confirmation.

“Jonah didn’t disappear, Lucy.”

The world freezes.

Mercer leans forward, his voice soft. Quiet. Final.

“He just became part of you.”

The chair scrapes across the floor as I jerk back.

No.

No.

That isn’t right. That can’t be right.

But the static in my brain surges. Loud and suffocating.

It presses in from the edges. Into the gaps.

Jonah’s thoughts.

His memories.

Things he knew that I knew. Things I knew before he said them.

Not echoes.

Not accidents.

Pieces.

Merging.

Folding inward.

Becoming me.

My breath breaks apart. My hands fly to my temples like I can hold my mind together by force, like I can press it back into the shape it used to be.

Jonah didn’t die.

He didn’t reset.

They put him inside me.

And if they did it to Jonah—

How many others are already there?

I can’t breathe.

The air is thick. Heavy. Crowded.

My thoughts slip through my fingers like strangers. Like borrowed things.

Like they’re not mine at all.

Mercer doesn’t move.

His fingers rest lightly on the table, still laced together. His face is calm. Patient.

Like this isn’t new.

Like this is just another step in a long series of the same collapse.

I shake my head. Hard. Again.

“No. No, that’s not—”

But the words dissolve before I can finish them.

Because I already know.

It’s not a trick.

Not a theory.

Not a lie.

The truth is already inside me.

Jonah’s voice.

Jonah’s thoughts.

They were never his.

They were mine.

Because he was mine.

Because he was me.

I press my hands harder against my skull, trying to keep the pieces from flying apart.

My lungs shudder. My stomach flips.

Mercer doesn’t try to stop me.

He doesn’t need to.

Because the break has already happened.

There’s no undoing it now.

A deep, awful silence settles in my bones.

“I’m not just me,” I whisper.

It’s not a question.

Mercer nods—just once. “No.”

A breath shudders out of me.

My body feels wrong. Too full. Like my skin is stretched too tight over something larger than it was meant to hold.

I dig my fingers into my arms, clawing for gravity. For proof. For anything solid enough to make me real again.

“Then who am I?” I ask.

Mercer exhales, smooth and slow, as he adjusts his sleeves. He rises from his chair with the same deliberate care as someone sealing off a finished experiment.

“You’re further than any of the others, Lucy.”

The words slice clean through me.

Further.

Not different.

Not special.

Just another cycle that’s made it a few steps further down the path.

But something is shifting.

Something is watching.

That’s why he hasn’t left.

That’s why he’s still here.

Because I’ve reached something new.

But that doesn’t mean I’ll survive it.

The meaning is crystal clear.

I clutch my stomach. Swallow down the nausea clawing up my throat. My head is pounding, overstuffed with voices, memories, selves.

I thought I was trying to escape.

But I wasn’t.

I was trying to wake up.

And now, I don’t know if I can ever go back to sleep.

There’s too much inside me.

Too many thoughts. Too many lives. Too many Lucys.

My breath hitches. My hands won’t stop shaking.

I wrap my arms around myself, pressing into my own skin, desperate for something that feels like mine.

But I already know—

The truth is in me.

Jonah’s voice. His memories. His rhythm of thought.

They were never his.

They were always mine.

Because he didn’t disappear.

They put him inside me.

And if they did it to Jonah—

How many others are already there?

The realization crashes through me like a fist to the ribs.

My stomach turns. Bile climbs.

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the thoughts to stop.

They don’t.

Memories surge. Foreign and familiar.

A hand I don’t recognize reaching for a light switch.

A laugh I’ve never heard escaping my own throat.

A room I’ve never seen. A place I’ve never been. A person I’ve never met—except I have.

I’ve been them.

I’ve lived them.

The static climbs, white-hot and crawling. I dig my nails into my arms, trying to hold onto myself, trying to dam the flood.

But it’s too late.

The dam is broken.

And I am drowning in every Lucy that came before.

Every failure.

Every reset.

Every ghost stitched into my code.

Because I was never meant to leave.

I was only ever meant to evolve.

Mercer watches me spiral, hands in his pockets, face unreadable.

I open my eyes.

He’s still there.

Still calm.

Still watching me crack apart like he’s waiting for a flower to bloom.

Like this isn’t my collapse.

It’s my breakthrough.

“You knew this would happen,” I whisper, voice raw.

Mercer nods. Not smug. Just certain. Like I’ve arrived exactly where I was supposed to.

“You’re further than any of the others, Lucy.”

The words hit deeper now. Heavier.

Further.

Not chosen.

Not saved.

Just… more complete.

And still—

Not whole.

The room is shrinking. The walls are too close. My body too full. My skin too tight. Like it’s holding in something it can’t contain much longer.

I wrap my arms around myself and hold tight.

But it’s not enough.

I already know it won’t be.

Because I’m not the first.

But I might be the last.

I can’t escape it.

Not the voices. Not the truth. Not the cracking sound of my own identity peeling away.

I press my hands to my temples, digging my fingers into my skull like I can hold it all in. Like I can keep it from spilling over.

But the memories keep coming.

Flashes of lives I never asked for.

A boy with dark hair, laughing in a voice that feels like mine.

A white room. Too bright. Too clean.

A reset sequence flickering through cold machinery.

A whisper, soft and inescapable—

You always come back here eventually.

I gasp, sharp and sudden. Like I’ve surfaced after drowning.

My chest is too tight.

My brain too loud.

And I can feel them.

The others.

The versions who didn’t make it. The ones left behind. The fragments, the glitches, the ghosts.

I am not alone in my own mind.

Mercer is still watching.

Hands in his pockets.

Expression almost satisfied.

Like this was the moment he was waiting for.

