The hand at the window disappeared as quickly as it had come.
But Lila had seen it. She was sure.
Fingers, trembling against the glass.
Not a trick of the light. Not her imagination.
Aidan.
Or… someone trying to tell her he was still there.
She stood motionless for hours, her eyes locked on the building across the street. Her breath fogged the glass before her, blurring the outside world in a soft haze. But the window across the way remained closed, unmoving.
The moment was gone.
But something had changed.
For the next few days, Lila became a ghost inside her own body.
She hardly responded to the nurses, barely touched the bland food they left on her tray. Her thoughts were elsewhere—across the street, behind curtains, buried in silence.
But inside, something was happening.
A seed of fire was growing.
Fear no longer controlled her—it fueled her.
She began to notice everything.
The strange shadows that moved in the stairwell at night.
The flicker of the lights whenever she stared too long at the building across the road.
The man in the black coat, always sitting in the same bench at 3:12 p.m., never moving, never blinking.
Even the hospital staff began acting… strange.
The nurse who used to braid her hair no longer made eye contact.
Dr. Kamra, once warm and talkative, now only offered hollow reassurances.
"It's best if you rest, Lila," he said. "You've been through a lot. Perhaps some memories are confusing you."
But it wasn't confusion.
It was a cover-up.
Someone wanted Aidan forgotten.
Someone wanted her quiet.
On the fourth morning, Clara returned to clean.
She seemed jumpier than usual, her glances darting toward the corners of the room.
Lila waited until the door was shut behind them before speaking.
"Clara, I need your help."
The older woman sighed. "I'm just here to—"
"You've seen things, haven't you?" Lila whispered. "You saw me with Aidan. You saw what happened at the tree."
Clara's eyes welled. She didn't answer at first.
Instead, she moved toward the window, wiping it slowly. Her hand trembled.
"They told me not to talk to you," she said finally. "Said it'd only make your… condition worse."
"My condition?"
Clara turned to face her.
"I don't think you're sick the way they say you are, Lila. Not anymore. You're healing. But they don't want that. They don't want you to remember."
"Who's they?"
Clara opened her mouth, then closed it. She bent down and pressed something into Lila's palm. A key.
"This unlocks the old archives room in the basement. They keep everything in there—patient files, maintenance records, security footage."
Lila's heart pounded. "Why are you helping me?"
Clara's eyes softened.
"Because once, I was like you. And no one helped me."
That night, long after the halls went dark and the monitors beeped like distant alarms, Lila slipped from her bed.
She wore sneakers for the first time in months, her body shaking from the effort of standing on her own.
She clutched the key in one hand, a flashlight in the other.
Each step toward the basement felt like walking into a storm.
Her breath hitched with pain. Her legs begged her to stop.
But her soul refused.
The door to the archives creaked open.
Dust hung in the air like ghosts. Old metal cabinets lined the walls, stacked high with fading paper folders. It smelled like time.
Lila flicked on the flashlight, its beam slicing through the dark.
She moved slowly, searching for anything marked with Aidan's name.
Nothing under A.
Nothing under Room 401.
But then—tucked behind a loose panel in the back—a thick file bound in a red string.
Her name.
Lila Morgan.
She opened it.
Inside were photographs of her window. Dozens of them.
Some from inside her room.Some from outside the building.
And worse…
A list of interactions. Times. Dates.
"March 12, 7:13 p.m. – Lila waves to figure in opposite building.""March 18, 8:44 p.m. – Notes passed through window.""March 22, 3:02 a.m. – Attempted escape to tree.""March 23, 4:01 a.m. – Containment initiated. Subject A relocated."
Subject A.
Aidan?
She turned the page.
Another folder paperclipped to the report.
PROJECT MIRROR: Behavioral Observation Protocol.
Her mouth went dry as she scanned the first paragraph.
"The Mirror Protocol is designed to test psychological resilience in isolated individuals. Simulated external companionship projected via light manipulation and reflective coordination."
Simulated?
She dropped the paper.
No.
It couldn't be.
Aidan was real.
She'd seen his tears.
Felt his words.
He wasn't a projection.
Was he?
Back in her room, Lila sat silently, the file locked in her drawer.
Her mind swirled with questions.
Was she the subject of an experiment?
Had they created Aidan? Had she fallen in love with a ghost?
But no…
She remembered the drawing.
His handwriting.
The note in the sketchbook he'd hidden from them.
He'd written it when he knew they'd erase him.
"They erased me. But I'm still here."
They'd tried to simulate a connection—but something had gone wrong.
Or right.
Maybe Aidan hadn't just been a projection. Maybe something real had broken through.
Maybe they'd tried to invent companionship…and accidentally awakened a soul.
A week later, the man in black returned to the bench.
Lila waited until the nurses were distracted, then walked down the hallway to the garden—her strength improving by the day.
She sat on the bench across from him.
"You're from the Mirror Project," she said calmly.
The man didn't flinch. He just smiled faintly.
"You weren't supposed to find out."
"Where's Aidan?"
His eyes darkened.
"A variable that went off-script. We're handling it."
"I want to see him."
He shook his head. "That's not part of the protocol anymore."
Lila leaned forward, her voice low but fierce.
"You used me. Played with my heart. But he became real to me. And maybe—just maybe—I became real to him. You don't get to take that away."
For the first time, the man looked uncertain.
"I don't have the authority to—"
"Then get someone who does."
That night, her window blinked.
Once.
Twice.
A code.
She held her breath.
It blinked again. This time, three times in quick succession.
Lila raced to her desk and found the old Morse code chart she'd once used for fun.
Three short blinks. Two long. One short.
"S-T-A-Y."
Then a pause.
Then:
"I'm coming back."
Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor, the message still burning in her mind.
He was alive.
Somewhere, somehow—he was trying to return.
And this time, she would wait.
Not as the girl behind the glass.
But as the girl who finally knew the truth.