by Ted Dekker
She finally stood up, walked to the door by the bed, and peered inside. Plain bathroom with a toilet, a shower, and a sink with a mirror above it. No vanity, no soap or shampoo, no towels.
She stepped up to the mirror and blinked at the image staring back at her. Her eyes were swollen and her cheeks had flushed a ruddy red. Lips dry and cracked. Strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail and were sticking out haphazardly, giving her the appearance of a crazed woman just out of an asylum.
She tapped the mirror. Chromed metal. Of course. Nothing would be breakable in this place.
A slow tour of the bedroom confirmed her thinking that everything was designed for permanence. The drawers on the desk were locked, the lamp had a sealed bulb and was bolted to the desk. Even the chairs were affixed to the floor, and the screws that fastened them down had no heads.
When she ventured to the narrow pane of reinforced glass set in the door and peered out, the hall was vacant. Not a soul.
Christy finally retreated to the bed and lay down, feeling deprived and lifeless. She stayed liked that, staring at the ceiling, for what felt like an hour and still no one came. Had they forgotten about her? Of course not. She didn’t know what “progressive treatment” meant, but she could imagine that leaving someone to their own thoughts indefinitely might qualify.
There was no clock, no sunlight, no switches on the walls, nothing on the ceiling but the narrow vents and two banks of bright fluorescent lights. It could be the middle of night and she wouldn’t know it.
Slowly her concerns began to sag into that place where meaninglessness meets hopelessness. She kept rehearsing the events of the day—her break in, her mistaken identity, Austin’s attempt to free them.
The what ifs swarmed her mind like angry crows.
If only she’d left home with her wallet, she would have walked out of the ward the moment she proved that she was Christy. Lawson would have checked his patient roster, found no Christy Snow, and let her go.
If she hadn’t made the call to Austin, he wouldn’t have come looking for her. If he hadn’t come looking, he wouldn’t have stumbled upon Fisher and Alice. If he hadn’t stumbled on Fisher, the man wouldn’t have had any reason to cover his tracks and hide Alice. He’d have had no reason to admit Christy to replace the girl who’d gone missing on his account.
If only…
Christy paused. Somewhere in the back of her mind the if became an unless. Unless she was completely wrong about all of this. Unless she hadn’t left home without her wallet because she’d actually never left her home at all. She’d never left her home because she lived here, not there.
She’d seen a documentary about a patient whose brain damage had so affected his long-term memory that he couldn’t hold more than one day in his mind.
But the details of her life as Christy were too real. She had a couple dozen journals in her apartment that spelled out her last few years in great detail.
Hours slogged by and no one came. She made a dozen trips to the door to peer out and not once saw any movement. If there were other patients on the floor, they were in a different section.
What if she was alone?
Christy had drifted into a mind-numbing stupor when the sound of the lock snapping open jerked her back to the room. She caught her breath and sat up as the door swung open.
“Hello, Alice.”
Kern Lawson closed the door behind him and headed for the desk.
“Sit with me.”
She rose and crossed to the seat facing the desk. Sat down as he sank into the chair opposite her.
For a long time he studied her as if trying to decide what to do with her. A minute went by and still he said nothing.
“This is crazy,” she finally said. Her voice was thin, not the kind of convincing tone she wanted to project.
“It is. Very. Which is why we are here, darling.” He opened his palms. “Plum nuts, bonkers, crazy. You’ll note that up here we don’t use terms like mentally challenged. We tend to go right for the heart of the issue. It’s controversial, but we find it produces wonderful results with the right treatment.”
She was at a loss.
“How do you like your treatment so far?”
“What treatment?”
He chuckled and she was surprised to find a sliver of comfort in the sound after hours of solitude.
“What treatment, indeed,” he said. “The first step here is for me to help you see through your illusions, capisce? You have to see yourself for who you really are before we can begin to break down that false self. The delusional self.”
“I’m not delusional.”
“No? Truth is, you’re not seeing what is real even now, as we speak. But I’ll let you discover that on your own. See the illusion. Then break with it. That’s all I’m asking of you, Alice.”