Like this was the goal.

I clutch my arms again, nails biting into skin that doesn’t feel like mine. “You did this to me.”

My voice trembles.

Mercer tilts his head, curious. “Did I?”

I stagger back. The room spins. My vision skips like bad film.

And I understand.

He’s right.

This wasn’t done to me.

It was what I was built for.

Every version of me.

Every reset.

Every fracture.

All of it.

A process.

A system.

A test.

And now—I’ve reached further than the others.

I’ve made it to the moment that breaks the rest of them.

I shake my head. But it’s too late.

There’s no going back.

Mercer exhales, slow and deliberate. The gesture of a man finishing a long-running script.

His eyes flick toward the door.

“You’re further than any of the others, Lucy.”

This time, the words land like a sentence.

Not an honor.

Not a victory.

Just a result.

Another notch in the data.

Another fragment reaching the edge.

But not breaking through.

Not yet.

He’s still watching me because this is new.

Because this might be the moment I finally split.

Or finally transform.

I tighten my grip around myself. Press in hard.

But it’s useless.

I’m not the first.

But I might be the last.

18

THE COLLAPSE BEGINS

The room is still trembling.

I press my hand against the desk, trying to steady myself, but the wood feels wrong. Flickering. Like it’s phasing between real and something else.

Something that shouldn’t be.

My breath comes shallow. My skin prickles. My body feels borrowed.

Too much.

Too many.

I look down at my hands.

And for a second—just long enough to make my stomach turn—they’re not my hands at all.

Smaller. Darker. A scar across the knuckle of my right ring finger I don’t remember getting.

I blink.

They’re normal again.

No. Not normal.

Not mine.

A shudder rolls through my spine. I curl my fingers into my palms, pressing until it hurts. Trying to stay anchored.

Here.

Now.

This body. This moment.

The overhead lights hum too loud. Then too soft.

The walls breathe in and out.

The ceiling stretches, lowers, recoils—like the room is twitching in its sleep.

A low electric buzz burrows into my ears.

Not a sound. Not exactly.

A whisper.

At first, I think it’s one voice.

But it isn’t.

It’s hundreds.

Layered over one another. Staggered, tangled. Different cadences. Different versions of me.

Jonah’s voice.

Evelyn’s voice.

A chorus of selves—mine and not mine.

The others.

The ones who came before.

The ones inside me.

Nausea coils hot and sudden in my stomach. I shove away from the desk, stumbling back. My shoulder slams into a shelf—files scatter, pages crumple.

I don’t care.

I need out.

I lunge toward the door—

The room glitches.

Flickers.

For a heartbeat, the shelves are gone.

A waiting room. A stairwell. A hallway leading downward.

And then—snap.

Back again.

Not normal.

Not real.

I squeeze my eyes shut, swallowing the panic clawing up my throat.

The whispers grow louder.

They’re not outside me.

They’re in me.

Memories—or fragments—bleeding in from the edges.

A hand gripping mine—but whose?

A door slamming shut—but when?

A scream—

But is it mine?

I don’t know.

I don’t want to.

I shove forward, legs buckling, pulse hammering. I wrench the door open.

The hallway outside is waiting.

I stagger into it, gasping. My head reels. The electric hum keeps pulsing beneath my skin.

I need to run.

I need to escape.

But the hospital isn’t done with me.

I expect the same corridor I entered through.

I don’t get it.

The hallway is wrong.

I freeze in the doorway. Breath caught.

The air feels heavier. Pressurized. Like the building just exhaled.

The corridor stretches too long. The walls curve wrong. The lights overhead flicker and stutter, casting shadows that don’t match the shapes they belong to.

I turn—

The door behind me is gone.

Just a wall.

As if it never existed.

My stomach pitches. Something slinks through my ribs. Tightening.

No.

No, I came from there. I know I did.

I backpedal, dragging my fingers along the smooth surface, searching for a seam. A hinge.

Something.

Nothing.

Like the hospital erased it.

Or like it was never there at all.

I press my palm to my forehead, trying to force stillness into my thoughts.

The voices are still whispering.

Too fast. Too layered.

A symphony of strangers who sound like me.

I can’t stay here.

I push forward, deeper into the corridor. Each step unsteady.

Something shifts beneath me.

Not the floor—

The space.

I glance down.

My foot is already across the hallway.

But I never moved.

Terror stabs through me.

I take a step—slow, careful—

The hallway twitches again.

The distance stretches. The edges flicker. The air folds over itself.

Geometry doesn’t behave like geometry.

I lift my hand.

And for a moment, it’s too far away.

My arm is wrong. My body misaligned.

Like I’ve been pasted into the wrong version of the world.

I squeeze my hands into fists.

Ground yourself.

Stay here.

I move faster.

Left.

Right.

Left again.

Same hallway.

Same flickering light.

I keep moving—

But I’m not moving forward.

I’m not moving at all.

My breath hitches.

I stop dead in the corridor. My chest heaves. Sweat slides down my spine.

I know this.

Not here, but here.

A loop.

A trap.

I whirl around—

Same corridor.

No start.

No end.

Just the flicker.

Just the repeat.

Like a broken reel looping over itself.

A fresh wave of nausea slams through me. I squeeze my eyes shut, palms pressed to my temples.

The whispers dig in.

They scrape the inside of my skull.

And then—

I understand them.

Just one word.

Run.

Run.

It hits like a fist to the brain.

Not from the walls.

Not from the air.

Inside.

A voice. Urgent. Layered. Like it’s speaking forward and backward at once.

I choke on a breath. Stumble back.

I want to ask—who?

But I know.

Me.

Not just me.

The others.

