Chapter 2 – The Mirror Lies

The nurse wheeled a cart into her room that morning, humming a tune too cheerful for the pale walls and humming machines. She set down a tray of bland hospital food—toast, a plastic cup of orange juice, a bowl of something gray pretending to be oatmeal.

“You should try to eat, Elara. Strength will come back faster if you do.”

That name again. Elara. The word clung to her like a label stuck to the wrong package. She forced a small nod, but her appetite was gone.

The nurse bustled around the room, changing out IV bags and scribbling notes on a clipboard. When she was gone, silence filled the space again, heavy and suffocating.

She pushed the tray aside and shifted in bed, restless. Her body ached, stiff from lying too long, but something stronger than pain drove her out of the sheets. Her bare feet met the cold linoleum. She wobbled, gripping the side rail until her legs remembered how to hold her.

That was when she saw it.

Across the room, bolted to the wall above the sink, hung a rectangular mirror. She couldn’t look away.

Her own reflection stared back: pale, hollow-cheeked, dark hair limp around her shoulders. The hospital gown swallowed her frame.

It should have been familiar. Comforting. Proof of who she was.

But it wasn’t.

The face looking back was wrong. The curve of the jaw, the scar along her eyebrow she didn’t remember earning, the eyes that looked both familiar and alien at once. She touched her cheek—hesitant—then watched as the reflection mimicked her movement with perfect obedience.

“Is that really me?” she whispered.

A wave of nausea rolled through her. She stumbled back, clutching her stomach, her breath coming too fast. No recognition sparked. No memories surfaced. It was like staring at a stranger wearing her skin.

Her hands trembled as she reached for the counter, steadying herself. She forced herself to look again.

“Who are you?” she whispered to the glass.

The mirror, of course, offered no reply.

The door opened suddenly, and she jumped. Nathan—the man who called himself her fiancé—walked in with a bouquet of flowers.

He smiled like this was perfectly normal, as though she hadn’t just been questioning the very existence of the face she wore. “You’re up,” he said brightly. “That’s good. Moving around will help.”

She backed away from the mirror, as if he might see the fear crawling over her skin.

“I thought you might like these.” He set the flowers on the table beside her bed, their bright yellows and pinks clashing violently with the sterile room. “You always loved lilies.”

She looked at them, then at him. “I don’t… remember that.”

The way his smile faltered was almost imperceptible. Almost. But she caught it.

“That’s okay,” he said quickly. “Memories take time. The important thing is, I’m here.”

His eyes lingered on her in a way that made her shift uncomfortably. She wanted to ask him questions—Who am I really? What accident? Why do I feel like I’m living inside the wrong body?—but the words tangled in her throat. She didn’t trust him. Every instinct screamed against it.

“Tell me about… us,” she managed finally.

His expression softened again, rehearsed. “We met in college. Fell in love the first week of sophomore year. You used to tease me about my terrible cooking. I proposed on a trip to Italy. You cried—happy tears.”

She listened, but none of it fit. The images he painted felt like postcards from someone else’s life. If what he said was true, wouldn’t some part of her recognize it? A flicker of memory, a tug of emotion? There was nothing.

And then, a question slipped out before she could stop it.

“What’s my middle name?”

His eyes flicked away, just for a second, but it was enough. “Rose,” he said finally.

She held his gaze, silent. He smiled again, too quickly. “You always hated it. Said it made you sound old-fashioned.”

She nodded, pretending to accept it. But something in her chest tightened. He was lying. She was sure of it.

When he left a short while later, promising to return in the evening, she exhaled in shaky relief.

Her eyes drifted back to the mirror.

The woman there—Elara, supposedly—looked haunted, hollow. But now something else flickered in her expression. A shadow of doubt. A seed of fear.

Maybe she isn’t me at all, she thought.

That night, the dreams returned.

Water. Cold and endless. Her lungs burning as she fought for air. Fingers gripping hers, then slipping. A voice screaming her name—not Elara. Another name. A name she couldn’t grasp before she woke, heart pounding.

She sat up, clutching the sheets. The flowers Nathan had brought were wilting already, their petals drooping as if they, too, had given up pretending.

Then came the sound.

A soft scrape at the door.

Her breath hitched. She froze, staring. Slowly, a small envelope slid under the crack, just like the night before.

Hands shaking, she rushed forward, snatched it up, and tore it open.

This time, the message was longer.

You are not Elara. They’re lying to you. Look closer.

Her knees nearly gave out. She pressed her back to the door, clutching the paper like it was her only lifeline.

She wanted answers. She wanted to scream. But above all, she wanted to know—if she wasn’t Elara, then who was she?

The mirror across the room seemed to be waiting, its surface gleaming in the faint glow of the monitor lights.

She looked at it one last time that night, her reflection staring back with hollow eyes.

And for the first time, she realized she wasn’t afraid of forgetting.

She was afraid of remembering.