Chapter 28 – The Thing in the Mirror

PATIENT ECHOES – Entry 5

"The mind is a ruthless archivist. It does not ask what is kind, only what is true—or worse, what is memorable.

My memory has begun speaking in mirrors, and I no longer trust that what I see is mine. Or that it ever was."

—S.N.

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The mirror was no longer black.

Something shimmered faintly within it, like the surface of a pond touched by wind. I stood at the foot of the cellar stairs, barefoot, hands trembling though there was no cold. I hadn't fed in days. That was likely the simplest explanation. Starvation, isolation, and a breakdown of perception.

But I wasn't certain.

When I stepped forward, the light shifted. The glass caught the glow from the oil lamp in a way that framed the outline of a man.

Not me.

Or—perhaps, me once. A long time ago.

I crept closer.

The reflection in the mirror wore a thin white shirt, slightly wrinkled, open at the throat in a style I used to favor before my transformation. His hair was parted, slightly messy in the back—careless from too much thought and too little rest, I knew that face. I had shaved it every morning of my adult life.

It was me.

Not the thing I had become, but the man I used to be.

Human

Living

Breathing

His chest rose and fell, mine did not.

I staggered back instinctively, my shoulder grazing the stone wall. No one else was here. No hidden twin, no patient with my face. Just me—and the mirror—and the impossible echo staring back.

"You're not real," I said aloud, more to anchor myself than to protest.

The figure didn't move.

I edged closer again, not daring to blink. Not daring to look away.

The reflection's lips curled—not in menace, but something softer. A melancholy smile, familiar. The kind I used to give to patients who had run out of answers but not out of questions.

I touched my own cheek.

The image in the mirror didn't.

My fingers shook.

"Hallucination," I whispered. "Delirium. I haven't fed. That's all this is."

But my voice sounded too small in the wine-dark air, and the mirror too vast to contain such a simple illusion.

Still I stared.

The man in the mirror shifted slightly, tilting his head to one side. Thoughtful. Calm. A slow, deliberate movement.

I didn't move at all.

I wasn't imagining this.

I knew delusion. I had seen it in others—in its subtle creep and sudden snap, its cruel ingenuity. But this—this wasn't how hallucinations behaved. They didn't pause. They didn't wait.

He looked at me like someone who knew my name before I was born.

"No," I said softly, inching away. "This is just trauma catching up. A ghost of memory. A thing stitched together from faces I've worn."

But still, I couldn't look away.

His eyes were warm brown, human brown. Not the gold I had seen in myself, not the garnet that came after blood. They shimmered with tears unshed.

Was I crying?

I knelt before the mirror.

The cellar floor was cold, and the scent of cork dust and rusted iron rose faintly to meet me. The reflection blinked again—slow, as if mourning.

"Who are you?" I asked. "What are you trying to show me?"

No answer.

I sat with my knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, watching my own human face blink at me. I searched for inconsistencies. A twitch, a delay, a mirror's imperfection. But it behaved as if it lived, as if he did.

I remembered the feel of a heartbeat in my chest. The throb of blood behind my eyes after a long day. The deep ache in my lower back from standing too long at the clinic.

He had lived those moments, I had.

But I couldn't touch them anymore.

And then something strange happened.

He raised his hand.

I didn't.

I froze. My breath caught out of habit, not necessity.

The hand in the mirror pressed softly to the glass, fingers splayed.

I looked down at my own. Still at my sides, still unmoving.

I reached up slowly, and matched him.

When my fingers touched the glass, the mirror shivered—just slightly—and his face darkened at the edges. The image wavered. Not breaking, not shattering—just trembling, like water around a submerged stone.

And then—I saw it.

Not just the face, but the emotion behind it. Regret, grief, and recognition. The weight of time pressing against glass.

My own eyes stung, though I hadn't cried in a year.

What was this?

A memory come to life?

A punishment?

Or something deeper?

The image flickered again—briefly replaced by Élodie's face, then Gérard's, then the girl with the torn fingernails—Mahya. Their expressions were silent. Watching.

And then the human version of myself returned. No sound, and no movement.

I fell backward, palms braced behind me, breathing as though I needed to.

"No more," I said. "Please."

It didn't vanish.

It simply faded.

The warmth of the reflection dissolved into a pallid version of me—the real one. The corpse that walked and thirsted and remembered too much. The one who didn't blink.

Just me,

Alone.

I stood after a long time, knees stiff. I went to the shelf and pulled down the linen shroud once more.

This time, I draped it gently over the mirror—not to forget, but to protect.

Not everything that returns from the past wants to be seen.

And not everything that appears in glass is ready to be named.