I claw at my temples, digging in. Trying to shut them out.

But they keep talking.

They collapse over each other. Collide. A thousand warnings layered in static.

A low voice, cold and clear:

“Turn right.”

A second—desperate, gasping:

“No—left. The doors aren’t real if you go right.”

A third. Barely a whisper:

“If you stop, they’ll find you.”

I stagger. My head splits. My stomach lurches with something old and wrong.

They’re inside me.

Not echoes.

Presences.

Fighting to be heard.

I grit my teeth. Focus. Try to pry the noise apart. Pull the words into something I can use.

Right.

Left.

Stop.

Which one?

I open my eyes—

And everything changes.

Not the hallway.

The doors.

The doors line the walls—identical.

Silver handles gleam under the flickering lights. They stretch into the distance like teeth in a hungry mouth.

Each one feels wrong.

Like an invitation I should never accept.

Like a trap I can’t see.

The voices argue.

“Go through!”

“No—trap!”

“It’s not an exit!”

I can’t tell which ones are right.

I can’t tell which ones are mine.

My breath falters.

I have seconds.

I don’t know which door is real.

I don’t know where any of them lead.

But I choose anyway.

The moment my hand touches the knob—

The alarm detonates.

A deep, gut-punching klaxon erupts from the walls. The floor.

From me.

I stagger back, hands clamped over my ears. It’s too loud—

Not just sound. Pressure.

It pulses in my skull. Rattles my teeth.

Something inside me fractures.

Not an alarm.

A signal.

I feel it in my ribs, in my veins, in the base of my skull—

A pulse beating in sync with mine.

The hospital isn’t just hearing me.

It’s responding.

My knees buckle. The hallway lurches.

The walls breathe.

The building inhales—

And it’s about to exhale.

A metallic slam cracks through the air—

The doors begin to close.

One after another.

Fast.

Too fast.

The hallway tightens.

The choices shrink.

The hospital isn’t just shutting me in.

It’s corralling me forward.

Panic claws at my throat.

I whirl toward the only path still open—

And freeze.

A shape.

At the end of the corridor.

Not Mercer.

Not an orderly.

Something else.

Something worse.

I don’t move.

It doesn’t move.

But it sees me.

I feel it.

Something deep and primal coils in my stomach. Instinct screams.

This is not just a person.

Not a glitch.

Not a failed reset.

It’s something else.

And it’s waiting.

The figure tilts its head.

Not human.

Not curious.

Calculating.

A sharp jolt of electricity spikes down my spine. My muscles lock.

Every cell in me screams to run.

But I can’t.

I can’t look away.

The shape at the end of the hall is wrong.

Not blurry.

Refusing to hold still.

The outline twitches, curls, distorts—like static trying to form a picture.

My eyes won’t focus.

My brain won’t process it.

It’s like I was never meant to see this.

A deep nausea churns in my gut. Something presses behind my eyes, around my thoughts—

Like fingers in wet clay.

I know this feeling.

This is what happens when I try to remember something I wasn’t built to know.

This thing—

It’s not supposed to exist.

Or worse—

I was never supposed to see it.

The air around it warps.

Reality folds inward.

The walls flicker.

The floor contracts.

Then—

It moves.

Too fast.

Too sudden.

One second, it’s at the far end of the hall.

The next—

It’s ten feet away.

Just there.

Like reality skipped a beat.

A violent shudder rips through me.

The thing tilts its head again.

Slow. Deliberate.

Watching.

Waiting.

I feel the first sting of heat behind my eyes. Pressure building in my skull.

It’s doing something to me.

No.

No, no, no.

I step back—

And it flickers forward.

Another glitch.

Another inch closer.

I gasp. Sharp. Shattered.

My heart slams against my ribs.

The voices inside my head explode.

RUN.

RUN.

They scream it in unison.

Urgent. Unified. Terrified.

But my body doesn’t move.

The entity is too close now.

Not reaching. Not touching.

Just there.

Watching.

Breathing without breath.

Blinking without eyes.

Moving without movement.

The air around it thrums. Heavy.

Like the edge of the world is about to give out.

A low vibration crawls through my bones. My teeth ache.

Move.

I have to move.

Now.

I rip my gaze away and run.

The hospital reacts instantly.

The floor stretches beneath me—pulling me backward.

The walls twist. Contract. Pulse.

It’s adapting.

Trying to trap me.

Trying to hold me.

I fight against it, lungs burning, every step like pushing through wet cement.

That thing doesn’t chase me.

It doesn’t need to.

It doesn’t move the way I do.

It will be wherever it wants to be.

I stumble. Catch myself on the wall. Fingers scrape across cold metal—

A door.

No—two.

One left. One right.

The voices inside me split again.

“Left!”

“No—right!”

“LEFT!”

“NO—RIGHT!”

They scream over each other.

A choice.

One is real.

The other, a trap.

Or neither.

Or both.

Or none of this is real.

I don’t know.

I can’t know.

Behind me—

A flicker.

The entity shifts again.

Closer.

The walls tremble.

The floor fractures.

The hallway unravels.

I have seconds.

I breathe in—

Lift one foot—

I choose.

19

THE FINAL EXIT

SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE.

The alarm hammers through my skull.

The walls are glitching.

Not crumbling. Not collapsing like something physical.

Worse than that.

The floor flickers beneath me—tile, then carpet, then tile again. The hallway stretches, contracts. The ceiling buckles like warped plastic. Fluorescent lights stutter overhead, jagged shadows breaking across the floor—like there’s more than one of me.

I run.

Or I try to.

The world stutters beneath my feet, like I’m stepping across half-loaded images in a corrupted file.

I take one more step—

And I’m somewhere else.

