The days passed slowly within the hospital walls, as if time here moved at a different pace, separate from the outside world, where life continued without waiting for him. The place was not new to him, but this time, it felt colder, quieter, as if it were an extension of his own deteriorating mind.
The room was almost completely isolated from noise. The only sounds that reached him were the murmurs of nurses in the hallway, the soft rubber wheels of medical carts, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, the beeping of the monitor when his heart rate slowed for a few moments before stabilizing again.
The Visitors
His family visited him every day. His mother would sit beside him for hours, holding his hand as if trying to keep him tethered to life, as if afraid he might disappear if she let go. She no longer cried like before, but her eyes held a silent sorrow more painful than tears, as if she had lost the ability to express herself with words.
His father spoke even less than usual. He simply watched him, his eyes tired, but holding something else… something Triton couldn't quite define. Perhaps disappointment, perhaps helplessness, or perhaps something even deeper. Every time their eyes met, it felt like an unspoken question lingered between them, floating in the air, waiting for one of them to gather the courage to voice it.
His sister, however, was different.
She came every day, but she didn't say much. Sometimes she sat in silence, and other times she talked about trivial things—her university classes, a friend who had traveled, a book she had recently read. She was trying to keep things normal, as if trying to convince him—or maybe herself—that this was just a phase and that it would pass.
But he knew she didn't believe that.
And neither did he.
Returning to Life… or Something Like It
After two weeks, he was finally allowed to leave the hospital.
His apartment was exactly as he had left it—excessively neat, but cold, as if it were merely a place to stay, nothing more. Nothing here reflected his personality—no pictures, no tangible memories, just white walls and furniture with strictly defined functions.
He sat on the couch, staring at the space in silence. He was supposed to feel comforted, but he felt nothing at all.
The next day, he returned to work at Nova Tech.
His colleagues greeted him with mixed expressions—a blend of concern, caution, and perhaps curiosity.
"Welcome back, Triton," said Ryan, the colleague who had once been the closest thing to a friend in the office.
"Thanks," he replied in a quiet voice before sitting in front of his screen, trying to drown himself in work, to return to the routine that had once formed his world before everything collapsed again.
Work was familiar—lines of code, security system updates, technical issues that needed fixing. It was the one thing that still made sense, the one thing he could control.
Yet, despite that, he couldn't shake the strange feeling that had haunted him since leaving the hospital.
As if the world had become less real.
The Message
That night, as he sat in his apartment, he felt something strange for the first time.
He was writing a message on his phone, but when he looked at the screen, he saw that he had typed words he hadn't intended to write.
"This is not your real life."
Triton froze.
He looked at his hand, certain he hadn't written that sentence, yet the words were there, clear, flashing on the screen like a silent warning.
Then, suddenly, he heard a distant sound.
It wasn't an external noise—it felt like it was coming from inside him, muffled, distorted, yet strangely familiar.
Then came the pain.
A light prickling in his hand, turning into something sharper.
He looked at his palm and saw blood.
There were small cuts he hadn't noticed before, as if they had just appeared.
But he wasn't holding anything sharp.
And he didn't remember how they had happened.
He kept staring at the wounds, while the distant noise became clearer.
It wasn't just one voice.
There were many.
They were screams.
A Distorted Reflection
He tried to ignore it, to convince himself it was just exhaustion, but he felt something else—something beyond mere hallucination.
The air around him grew heavy, as if the space itself was tightening. The dim lights in his apartment flickered for a few moments before stabilizing. His phone screen suddenly turned off, and when he restarted it, there was no message.
But the feeling remained.
A strange sensation, as if a part of him was trapped somewhere else, as if the world around him was slowly cracking, as if reality itself was not what it seemed.
He stood up slowly, walked to the bathroom, and turned on the faucet to wash his bleeding hand.
But when he lifted his head to look in the mirror, he saw his reflection for a moment… and it didn't quite look like him.
Something was wrong.
He stared at his face, his heart pounding violently.
It looked exactly like him, but his eyes were empty—hollow, as if they didn't belong to him.
Then, for a split second, he saw something behind him.
There was no one there, but the mirror's reflection revealed a shadow standing far behind him, in the dark corner of the room.
He turned around quickly—
But there was nothing.
He looked back at the mirror, and this time, his reflection was normal.
No shadow. No strangeness.
But the feeling didn't disappear.
It only grew stronger.
As if the world he knew was slowly collapsing.
As if an unseen hand was trying to pull him away from this place.
And for the first time, he began to question whether this life was real at all…
Or just another illusion he was living without realizing it.