The recorder's light stayed on: a thin rectangle of white, trembling in the dark.
Session 13 – Contact established.
Clara stared at it for a long time.
Her breath came shallow, uneven, like she was inhaling someone else's air.
The window was a dull mirror of fog; the street outside, soundless.
Only the ticking clock and that blinking light existed.
She didn't remember taking the recorder home. She had left it at the clinic. She was sure. Her hand trembled as she reached for it. The metal was warm, as if it had been running for hours.
"Adrian?"
Silence.
Then… a whisper. Soft, almost human, crawling behind the walls.
Clara froze.
It felt like the room itself was breathing.
She tried to move her legs, but they were heavy, unresponsive.
The blanket slid to the floor.
Her body was awake, but her mind wasn't.
The recorder clicked.
Then a voice.
"Don't move."
The words cut through her chest.
Adrian's voice. Calm. Controlled. Too close.
"You're not here," she whispered. "You can't be here."
"Not yet."
The sound crackled, then faded into a breath, low, deliberate, alive.
Clara covered her face. The air felt thick, electric.
Her white walls looked metallic now, as if reflecting a light that wasn't there.
She stood.
The floor was cold under her bare feet. For a moment, everything seemed normal, until the light flickered.
A pulse.
Like a heartbeat.
A brief flash that passed through the room and vanished.
She turned.
The recorder was off. At least, it looked off.
But Adrian's voice was still there.
"Do you remember our first session, Clara?"
She stopped breathing. The voice wasn't coming from the recorder. It was everywhere.
"This isn't real," she said. "I'm dreaming."
"You're remembering."
The pulse came again stronger.
The furniture blurred.
The walls moved.
Her bed folded into the floor, reshaping itself into something else.
The air shifted sterile, chemical, cold.
The smell of her home vanished.
Now it smelled like disinfectant. Like the clinic.
"No…"
She took a step back, but the floor wasn't carpet anymore.
Tiles.
Gray.
Glossy.
Her bed was gone. A chair stood in its place. Her desk became the therapy table.
The curtains hardened into walls. And on the door, a plaque:
Patient Room.
Clara pressed her back to the wall.
The wall pulsed. In and out. Like lungs. With every breath, it whispered her name.
"Clara."
She turned.
He was there.
Sitting.
Exactly where he always sat.
Adrian.
He wasn't smiling. He wasn't angry either.
Just… still.
His eyes reflected no light. They were pale, mirror-like.
"You shouldn't have brought me back," he said.
Clara shook her head.
"I didn't. I don't know how"
"You called me."
"The moment you pressed play."
She looked at the recorder.
It was on the desk, red light blinking. Recording.
"I'm the memory of what you've lost."
The words sliced through her. She wanted to shout, but her voice came out as air.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I was never your patient."
A low rumble passed under the floor. The light dimmed white, then red, then deep violet.
"The sessions are collapsing," Adrian said softly.
"You don't know where you end and I begin."
Clara stumbled back.
"That's not true. You're real. I treated you"
"You created me."
The wall moaned.
Moisture rolled down its surface like sweat.
The whole room breathed.
Alive. Watching. Clara turned toward the door but there was no door anymore.
Only a mirror.
Her reflection was wrong.
Half her face. Half his. Two halves of the same expression.
"You can't heal what was never sick," he murmured.
"You can only remember."
She pressed her hands to her temples.
"Stop. Please, stop. I want to wake up."
"You can't wake up from something you built yourself."
The floor tilted. The walls bent inward.
The light pulsed again and with each flash, fragments of her memory surfaced:
a hand writing a name, a voice that wasn't hers, a reflection watching her from behind the glass.
"Who are you?"
"The part of you that survived."
A high-pitched tone filled the air. The recorder switched on by itself.
Letters appeared, one by one:
Session 14 – Patient switch in progress.
Clara backed away. Behind her, no wall.
Only darkness, fluid and deep, pulling at her clothes, her skin. "No!"
She grabbed the desk, but it was fading too.
Adrian's chair slid back on its own, soundless.
He stood now, calm, steady, unreal. "Let me go!"
"I can't. You made me to stay."
The world folded.
White light swallowed everything.
When Clara opened her eyes, she was sitting.
A desk in front of her. A notebook. A glass of water. Morning light.
She knew this room. Room 3B.
A nameplate lay on the table:
Dr. Adrian M. - Clinical Psychologist.
Her heartbeat slowed.
She turned to the mirror on the wall.
The reflection staring back wasn't hers.
It was Adrian's.
The recorder blinked on again. Another line appeared:
Session 15 - Doctor stabilized.
Clara smiled faintly or maybe he did.
At that point, she couldn't tell who was remembering whom.