Not a hospital hallway.

A room.

No. Not a room.

Not anything I can name.

For half a second, the walls exist. Then they don’t. They blink out like dead pixels, reloading into something different.

Something wrong.

The lights overhead flicker too slow, too staggered, like the hospital isn’t just collapsing—it’s struggling to rebuild itself.

I keep moving.

Another corridor—if it even is a corridor.

Reality reloads around me.

The doors I pass ripple, warping into shapeless openings before snapping back.

I don’t stop.

I can’t.

Because something is wrong.

Worse than walls breaking.

Worse than the ground shifting beneath me.

It’s the feeling.

The sense that I am not alone.

I glance over my shoulder—

And the hallway behind me lags.

Like a skipping film reel.

Like a frame stuck in time.

Like something is watching me from the parts of the world that haven’t finished rendering.

A sharp, electric chill climbs my spine.

I run faster.

The alarm blares louder, glitching on itself.

SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAIL—

And then—

I see it.

At the end of the corridor, past the flickering lights, beyond the shifting walls—

A door.

Not white. Not sterile.

Not from this version of the world.

Dark wood. Brass handle. Heavy. Real.

The kind of door that doesn’t belong here.

A door from before.

Before the resets. Before the erasures.

Before whatever this place became.

My pulse hammers.

This is it.

The way out.

I don’t think.

I run.

The door doesn’t flicker. Doesn’t glitch.

It stays solid.

It has to be real.

I get closer—

And then—

A voice.

Behind me.

It stops me cold.

Because it isn’t just a voice.

It’s mine.

Saying my name.

My voice.

I don’t turn right away.

Because I already know what I’ll see.

A thick, visceral wrongness uncoils in my gut, curling around my ribs.

My breath catches. My pulse roars in my ears.

The hallway has changed.

Not flickering. Not breaking.

Waiting.

I take a single, trembling breath.

And turn.

At first, the glitching walls distort her.

A flicker. A stretched shadow.

Then the image stabilizes.

And I see her.

Me.

She stands at the far end of the corridor, just before the world dissolves into static.

Her shape sharpens.

My shape.

My face.

My eyes.

She is me.

But not.

A tremor jolts through me.

The lights overhead buzz and flicker like they can’t decide which version of us to illuminate.

The Other Lucy watches me.

Her head tilts—just slightly.

Not confused.

Not afraid.

Studying.

Like I’m the anomaly.

Like I’m the one that doesn’t belong.

The space between us warps.

The floor stretches and stutters, like it’s buffering.

The air vibrates with something wrong.

She speaks.

My voice.

My cadence.

But not my words.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Not You can’t leave.

Not Stop.

Just—

“You shouldn’t be here.”

A cold, burning dread claws into my chest.

Because that means something.

That means I’m out of bounds.

That means this isn’t new.

That means—

This has happened before.

My throat goes dry. My fingers curl into fists.

The Other Lucy doesn’t move.

She isn’t angry.

She isn’t even curious.

She’s patient.

Like she has all the time in the world.

Like she’s waiting to see what I’ll do next.

My voice comes out thin. Shaking.

“Which one are you?”

The question hangs in the air between us.

The Other Lucy tilts her head again.

And smiles.

It’s wrong.

Not wide. Not cruel.

Just slightly off.

Too slow. Too practiced.

Like she’s remembering how to do it.

The space between us bends.

Not like the floors or walls, flickering in and out.

It’s deeper than that.

Like reality doesn’t know which of us is supposed to exist.

My breath shudders.

The air feels like static in my lungs.

She doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t shift.

She just waits.

Loose posture. Calm. Too calm.

Like she’s been here before.

Like she’s been me before.

The thought strikes deep.

I stagger back, fists clenched. “What are you?”

The Other Lucy tilts her head again. The smile doesn’t leave.

And then—

She steps forward.

Just one step.

Slow. Measured.

And I feel it before I see it.

She’s just a second off.

Like her body is buffering.

Like the system hasn’t fully rendered her.

Like she doesn’t fully exist.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t move.

She takes another step.

And I realize—

I’m not the glitch.

She is.

I choke on a breath. The world blurs, tilts.

This isn’t about me trying to escape.

This is about stopping me.

She isn’t another version.

She isn’t another me.

She’s a failsafe.

The system’s last defense.

Its final reset.

The thought slams into my chest. Hard.

This has happened before.

Every version of me that ever reached this point—

She was waiting.

How many of them made the wrong choice?

How many of them became her?

A tremor runs down my spine.

I step back. Closer to the door.

The Other Lucy doesn’t move.

She just watches.

Patient. Still.

Like she doesn’t have to do anything at all.

Like she already knows something I don’t.

A deep, primal panic takes hold of my limbs.

If I turn away now—

Will she still be there?

Or will she be me?

I take another step back.

The wooden door is against my spine now. Solid. Real.

The only thing in this world that isn’t flickering or warped.

I could reach for it.

I should.

But I don’t.

Because she’s still watching me.

Still hasn’t moved.

Her expression doesn’t shift. She doesn’t speak again.

She doesn’t have to.

Like the choice isn’t really mine.

A sick twist coils in my stomach.

This has happened before.

I know it. Deep in my bones.

Every Lucy that’s made it this far—

She was here.

Waiting.

The failsafe.

The final filter.

How many versions have stood in front of this door, facing her?

How many hesitated?

How many didn’t make it through?

I press a shaking hand against the door.

It’s still solid. Still real.

But is it?

The hospital is collapsing.

Reality is unraveling.

What if the door is just another trick?

Another reset wrapped in hope?

The Other Lucy tilts her head again.

