Patient File No. 7
In the morning, when the sun finally came through the window, I looked at my phone's calendar.
Tuesday.
I drew a deep breath — a breath I felt had been trapped in my chest for days. For the first time since this nightmare began, the day had changed.
But instead of relief, I felt something else — a deep, silent warning that this change, this "progress," might just be part of a larger game. If he really wanted to keep me, perhaps the best way was to let me go sometimes, only to pull me back later — to make me hope, to make me think I was winning.
I decided to spend that day finding the five previous doctors — not just the sixth one who had vanished. If even one of them was still living somewhere, perhaps they could help me understand how to break the cycle.
Three hours of searching through old administrative systems, archived files, and phone calls to old numbers finally paid off. Of the five, three no longer lived in the city — their addresses had moved to other cities, even other countries, as if all of them, after a certain period, had suddenly decided to go as far away as possible.
One of them — Dr. Homayouni, the third physician — was still in the city. I found his address and, without calling ahead, went to see him.
A small apartment on the third floor of an old building. When I knocked, it took a while. When the door finally opened, a man in his sixties, with eyes that looked like they hadn't slept properly in years, peered at me through the chain lock.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice guarded, almost frightened.
"I'm the... the new doctor for Patient No. 7," I said.
Something in his face broke. For a moment I thought he was going to slam the door. Instead, he undid the chain.
"I should have guessed someone would come eventually," he said, and let me in.
His apartment was strange — all the windows covered with thick fabric, and on every wall, a mirror hung, but each mirror was draped with cloth, so no reflection could be seen.
"The mirrors," I said, gesturing.
"Don't look at them," he said, quickly, almost with terror. "Never look into a mirror while you're thinking about him. He learns to come through them."
We sat down. I told him everything — from the early sessions to the bread on the table, to the voice behind the door, to the patient's disappearance from the hospital.
He listened, motionless, and when I finished, he was silent for a long time.
"I went down the same path," he said at last. "I almost went to find that street too. But something saved me — something I think might help you too."
"What?"
He stood, went to a drawer, and pulled out an old envelope filled with handwritten letters.
"These are letters exchanged between me and the other previous doctors, after each of us realized we were dealing with the same thing. Before everyone disappeared or ran away. In these letters, we found a pattern — something all of us, independently, had noticed."
I asked what pattern.
"He only has power as long as the 'story' hasn't been fully told," he said, his voice dropping, as if even now he was afraid to speak too loudly. "Patient No. 7 — or whoever he really is — never allowed any of us to hear the story to the end. Always, exactly when we were getting close to the end, something happened to interrupt the sessions. One of us fled, one of us went mad, one of us resigned. It's as if the story itself, if told completely, would set something free — or bind it."
"Which one?"
He looked at me for a long time, and in his eyes I saw that he didn't know the answer either.
"I don't know," he said. "But I know you've gotten closer to the end of the story than any of us. And that means either you're the one who finally figures out how to finish it..."
He paused.
"...or you're the last one this story needs."
At that exact moment, one of the covered mirrors — without any wind, without any touch — had its cloth slowly slip and fall.
We both stared at it.
In the mirror, the reflection of the room was visible — correct, natural — except for one thing.
Behind me, in the reflection, a shadow was standing, tall, in a gray suit, with no clear face.
I spun around, quickly.
There was nothing behind me.
When I looked back at the mirror, the shadow was still there, now closer, as if it were slowly stepping toward the glass, from inside the reflection, toward us.
Dr. Homayouni let out a choked scream and threw the cloth back over the mirror, his hands shaking.
"You need to leave," he said, his voice filled with terror. "Right now. You shouldn't have come here. Now he knows you're here. Now I'm in danger again."
He shoved me toward the door. Before he pushed me all the way out, he pressed the letters — the envelope — into my hand.
"Read these," he said. "Maybe there's something in them we missed. But whatever you learn, end this quickly. Because the longer it drags on..."
He slammed the door shut, and I heard the sound of several locks turning from the other side.
---
That night, I sat on the floor of my apartment and read the letters one by one. Five different handwritings, five people who had each, independently, reached the same conclusion: something at the end of the story would either save — or destroy.
The last letter, from Dr. Homayouni, had a single sentence with the rest of the page left blank, as if he couldn't bring himself to write more:
"I think I finally understand why he's called Mr. Monday. Because Monday is always a beginning. And he never lets the story reach its end, because an ending means no new beginning is needed. And without a new beginning..."
The sentence was left unfinished.
Beneath it, in handwriting I was certain wasn't his — thin, slanted, with an unnatural pressure on the paper — another sentence had been added, as if someone else had completed it after the letter was written:
"...without a new beginning, I no longer exist. So let's keep playing, Doctor. I still have so much to show you."
My phone, lying on the floor beside me, lit up on its own, no notification, its screen opening by itself to the front camera.
And in the image of myself on the screen, behind me, in the darkness of the room, a tall shadow stood.
This time, when I turned around, something was there.
Only for a second.
Just long enough to see that his smile was now clearer than ever.
---
End of Act Two
To be continued in Chapter Eleven...