Clara returned to the clinic after a night without sleep.
Her eyes were swollen, her hands unsteady, the key to Room 3B clenched in her fist as if it could still give her answers.
Every hallway looked wrong, stretched, rearranged.
The numbers on the doors kept changing: 3A, then 3C, then 3B again.
As if the building were alive, breathing, remembering more than it wanted to show.
When she opened the door, Adrian was already there.
Sitting. Waiting.
He didn't look surprised to see her.
"You watched something you shouldn't have," he said, before she could speak.
Clara froze.
"What?"
"The tapes."
Her heart lurched.
"How do you know?"
Adrian stood, eyes fixed on hers.
"Because now I can see it too."
She took a step back, but he didn't move closer.
He just stood there, half in shadow, the light slicing across his face and for a moment, she couldn't tell which side belonged to him.
"Who are you, really?" she asked.
He studied her for a long time.
"The part that's left when you stop lying to yourself."
Clara shook her head.
"You're manipulating me. You're saying things you couldn't possibly know."
"I'm not manipulating anything," he said softly. "I'm just remembering with you."
His tone was calm, almost tender but there was a quiver beneath it, like something about to break.
She moved toward the window, needing space, air, distance.
Behind her, his footsteps followed, quiet, deliberate.
"Every time you leave, I stay here," he murmured. "When you come back, you don't remember me. But I do, Clara."
She turned sharply.
"Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like it belongs to you."
The silence that followed felt alive.
The light above them flickered once, changing color, colder, thinner.
Clara's pulse thudded in her ears.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
"You don't have to. You just have to feel it."
And then, without anyone deciding it, the distance vanished.
It wasn't sudden, just inevitable, as if time had folded to make space for that moment.
Adrian lifted a hand and brushed her face, not to claim her, but to recognize her.
His fingers traced the air beside her cheek, a memory finding its way home.
Clara closed her eyes. Not to avoid him, but to stop the world from dissolving.
He spoke so close that his words trembled against her skin.
"Every time I see you like this, I remember how I got lost."
Their foreheads touched.
The world went silent.
"Adrian…"
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't give me a reason to stay."
But she did.
Or maybe they both did.
The kiss arrived quietly, as if it had always been waiting, not sudden, not frantic, but inevitable.
It wasn't about wanting.
It was about remembering.
Their lips met like a breath returning after too long underwater: fragile, trembling, filled with everything they hadn't said.
Her fingers shook against his chest; he caught her hand, holding it lightly, as though she might vanish.
And for that single heartbeat, everything else stopped.
When they parted, they didn't move away.
They just stood there, eyes open, foreheads almost touching.
Adrian spoke first, voice cracked and low.
"Now you know."
"Know what?"
"Why I disappear."
"Tell me."
"Because every time you touch me, I become real.
And every time you forget me, I'm lost again."
Clara felt her throat tighten, her body caught between disbelief and longing.
She took a step back and in that instant, the room changed.
The plaque on the door no longer read 3B.
It said: Session 0.
On the floor, a faint message traced in dust:
Don't open until she remembers.
She turned toward him.
But Adrian was gone.
Only his voice remained, soft and near, coming from behind the door:
"You're getting closer, Clara.
Don't be afraid of what's left."
The light flickered once.
Then everything went dark.