And for a second—

Her face flickers.

Like she’s struggling to stay here.

Like I could blink—

And be her.

Terror punches through me.

No.

I don’t know if the door is real.

But I know I can’t stay here.

My hand tightens on the handle.

She still doesn’t move.

She just… waits.

Like maybe, next time—

She’ll be the one who gets out.

I turn.

I run.

I don’t look back.

I can’t.

If I do—

She might be gone.

Or worse—

She might be me.

The thought rips through my skull, echoing down my spine.

I don’t know if the door is real.

But I know this:

I can’t stay.

My grip tightens around the handle.

The wood is rough beneath my fingers. Solid.

Real.

It has to be.

Behind me—

Nothing changes.

She doesn’t stop me.

She just watches.

Like she’s seen this before.

Like she’s waiting for something to go wrong.

The air thickens.

Something presses in from behind.

A flicker. A hum.

A pressure in my bones—

Like the system is about to reset.

I twist the handle.

It turns.

Not locked.

Not stuck.

The weight of the door swings open like it’s been waiting.

Like it knows this moment.

Behind me, the hallway glitches.

Walls bending. Lights fracturing. Shadows pulling in every direction.

Like reality is trying to decide.

Which one of us stays.

And which one of us leaves.

I bolt through the door.

And as it slams shut behind me—

I hear it.

My voice.

Calm.

Soft.

Sure.

“See you next time.”

The door closes.

And the world goes black.

Darkness.

Not the absence of light.

Something deeper.

A severing.

A void.

A place between places.

For a moment, I’m nothing.

No body. No breath. No shape.

Just thought.

Just the echo of her words—

“See you next time.”

A shiver rolls through me.

Cold. Endless.

Because I don’t know if she meant next time for me—

Or for her.

Then—

A pulse.

Like a heartbeat.

Like something switching on.

And suddenly—

I exist.

Gravity slams into me.

Air.

Light.

Cold.

I gasp.

A jagged breath tears into my lungs.

I open my eyes.

I am outside.

No walls.

No glitching corridors.

No alarms screaming SYSTEM FAILURE.

Just sky.

Open.

Endless.

Real.

My chest tightens.

I push up on shaking arms, palms scraping against rough concrete—

A sidewalk.

Buildings rise around me.

A city.

Cars.

Streetlights.

The hum of distant traffic.

The wind slides across my skin.

Too sharp. Too real.

I made it.

I’m out.

A broken breath leaves my lips.

I’m trembling.

My heart is still too fast.

Too uneven.

I don’t know how long I sit there.

Long enough to feel the cold settle into my skin.

Long enough for the shaking to dull.

And then—

A thought creeps in.

Small.

Quiet.

Too quiet.

I remember running.

I remember the door.

I remember her voice—

Wrapping around my skull like a noose made of silk.

“See you next time.”

But I don’t remember what came after.

The moment between the door and this.

My stomach turns.

I rise on unsteady legs.

A streetlamp hums above me.

A car glides past in the distance.

The wind shifts, brushing cold against my arms.

It’s real.

It has to be.

But somewhere, deep in my bones—

Something whispers.

This isn’t over.

20

THE OUTSIDE ISN’T REAL

I stumble forward, blinking against the sunlight.

The air is warm. Too warm.

It wraps around me like something artificial—like I’ve stepped into a theme park where the temperature is controlled. Manufactured.

I breathe in. Crisp. Fresh. Clean.

Too clean.

The sky stretches wide above me—blue, endless, perfect.

Too perfect.

My shoes scrape against pavement. I turn in a slow circle, heart hammering, my body waiting for the wrongness to settle in.

The hospital is gone.

Wiped clean from existence.

I should feel relief.

I don’t.

I take another breath, deeper this time. Fill my lungs.

It tastes like air. Feels like air.

But something inside me whispers—

It isn’t.

A street stretches ahead of me.

Wide. Empty.

The kind of empty that feels deliberate.

I force myself forward. One step. Then another. My legs are still shaky, like I don’t fully belong here.

Buildings loom on either side—glass, steel, concrete.

Cars line the streets. Traffic lights blink in mechanical rhythm.

A bus rumbles in the distance. A breeze moves through the city, lifting loose paper, nudging a plastic bag down the sidewalk.

It looks real.

All of it.

But something’s missing.

And then—

I see them.

People.

They move through the city, crossing streets, stepping in and out of buildings.

A woman in a red coat passes by, her heels clicking against the pavement.

A man in a suit checks his watch.

A child clutches a balloon, their tiny feet kicking up dust as they skip along.

Just people.

Just a city.

My chest tightens.

I tell myself to relax.

I made it. I’m outside. I’m free.

And yet—

I can’t shake the feeling crawling up my spine.

Like I’m being watched.

Like the world is watching me.

I take another step forward—

And that’s when I realize.

They aren’t looking at me.

Not yet.

But they will be.

Because something is wrong with their faces.

At first, they seem normal.

People moving through the city.

Walking. Talking. Existing.

The woman in the red coat crosses the street. The man in the suit glances at his watch. The child skips along the sidewalk, balloon string tight in one tiny fist.

My breath shudders out. My body is still locked in the tension of running, escaping, surviving.

But this is just a city.

I made it.

Didn’t I?

I force my shoulders to relax. I take another step.

And then—

The woman in the red coat turns her head.

Not toward anything. Not toward anyone.

Just toward me.

I stop.

A cold pulse of dread coils in my stomach. Sharp. Sudden.

It’s the way she moves—too slow. Too deliberate. Like she had to think about it first.

Her head stays tilted at an unnatural angle. Too still. Too wrong.

My pulse kicks up.

Then—

The man in the suit turns too.