“I’m not Alice.”
“Okay, we can start with that. You don’t think you’re Alice. But the fact is, you don’t really know who you are. Are you ugly? Are you pretty? Are you an outcast? You’re broken, Alice. You aren’t whole. Correction is needed. The first step is embracing that. I can fix you.”
A distant, high-pitched whine sat at the back of her mind.
He leaned forward on his elbows.
“You’re living in denial, Alice. You’re so afraid of what you might find if you really get a good look at yourself that you’ve shut your eyes. Permanently. I can help you see the truth. But you have to face the truth, beginning with fundamentals, like how you really look, in the real world.”
Her heart worked its way through thick beats.
“You think this”—he motioned to her—“is the real you. It’s not. The real you is actually not quite this pretty. Most therapists feed their patients a load of lies, pump them full of sunshine, which helps in the short term but doesn’t fundamentally change them. I prefer to help the patient see the real truth themselves. I call it ther-I-py. And I let you be the ther-I-pist. It upsets some.”
He paused.
“Dive off the deep end with me, Alice. Think of me as the law, again, no pun intended. A measuring stick for what’s good and what’s bad about you. Let me reveal who you really are so we can make the appropriate corrections. What do you say?”
“You’re saying I’m ugly?”
“Ugly? That’s a matter of perspective. But your refusal to admit that you’re ugly is triggering denial on a much deeper level. You’re broken. Correction is needed. I can make you whole again.”
“But you actually think I’m ugly?”
“Isn’t that what you secretly think every time you look in the mirror? My nose is too big. My cheeks are too fat. I need to lose twenty pounds. No one loves me the way I am. I don’t have any really good friends. No family. Isn’t that why you secretly hate yourself?”
She felt her fingers trembling on the armrests.
“The problem, my dear, is that you’re delusional about many things. Drop the illusion and you’ll see who you really are. It might be a bit uncomfortable at first, but it’s the only way to make you whole.”
“You don’t understand,” she said with a little hesitation. “I don’t even belong here. I may not like some things about me, but I’m not the person you’re talking about.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then abruptly rose.
“I’ll make you a deal, Alice. You give it a good thinking tonight, there’s no rush. Look at yourself in the mirror long and hard, and let’s see if you can see through the illusion you’ve created around your cozy little life. Convince me tomorrow that you love everything about yourself, and I’ll consider a different form of therapy. Maybe electric shock treatments. We’ll see.”
“Shock?”
“Just a little something to get the juice flowing. No pun intended.” He headed for the door and she pushed herself to her feet. “Your call, Alice. Go deep or keep it shallow, the choice is yours.”
He unlocked the door, opened it, and turned back.
“G
et some sleep.”
The door shut and the lock engaged.
“Wait!”
As if responding to her voice, the overhead lights blinked out. Darkness engulfed her. Pitch. A thin line of light peeked out from under the bathroom door but it wasn’t enough to give the room any shape.
“Wait!”
If Lawson could hear her, he was paying her no mind.
She stood still, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, mind spinning with the realization that she had no control of the lights.
The bed was straight ahead, next to the bathroom door.
She crossed the room, stepping carefully even though she knew there was nothing to trip on. Reached the bathroom door and pulled it open, half expecting to see Lawson leaning against the sink, waiting for her.
White light spilled past her. The bathroom was as she’d left it. Pristine. Clinical. Not even a water spot on the sink. Perfectly quiet.
Anxious and once again alone with only her thoughts, Christy walked back to the bed and sat for a while, staring into the dim, bathroom-lit room. She finally settled to her side and curled up.
It was there, staring at the outline of the desk across the room, that she began to consider Lawson’s jumble of words. Any sane person could see through them. This was his progressive ther-I-py, a clever play on the word which set the focus on the self. She being the ther-I-pist.
Words, nothing but.
Unnerving words, but only that.
Unless…
And it was that unless that began to get to Christy. Unless there was some truth to what he had said. There was. It was true, for example, that she had a rather low self-image. But she didn’t hate herself.
