Clara didn't remember coming home.
The next morning she woke up wearing the same shirt as the night before, still damp from the rain.
On the table, beside a cup of cold coffee, lay the key to Room 3B.
She had never taken it with her.
She held it in her hand for a full minute, trying to remember how it had gotten there.
No answer.
Only the clear feeling that she shouldn't be alone.
She returned to the clinic before dawn.
The hallway was empty, half-lit, silent.
When she opened her office door, the desk had been moved slightly, as if someone had used it.
On top sat a binder labeled VIDEO ARCHIVE – PATIENT M.
She unlocked it.
Inside were five old VHS tapes, numbered.
One had a handwritten label: "Session 1 – Dr. C. Voss."
Her blood froze.
Clara slid the tape into the dusty recorder on her desk.
The screen crackled, static whispering through the speakers.
Then the room appeared.
Room 3B.
Exactly as she knew it.
On the screen, Adrian sat in the patient's chair.
Across from him, a woman in a white coat, her hair longer, tied back neatly.
She turned slightly toward the camera.
Clara stopped breathing.
It was her.
Younger. Different. But unmistakably her.
Then she heard her own voice: cold, professional, detached:
"Do you remember your name?"
Adrian lifted his gaze on-screen.
"Clara."
The image cut to black.
Clara stumbled backward, hitting the chair.
She pressed rewind, replayed.
It wasn't an error.
She was the doctor and Adrian the patient but the lines were reversed.
In the corner of the screen, a timestamp blinked:
March 12, 2018.
Five years before she ever started working at the clinic.
Later, during the session, she couldn't hide the tremor in her voice.
Adrian sat across from her, calm, too calm… like someone who already knew.
"Did you sleep?" she asked, just to fill the silence.
He shook his head. "No."
"Why not?"
"I dreamt of a room full of screens. All of them showing you."
Clara's stomach tightened.
"What were you watching?"
He hesitated. Then softly:
"My sessions. But you weren't the doctor."
Her pulse skipped.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… you were asking the questions. But I wasn't the one answering."
Her throat went dry.
"Then who was?"
Adrian's eyes darkened, as if a shadow passed inside them.
"The one you became when you stopped remembering."
Back in her office, Clara searched through the tapes again.
At the bottom of the box, a smaller one, unlabeled.
She slid it in.
Static. Then a faint image: Room 3B, empty.
The door opened.
Two figures entered.
One was Clara.
The other, impossibly, was also her.
A male voice from off-camera said:
"Mirror Project – Phase Three. Initiate integration test."
The image cut out.
Clara stood up too fast, her head throbbing.
On the desk, the key to Room 3B glimmered under the monitor's light.
She picked it up.
It felt heavier than before, like a choice.
"Adrian…" she whispered.
No reply.
Only the intercom clicked on, a voice alive and steady:
"We can start the next session whenever you're ready, Doctor Voss."
She turned toward the door.
The handle was already turning.
And Room 3B lit up again.