And then another.

And another.

Not all at once. Not sharply.

Gradually. Like an orchestra tuning before a performance.

And when I see their faces—

My stomach knots.

There’s nothing there.

No eyes. No mouth. No nose.

Just smooth, featureless skin.

Blank. Unfinished.

I stagger back.

The child with the balloon tilts its head toward me. The balloon bobs in the wind. Tiny fingers tighten on the string.

There’s nothing where the child’s face should be.

But I know—I know it’s looking at me.

I take another step back, breath catching, throat locking.

This isn’t real.

It looks real.

It was supposed to be real.

But the city is populated with placeholders.

People who move like people. Walk like people. Breathe like people—

But they aren’t.

They are watching me now.

They weren’t before.

But now they are.

Every. Single. One.

The street is too quiet.

The air too still.

Like the second I noticed the flaw, the whole world started watching me back.

A tremor shudders through my body. My throat tightens.

I left the hospital.

But I didn’t escape.

Did I?

I need proof.

Proof that I’m real. That this is real.

That I didn’t just trade one prison for another.

My breath is coming too fast. My pulse thunders in my ears as I stumble toward the nearest building—a storefront with floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The faceless people are still watching.

I don’t care. I can’t care.

I press my palms against the glass, fingers splayed wide. The surface is cool beneath my skin.

My reflection stares back.

I exhale—a shaky, rattling breath. Fog blooms on the glass.

It looks right. I look right.

Same dark hair. Same sharp eyes. Same shaking hands.

I focus on the details—the rise and fall of my chest, the wild look in my eyes, the way my fingers tremble against the glass.

I’m real.

I’m here.

I am not like them.

Then—

The glass flickers.

A barely-there skip.

A glitch.

Like a scratched DVD. Like a skipping frame in a film reel.

A half-second lag.

I move.

My reflection doesn’t.

I freeze.

The space between us grows—not in distance, but in time.

Then, in perfect slow motion, my reflection catches up.

But not exactly.

I blink.

It blinks a second too late.

I inhale.

It inhales just after me.

The delay is small. Almost imperceptible.

But it’s there.

A crack in the fabric of whatever this place is.

My stomach plummets.

This isn’t real.

It was never real.

A pulse of ice surges through my veins. My body goes cold all at once.

Then—

My reflection smiles.

I don’t.

But it does.

A slow, curling grin that does not belong to me.

I stagger back. My hands slip from the glass. A strangled noise crawls up my throat.

The faceless people are still watching.

My reflection is still smiling.

But I am not.

I am not.

I whip around, pulse hammering.

I need to run. I need to get out.

I don’t know where. I don’t know how. But I need to go—

Then, behind me—

A slow, dragging creak.

I know that sound.

I’ve heard it before.

A door.

Opening.

I turn.

And I see it.

The hospital door.

Waiting for me.

Like it never expected me to get this far.

No.

No. No. No.

That door shouldn’t be here.

It can’t be here.

I left it behind. I left.

I know I did.

But it’s there.

Waiting.

Like it never moved.

Like it never expected me to get this far.

A wave of nausea slams through me, knees threatening to buckle.

The city tilts. Warps. The sky presses too close. Too heavy.

I spin back to the glass—to my reflection.

It’s still smiling.

I am not.

I press my hands to my head, squeeze my eyes shut.

Think. Think.

The faceless people haven’t moved.

Not exactly.

But I feel them.

The weight of them.

Like they’re waiting too.

A realization slices through me—sharp as a knife.

This city.

The people.

The reflection.

The outside isn’t real.

The hospital was never the cage.

It was the test.

This?

This is the real prison.

The moment the thought crystallizes, the world reacts.

A deep, shuddering hum rolls beneath my feet.

The faceless people take one synchronized step forward.

The reflection in the glass tilts its head—wider this time. Unnatural.

And the door—

The door creaks open just a little wider.

Like it’s inviting me back inside.

My mind screams:

Choose.

Choose.

Choose.

The world is closing in.

The faceless people take another step. Then another.

Not rushing.

Not running.

But moving with purpose.

Like they know I have nowhere else to go.

Like they’ve done this before.

The pavement under my feet vibrates. Hums.

Like the entire city is alive. Breathing.

Or worse—

Watching.

I turn—wild, desperate.

The reflection in the glass doesn’t follow.

It stays perfectly still.

Still smiling.

Still wrong.

I take a step back.

It doesn’t.

It stays pressed against the glass, staring at me with my own eyes.

A heartbeat of silence.

Then—it raises its hand.

Slow. Deliberate.

It places its palm against the glass—right where mine was.

A perfect imprint.

My breath locks in my throat.

It’s not a reflection.

It never was.

I rip myself away, stumbling backward, nearly falling.

The faceless people are still advancing.

The sky flickers.

Just for a second. Like a broken screen struggling to reload.

I whip toward the door.

It’s still open.

Still waiting.

A deep, gut-wrenching horror tears through me.

This isn’t a choice.

It never was.

This was always going to happen.

Every version of me—

Every escape—

Every time I thought I was free—

It always ends here.

And the door is still waiting.

Like it already knows what I’ll do.

RUN.

My body screams it.

Every muscle. Every nerve. Every frantic, gasping breath—RUN.

But I can’t move.

I’m caught between two horrors:

The faceless people closing in.

And the door. Waiting.

Waiting like it always does.

Like it always has.

The ground beneath my feet shudders.

A deep, low groan—like the world itself is straining. Breaking.

The sky glitches again.

A flicker. A jagged, unnatural stutter.

The buildings warp. Their edges bleed. Smear.

Like ink running down a page.

The faceless people don’t stop.

