The mirror doesn't lie, but today it whispers.
04:37
My hands—no, these hands—tremble against porcelain white. Three prescription bottles. Seventeen pills. Each one a secret kept, each capsule a fragment of a truth I can no longer remember. The number mocks me, a countdown to something inevitable, something I can't name.
What happens when the last pill dissolves?
The bathroom tiles reflect fragmented versions of myself: clinical white, sterile, yet somehow imbued with unspoken narratives. Dr. Elena Reyes stares back—professional, composed. Yet beneath the pressed white coat, something is breaking.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The wall clock ticks like distant footsteps, echoing through the silence. Memories that aren't memories crawl beneath my skin. Patient files, redacted. Personal history, splintered.
Who am I when nobody's watching?
Something shifts in the mirror's reflection. Not me.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
04:42
Cold water splashes my face. Reality should solidify, but it slips further away. The towel feels wrong against my skin—too rough, too real. I fumble with the pill bottles. Labels blur, names distort. Antidepressants morph into something darker, something that promises to erase rather than heal.
When did that change?
A scream builds in my throat. I swallow it down with a handful of pills, each one heavier than the last, each one a choice I can’t take back.
Which ones? Does it matter?
04:50
The bedroom. Familiar, yet not. Books on psychology line the shelves, their spines an accusatory chorus.
"You should know better,"
they seem to say.
"You should be able to fix this."
But how do you fix a broken mind with a broken mind?
The bed calls to me, a siren song of oblivion. But sleep means dreams, and dreams mean— No. Don’t think about the dreams.
04:55
Back to the mirror. Dr. Elena Reyes stares back, but her eyes are wrong. Too wide. Too knowing.
"Who are you?"
I whisper.
"Who are you?"
she whispers back, the reflection's lips moving in eerie unison with mine. Something has always been here.