The Hollow Room
1257 Words
Chapter 5: The Hollow Room
Iris awoke to the stillness of a world too neatly arranged.
The soft hum of the wall vents, the dulled light from the ceiling lamps, the muted beep from the security panel in the hallway—it was all too tidy. It was a silence that wasn't natural but created.
She sat up slowly, the dream lingering on her like damp clothes. Snow. Screams. Shadows. Her feet swiped against the icy floor. She didn't even use slippers.
She needed to know what happened to Mira.
That was all that was important anymore.
The hallway outside her room remained empty. Again.
She walked by Dominic's room. Shut. No groan. Casey's light was on—faint blue under the door—but Iris did not stop. Not yet.
She walked down the staff hallway. Patients aren't permitted.
And it was closed.
She tried the first. It buzzed red and did not open.
The second is—the same.
Then the third.
It opened.
Just an inch.
Enough.
She moved in quietly and closed it gently behind her.
The room was empty, windowless. A supply closet, maybe. Cabinets, folders, and boxes with codes she didn't know.
But across the room—another door.
She tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Behind it: a narrow hallway lit by a flickering fluorescent bulb.
And at the far end—an unmarked wooden door. Weathered, unlike the others.
She approached it, racing her heart.
Tried the knob.
It creaked open.
What she saw froze her in place.
A room, large and round, with mirrors. Not on the walls, but just standing about on pedestals. Dozens. Some tall, some short, some shattered, others unblemished. No signs. No instructions.
Merely reflections.
Her own face glared back at her from twenty different directions. All of them… slightly different. One frowning. One smiling. One looking over her shoulder.
She spun around.
Nothing there.
The door closed automatically.
She caught hold of the knob.
It wouldn't move.
She approached the mirrors.
One of them changed.
Not the mirror—per se—but the reflection.
She took a step forward.
The reflection remained in the same place.
It tilted its head to the side, slowly, inquiring.
Iris fixed her with her eyes.
Her throat tightened.
"What is this place?"
Her voice whispered breathlessly against the glass.
None of the reflections was answered.
Then another shift.
Another mirror—this one in the back corner—bleamed. The glass shuddered like water that had been disturbed. And in its depths… a new face appeared.
Not her own.
But Mira's.
She was standing in a forest. Her mouth was open. She was screaming.
Then—she was gone.
The glass stabilized.
Iris moved back.
She reached the door again and slapped her palm against it.
"Open!" she spat.
Nothing.
The lights fluttered slightly. The reflections turned dark.
She shut her eyes and wished herself to breathe.
This was another test. Another part of their ill therapy. It had to be.
She heard something—a whisper.
"Iris…"
Not from the mirrors.
From the walls.
No—inside her head.
She opened her eyes.
All the reflections now glared straight at her. All of them.
Her knees gave way. She crumpled to the floor, shaking.
Then the door creaked open.
She stumbled out, gasping, into the hallway.
Footsteps echoed. Heavy boots.
Mara appeared at the opposite end of the hallway, face calm as always.
"Iris," she said.
"You shouldn't be here."
"I got lost," Iris fibbed.
Mara nodded brusquely. "Come with me."
No anger. No accusation.
Too effortless.
As they walked, Iris asked, "What's in that mirror room?"
Mara didn't look at her. "It's a retired therapy module. No longer active."
"Then why is it open?"
Mara smiled. "The institute is old. Sometimes doors are forgetful and forget to close."
Iris was silent.
On her own bed, she was surprised to see Casey sitting there, on the floor with a tablet on her lap.
"You were gone a long time," she said.
Iris flopped down heavily on the edge of the bed. "I found something."
Casey's brow rose.
Iris told it all—the hallway, the mirrors, the reflections.
Casey didn't interrupt. Just sat there, furrowed brows.
When Iris paused, Casey eased. "A behavioral chamber."
"A what?"
"They used them in some blacksite operations," Casey said. "Sensory manipulation. Reflection-induced paranoia. Used to break people."
"How do you know that?"
Casey smiled weakly. "I used to dig into some deep networks."
"Why would they put me in there?"
"To see how you react. Or maybe to trigger something repressed."
Iris closed her eyes. "I saw Mira."
Casey's smile vanished.
"In the mirror?"
"She was screaming.".
"Did you think it was real?"
"I don't know."
Casey fell quiet for a moment, then spoke, "I've been tapping more data off their network. There are documents we can't read. Encrypted partitions. Strong encryption."
Iris' eyes snapped open. "What are in them?"
"I don't know yet. But one's marked 'SEED-PHX'. That's your file designation."
"How did you know that?"
"I saw it appear on your sim screen when you had your first session."
Iris's stomach twisted. "What does it mean?"
Casey shrugged. "SEED has a tendency to refer to source material. Perhaps it is a codename. Perhaps a project name."
Iris stared at her. "You think I'm part of a project?"
"I think we all are."
That night, Iris lay awake.
She watched shadows flicker on the ceiling.
At 3:12 a.m., the door groaned.
She sat up.
Dominic crept into the room, pale-faced and sweating. His hands trembled.
"I need help," he whispered.
Iris ran to him. "What did you see?"
He looked at her, his eyes wide. "I saw… I saw myself. But it wasn't me. It was… not right."
She sat him down. "In a dream?"
He shook his head. "No. In my own room. Awake. He was standing there. Looking at me."
Iris's skin crawled.
"Did anyone else see him?"
"No. I had locked the door. But when I turned to face it again, he vanished."
Iris glanced toward the hall. “Come on. We’re going to find Casey.”
The three of them sat in Casey’s room, the door locked, the windows covered.
Dominic rocked slightly, still shaken.
“I think they’re copying us,” he muttered. “Taking pieces of us. Making something.”
Casey glanced at Iris. “He’s not wrong.”
“I saw dozens of me today,” Iris said. “In the mirror room.”
Casey pulled out a file on her tablet. "I found a reference to what they're referring to as 'Cognitive Echo Protocols.' No data. Only usage records. Linked with our names."
"Echo?" Iris echoed.
"As in… copies. Fragments of self. Digital copies built from brain scans. They're mapping our reactions to trauma and choice."
"Why?" Dominic asked. "What's the point?"
Casey hesitated.
Iris answered for her.
"They're not healing us," she said. "They're duplicating us."
Casey nodded. "And conditioning something."
Dominic leaned forward. “Training what?”
But no one answered.
Later, Iris sat alone in her room, fingers hovering over her journal.
“The mirrors weren’t about memory. They were about control. The Institute isn’t healing broken minds—it’s building a library of them.
We’re not patients.
We’re templates.”
A soft tap at her window.
She froze.
It came again. Delicate. Barely audible.
She stepped to the glass and looked out.
A figure stood in the snow.
Motionless.
Watching her.
Her breath caught.
It looked like… her.
- Writer
