Chapter Twenty-Seven: Echo of My Mind
The sky was gray, as if it had lost its desire to be blue.
For a week now, the white light had not left the ceiling of her hospital room.
The curtains were always half-closed, the corridors silent,
as though the place itself had lost the ability to perceive time.
Noor sat on her bed, staring at the glass of water on the table.
At first, the glass was ordinary.
But she noticed the surface of the water moving despite the stillness.
Small, circular ripples—
as if someone were whispering beneath the surface.
She placed her hand on her chest.
Everything inside her felt heavy: her head, her breath, even her thoughts.
"I'm fine,"
she whispered, but she didn't believe herself.
At night, she opened her eyes to a faint whisper.
She thought it was a dream, until she realized the sound was coming from the small mirrors fixed to the wall of the room,
the ones the nurses used to monitor patients.
The words were unclear at first, then they sharpened:
"The reflection is waiting."
She rose slowly.
She approached the glass,
but she did not see her own face.
She saw another woman—identical to her—sitting in the opposite room, wearing the same white gown, the same hair, the same features…
but her eyes were empty.
She smiled without emotion,
then raised her hand toward the glass and wrote with the fog of her breath:
"You are on my side now."
Noor froze.
She stepped back,
but the opposite room did not exist at all—there was only a wall!
In the morning, the new psychiatrist entered—
a man in his thirties named Dr. Haitham.
He spoke in a calm voice, as if afraid of waking something sleeping inside her mind.
"How are you feeling today, Noor?"
"Do I look crazy?"
"No one looks crazy from the outside. Madness happens in silence."
She stared at him for a long moment, then said,
"Would you believe me if I told you there is a world behind the mirrors?"
"Is it a world… or are you the one who created it?"
"I see it… and I hear it."
"Perhaps you are hearing yourself."
He smiled faintly and wrote something in his notebook.
But Noor didn't notice… she was staring at the small mirror behind him.
The reflection turned its face toward her, while the doctor kept writing.
The reflection smiled and said in an inner voice,
"You are closer than ever."
That night, she did not sleep.
She heard footsteps in the corridor,
and a dim light seeping from beneath the door.
But what terrified her most was the sound of a child crying from the bathroom.
She moved slowly toward the small door.
She opened it… and the white light reflected off the tiled floor.
In the center of the room stood the large hospital mirror—
the same one she had faced the first time before her breakdown.
The light began to fade around her,
the air grew heavier, as if the room itself were breathing.
Then her other face appeared—the same old smile,
but this time… it was wearing the same gown, with the same wounds.
"Did you miss me?"
"Stay away from me!"
"I can't, because I am you. I am the part you left behind there."
"You're an illusion!"
"Everything around you is an illusion, Noor. The doctors, the room, even this body.
You are still there… standing before the mirror, in that old room,
trying to breathe."
The light went out.
A single, long scream was heard,
then silence returned once more.
The next morning,
the nurse entered Noor's room, but it was empty.
The bed was neatly made, the blanket carefully folded,
and on the glass, a faint mist carried neatly written feminine words:
"I'm fine now."
But on the security camera, when the footage was reviewed,
Noor was still there… lying in her bed, motionless.
Her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling,
and in her pupils was a clear reflection of another face—smiling.