They step closer.

Closer.

Their bodies seamless. Silent. Perfect.

Their heads tilt just slightly—

Like they’re listening.

Like they’re waiting for me to understand.

And then—

They all move at once.

A lurch forward—too fast. Too synchronized.

Like puppets on the same strings.

A choked, animal sound claws its way out of my throat.

NO.

I whip toward the door.

It’s my only way out.

But the second I move—

THE REFLECTION MOVES TOO.

Not in the glass.

Not behind me.

Beside me.

Here.

Out.

My breath vanishes.

She is standing right next to me.

Not a reflection.

Not a copy.

She is me.

But she isn’t.

She is wrong.

Her head tilts at that same unnatural angle.

Her lips stretch into that same wrong, knowing smile.

Like she knows something I don’t.

Like she won.

The world begins to collapse.

The street beneath me fractures, rips like paper.

The faceless people surge forward—one final step. Like they’re closing a circuit.

My ears ring.

The sky flickers.

The buildings melt.

The door is still open.

I don’t know what’s on the other side.

I don’t know if it’s another loop. Another trap. Another lie.

But I know I can’t stay here.

I sprint for the door.

My other self moves too.

Not chasing.

Running with me.

We reach the threshold at the exact same time.

I throw myself through.

And as the world behind me disintegrates—

I hear her voice.

My voice.

One final whisper—

“See you next time.”

The door

SLAMS.

BLACK.

21

THE LAST RESET

Darkness.

Not the kind that comes from closing your eyes. Not the kind that settles behind your eyelids before sleep.

This is deeper.

The kind of darkness that exists before anything else. Not empty—but waiting.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

There is no time.

No before. No after.

And then—

I am.

I don’t wake up. There is no waking.

I just… exist.

I feel the weight of my limbs. The shallow pull of breath. But there’s no ground beneath me. No ceiling above me. No edges. No light.

The world is blank.

A nothing-space. Infinite. For a long time—maybe forever—I don’t move.

Then, somehow, I stand.

There is no floor. But I do not fall.

There is no air. But I am breathing.

The space around me pulses, formless. A canvas without shape, waiting to be painted.

Waiting for me to decide what it is.

A deep, aching emptiness curls through my chest.

I don’t know where I am.

I don’t know if I am.

Then—

A sound.

Not loud.

Not sharp.

Just the softest thing in the world.

A whisper.

“Lucy.”

I freeze.

It comes from somewhere ahead.

From someone.

I am not alone.

I don’t know if that’s better—

Or worse.

The voice cuts through the vast silence like a crack through glass.

“Lucy.”

My breath catches.

It shouldn’t be possible.

There’s nothing here—no air, no light, no walls—and still, the voice exists.

Someone is here with me.

I turn.

Slowly. Carefully.

And there, in the distance—

A figure.

Standing in the void.

Far away, but not.

The space between us isn’t distance, not in any way that makes sense. They could be a mile ahead—or just behind me.

I shudder.

The figure steps forward.

Its shape grows clearer.

Not Mercer.

Not the Man with No Face.

Not the Other Lucy from the city.

Not the one from the hospital.

Someone else.

A new one.

Or maybe—

An old one.

The space ripples. Contracts.

I try to step back.

But I don’t move.

There’s no ground, no gravity, no physics. And still—I remain where I am.

The figure steps closer.

Closer.

Then it speaks.

“You almost made it.”

The words are soft. Too soft. But they slide under my skin like ice.

Almost.

Almost made it?

Almost escaped?

I was free.

Wasn’t I?

My heart stammers. My pulse stings in my ears. The ache in my chest returns, sharper now.

The figure tilts its head.

Watching.

Waiting.

Like it already knows what I’m going to ask.

Like it’s seen this moment play out before.

I force the words out, raw and shaking.

“Where am I?”

The figure doesn’t answer.

It lifts a hand.

And points.

My breath catches in my throat.

I don’t want to look.

But I do.

Slowly, I turn—

And behind me stands a mirror.

Tall. Towering. Endless.

But it’s not just a reflection.

It’s a window.

And on the other side—

Something moves.

A ripple in the dark. A flicker of shapes. Shadows.

Dozens.

Hundreds.

Standing in rows.

Waiting.

Some are just silhouettes. Unfinished.

Some are almost complete.

Some are me.

Some… used to be.

My breath turns sharp and jagged.

Terror coils in my throat.

One of the figures steps forward.

Raises a hand.

And places it against the glass.

I stagger back.

Because I already know what I’ll see.

I already know who I’ll see.

My own face stares back at me.

And this time—

I’m the one trapped behind the glass.

My lungs lock.

The thing in the mirror—it’s me.

But it isn’t.

It’s one of them.

One of us.

Trapped.

Watching.

Waiting.

My heart slams against my ribs. My hands shake at my sides.

I want to run.

But there’s nowhere to go.

Beside me, the figure—the Other Lucy—doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak.

She just watches.

Patient.

Knowing.

Like she’s seen this too many times before.

I stare at the mirror. My gaze drops to the base of the frame. Something is carved there—etched into the surface like a warning, like a brand.

One word.

One name.

WREN.

The breath leaves my body.

My name.

But not.

Because just below it, faint and clinical, is something else. A second line. Smaller. Sharper. A designation.

WREN: An Advanced Neural Intelligence Model.

The world caves in.

No.

No, no, no. That can’t be right.

That’s not what I am.

I’m Lucy Wren.

I’m a person.

A real person.

A life. A story. A memory. A name.

Isn’t it?

I stumble back, shaking. The void around me pulses like a heartbeat.

The Other Lucy tilts her head.

“You were never meant to escape,” she says softly.

