Clara didn't remember going home.
The last thing she recalled was the kiss or maybe just the thought of it, too vivid to be a dream and too fragile to be real.
She woke up on the floor of her office, head pounding.
On the desk lay the key to Room 3B.
Again.
When she tried to stand, her legs didn't respond right away.
That's when she heard the voice.
Not in the hallway. Not outside. Inside.
"It's only a dream, Clara."
She turned sharply, but no one was there.
The room was washed in a pale light, colorless, soft, like the world had forgotten its edges.
On the wall, her shadow moved a second too late.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was sitting in Room 3B.
Adrian was across from her.
"How long have you been here?" she asked, her voice breaking.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe since the first time you dreamed of me."
Her heart stilled.
"This isn't a dream."
Adrian smiled faintly.
"They all say that… until they wake up."
His words lingered in the air.
On the table, the patient file lay open, but instead of paper, there was a thin mirror fixed between the covers.
Clara leaned closer.
Her reflection stared back but Adrian's face appeared beside hers.
"Why are we together?" she asked.
"Because that's how you remember."
"And what are you in this memory?"
He held her gaze.
The sadness in his eyes wasn't new, it felt ancient, exhausted.
"I'm what's left when you stop believing you're real."
Clara reached out, and the mirror's surface rippled like water.
Her reflection moved a heartbeat later, as if the world had split in two.
Their fingertips touched or almost did and Adrian's skin dissolved into light.
"Adrian!" she tried to shout.
But no sound came out.
When she could breathe again, she was in bed.
Sheets damp with sweat.
On her arm, faint marks: the shape of fingers, as if someone had held her too tightly while she slept.
She sat up, shaking.
On the nightstand, the session recorder was still on.
She pressed play. Her own voice filled the room:
"Session twelve. The patient reports dreaming of her therapist.
During the dream, physical contact caused an anomaly.
Result: perceptual dissonance.
The patient no longer recognizes who is treating whom."
Clara dropped the recorder.
A gust of wind pushed the window open.
Outside, the light was the same pale tone as Room 3B.
In the glass reflection behind her stood Adrian.
"You're still asleep, Clara."
She spun around. The bed was empty.
Only his voice remained, close, almost at her ear:
"Don't try to wake up. This is the part where you start to remember."
The recorder clicked again.
A new line appeared on its display, typed by invisible hands:
Session 13 – Contact established.