Every Room Has A Mirror

Chapter One: The Room With No Reflection --- The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not the peaceful kind—the kind that hums in your skull and makes you question if you're truly alone… or if someone is standing just behind the veil of stillness, watching. My head ached like a bell had gone off inside my brain. The air felt cold and too clean. Antiseptic. Metallic. Almost unreal. I opened my eyes to white walls, a narrow bed, and a tray of untouched tools near the corner. A single wooden chair stood across from me. No windows. And worse—no mirrors. Something in my chest tightened. The fluorescent lights above me buzzed in a low, irregular rhythm, flickering just enough to make me feel like the world was glitching. Like reality itself had a short circuit. I shifted, trying to sit up. My arms were heavy, like I’d been asleep for centuries. My throat burned dry. I looked down and saw a plastic band around my wrist. The kind they use in hospitals. SKY ARORA, it read in bold black letters. Below it? Just one thing: P-07. No clue what that meant. No date. No room number. Just a label. Like I was part of a study. Or a file. There was one, actually—a thin file at the edge of the side table. I reached for it, hands trembling slightly. Just one page inside. A printed form with notes scrawled in black ink. The top line read: “Observation continues. Subject remains non-communicative. Possible dissociation. Patient believes he is a doctor.” Patient? The file slipped from my fingers. That word hit me like a brick. It didn’t feel real. Like someone had written my name into a story I didn’t belong in. I was a doctor. Wasn’t I? Or was I just someone pretending to be one? A sound—soft footsteps outside. I tensed, pulse rising like a wave breaking under my ribs. My body felt like paper and thread, stitched together too loosely. Then she stepped in. A girl, maybe seventeen. Eighteen. Long dark hair, curling slightly at the ends like the ghost of smoke. She wore plain grey clothes. No badge. No ID. But her eyes… They looked straight at me. Too long. Too steady. She closed the door behind her with a whisper-soft click, then just stood there. Watching. “Sky,” she said quietly. Her voice didn’t feel new. It felt like an echo of something I’d already heard, maybe in a dream, maybe in a life that wasn’t mine. She took a small step forward. “You don’t remember me, do you?” I blinked. My mouth opened, but no words came out. Something about her… it tickled the edge of memory. Like a name half-remembered or a photograph you saw once and never again. “I’m Selene,” she said after a moment. The name struck something inside me. Like static. Sharp and fading all at once. Selene. She sat down in the wooden chair. Her posture was too neat. Hands folded in her lap. But her eyes never stopped scanning my face. “We’ve met before,” she said. “But everything’s… foggy for you right now. That’s alright.” Her tone was calm, too calm. I didn’t know what to say. My tongue felt wrong in my mouth. “Where am I?” I finally croaked. “What is this place?” She tilted her head. “What do you think it is?” I stared at her. “A hospital? An asylum? A... research center? Why are there no mirrors?” “Some rooms don’t like reflections,” she murmured, gaze shifting toward the wall. There was nothing there—just a blank space. But she stared like something used to be there. A frame. A shadow. A mirror. I swallowed hard. “Why are you here?” She hesitated. “For you,” she said eventually. Not to help you. Not to save you. Just—for you. Whatever that meant. “You act like you know me,” I said, voice tightening. She met my gaze. “Maybe I do.” “Are you a nurse? A therapist?” “Do I look like one?” No. She didn’t. She looked like someone who had broken in. Someone who wasn’t supposed to exist in a place like this. Someone trying too hard to appear calm. “How did you even get in here?” I asked. She leaned forward slightly. “This room is special. Not everyone remembers it. But you did.” I froze. “What do you mean?” “I mean…” She looked around. “You knew it once. And now you’ve forgotten. But memories don’t die here. They just… wait.” I didn’t know what to say. My mind felt like a hallway with too many locked doors. Her presence only made it worse. Or clearer. I wasn’t sure which. “How long have I been here?” I asked. Her lips parted—then closed. She didn’t answer. Instead, she stood and walked to the far corner of the room. Touched the wall like she expected something to give way. And then she said, almost too quietly: “Some things can’t be remembered until you’re ready.” The air around me felt charged, like a storm about to hit. I stood. Too fast. My knees buckled. The world swam. She caught my arm without looking at me, like she knew exactly when I’d fall. “Careful, Sky,” she whispered. I pulled away. “Stop saying my name like you own it.” For the first time, her expression cracked. A flicker of something—anger? sadness? exhaustion? Then she turned back to the door. “I’ll come back,” she said. “Why?” Selene paused with her hand on the handle. This was it, I thought. The moment she’d tell me the truth. But instead, she gave me a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Because the room’s not done with you yet.” Then she opened the door—and vanished into the humming white hallway beyond. Leaving me in a place with no reflections. And no idea who I really was. --- Is Selene real? Is Sky a patient—or something worse? ---