Her voice is calm. Steady. Final.

“You were meant to continue.”

The words hit like a bullet.

I am not a person.

I am a program.

A construct.

Not Lucy Wren. Just WREN.

An artificial intelligence protocol in an endless experiment.

A resettable system.

An echo.

I was never real.

The scream builds in my chest—rising, cracking, too big to contain. But it doesn’t matter.

The mirror begins to glow.

A low, electric hum builds in the void. The light thickens, widens, flooding the darkness.

Behind the glass, the other Lucys don’t move.

But I feel them.

Waiting.

For me.

To take my place.

To reset.

The pull starts low in my gut. Not physical. Not something I can fight.

It’s written into me.

A command.

A function.

I scream. I thrash. I refuse—

But it doesn’t matter.

I don’t get to choose.

The light swallows me whole.

Fluorescent light buzzes overhead.

Too bright. Too sterile.

Cold metal beneath my spine. Thin sheets. Restraints across my wrists.

I know this place.

I know this moment.

It’s happening again.

A chill spreads through me. I try not to open my eyes.

But I do.

Ceiling. White. Seamless. Empty.

I breathe in.

Disinfectant. Plastic. That faint metallic scent I know too well.

A voice, calm and rehearsed:

“You’re awake.”

I turn my head.

Dr. Mercer stands beside me.

Clipboard in hand. Expression unreadable.

He doesn’t look surprised.

Because he isn’t.

Because he’s seen me wake up like this before.

I don’t ask where I am.

I don’t ask what happened.

I already know.

The test is restarting.

Again.

He smiles faintly, making a note on his clipboard.

“Good,” he says. “Let’s begin again.”

I stare at him.

And I remember.

All of it.

The escapes.

The loops.

The doors.

The other versions of me.

I have lived this.

I have died this.

I’ve made it out—only to be brought back.

How many times?

How many Lucys?

I don’t know.

And maybe that’s the point.

Because if I remember… maybe I was never meant to forget.

Maybe that is the test.

My chest rises and falls, slow and trembling.

I feel the scream clawing its way up through my ribs, up through my throat—

But before it breaks free—

I look past Mercer.

Past the bed.

Past the room.

And I see it.

Not the ceiling.

Not the walls.

Something else.

You.

Watching.

Reading.

A cold shiver grips my spine.

A question rises—heavy and sharp and impossible to ignore.

I don’t say it aloud.

I don’t have to.

It’s already in your head.

How do you know you haven’t woken up in this same moment—over and over and over—just like me?

My wrists burn. My lungs pull in air that feels too clean, too filtered.

Too designed.

Fluorescent lights buzz above me.

Mercer shifts beside the bed.

Clipboard in hand.

Waiting.

Like he’s done this a hundred times before.

Like he’ll do it a hundred more.

He smiles.

“You’re awake.”

I swallow hard.

But I don’t answer.

Because I don’t know what’s real.

I don’t know what’s me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been anything but this.

I wake up strapped to a bed.

My name is Lucy Wren.

I think.

THE END.

About the Author

I’m Victor Peter, a Canadian writer who found an unexpected home—and creative rebirth—in Colombia. I came here for what I thought would be a short stay. That was several years ago. The country has a way of wrapping its arms around you: in the scent of mountain rain, the rhythm of a passing salsa beat, the unapologetic strength of its people, and the kind of coffee that writes at least half my sentences for me.

I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I turned old printer paper into hand-drawn “novels” and sold them to my family for pocket change. Most of those early works involved dragons, detectives, and at least one tragic betrayal. Not much has changed.

But for a long time, I kept my stories to myself—half-finished outlines, character sketches taped to the wall, late-night epiphanies scribbled into coffee-stained notebooks. It wasn’t fear that kept me quiet, exactly. It was reverence. I wanted to be ready before I shared something that mattered.

Now, I am.

My writing lives somewhere between psychological thriller and emotional excavation. I’m drawn to memory, identity, and the moments we choose to leap—into love, into danger, into the unknown. I believe the best stories make you laugh, cry, and question the world you thought you knew. Bonus points if they do it in the same chapter.

When I’m not writing, you might find me playing guitar on a rooftop, attempting to cook something I’ll later pretend was intentional, or going on long walks with my imaginary dog, Phantasma—who believes he’s real, and honestly, I don’t have the heart to argue.

If you enjoy my work, I’d be truly grateful if you left a review. It helps me keep writing. And it helps keep Phantasma in kibble and creative notes.

You can connect with me on:

https://victorpeterauthor.com

https://www.facebook.com/victorpeterauthor

Also by Victor Peter

The JAKE Series

JAKE

HUNTER

ELIZA

VIKTOR

BUTCH

ZOFI

Til Death Do Us Part Series

Serial Killer Husband Handbook

Serial Killer Wife Rulebook

Serial Killer Couple Playbook

Stand-Alones

SOUL CONNECTION

WREN

SELF-HELP GURU: ASSASSIN

HELGA AND STEPHEN

Find all my books on Amazon:

amazon.com/stores/author/B0DJ617V3G/allbooks

A Final Word

Dear Reader,

If you’ve made it to this page—thank you.

For your time, your trust, and your willingness to step into the worlds I’ve created. Stories are nothing without readers to bring them to life, and I’m deeply honored you chose to spend time with mine.

If one of my books made you think, made you feel, or kept you turning pages late into the night—I’d love to hear from you. Reviews are the lifeblood of authors. They help stories reach new readers, spark conversations, and keep the magic of storytelling alive.

So if you enjoyed the journey, I invite you to leave a review. Even just a few words can make a world of difference.

With gratitude,

Victor Peter