Unless he was right and she secretly did.
She blinked in the darkness and thought about that.
The what ifs started to cycle through her mind. What if she did hate herself and had only convinced herself that she was okay as a coping mechanism? What if Lawson knew more about her than she did? What if her file contained details about her past that she’d forgotten?
What if she didn’t know Christy’s past because Christy was only a fabrication of her mind?
Fear washed down her back and she sat up, heart pounding.
It was true. She really did secretly hate many things about herself. Why else did she persistently withdraw from others? Why else did she keep a locket with a fake picture around her neck? Why else did she secretly want to be anyone other than who she really was?
Beautiful, put together, attracting men as she walked confidently across the floor to a stage that waited her appearance—who wouldn’t want that?
But that wasn’t her. She was the girl who’d been born plain. Ugly, even.
She rose unsteadily to her feet, Lawson’s words ringing in her head.
Look at yourself in the mirror long and hard, and let’s see if you can see through the illusion.
Christy rounded her bed and walked to the bathroom. She walked in and tentatively stepped in front of the mirror.
The plain face, so familiar to her, stared back. Christy.
Slowly, she began to relax. Christy, not Alice. There was no illusion here, only a very plain image of a girl who’d been born into obscurity. More than once, Austin had told her that he thought she was pretty. What did Austin know? But at least it was something, right?
She lifted her hand and pinched the flesh around her neck. Pulled it back to see what a thinner neck would look like.
The difference produced a stunning result. At least as far as her neck went, the slight shift in body mass transformed her into something far more appealing.
She squeezed her nose, which she’d always considered too fat, particularly around her nostrils. Much better. She let go and looked at herself again. Truth was, she did hate the way she looked. A few thousand dollars might fix it when she got up the nerve. But they couldn’t lengthen fingers.
He’s talking about your insides, Alice.
The room suddenly felt ominously quiet. She’d called herself Alice?
You hate who you are. And for the record, what can Austin know if you only made him up?
The door to the bathroom slammed shut and Christy spun, heart in her throat. The air had come in and pulled it shut?
She was about to yank it open, but something in the corner of her eye gave her pause. The mirror was there, right in front of her, and the memory of Lawson’s voice was whispering through her mind.
Look in the mirror long and hard, it said.
She turned back to the mirror and stared.
The girl looking back at her was her. Christy knew that because she looked enough like her to be her. But she was more than a few pounds heavier. Her neck was thick, nearly the width of her head. The end of her nose rose too high. There were more than a few pimples on her chin and cheeks, a couple too pronounced to cover with makeup. Her teeth weren’t straight.
It was an illusion, of course. But it was strong enough to stop her cold, awash with horror.
She slowly backed from the mirror, mind stuttering. This isn’t real. This can’t be real. I’m not that ugly. This is just an illusion. This isn’t even an illusion—it’s just a dream.
But her face refused to change.
And then another thought edged into her mind. It had to be an illusion, of course it did, but that meant she was capable of having illusions. Ones that looked this real.
So then she was insane?
Her heart slogged thick and heavy in her chest. Chills washed down her arms. She lifted them and saw that they, too, were thick.
This was her?
She couldn’t accept that!
You’re delusional, Christy. And maybe this isn’t the delusion.
The thought swept over her like a frigid wave from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She was breathing heavily, fixed and unmoving, as if her feet had been nailed to the floor.
She had to stop this! She had to get out!
Uttering a low moan, filled with horror and disgust, she tore her feet from the ground and staggered toward the door.
Grabbed the knob with thick fingers and twisted.
The door was locked.
She grabbed with both hands and tugged, twisting with all of her strength, but the door refused to budge.
Christy whirled, smothered by the realization that she was trapped alone in a small bathroom. But it wasn’t a small bathroom.
It was, but the walls had changed. Instead of white paint, the walls were made of mirrors. She backed into the closed door. Bumped into it. Felt that it too was made of glass.
She was in a room of mirrors reflecting infinite images of her grotesque body. The new, ugly her, not the plain her. Hundreds of hers. Her legs began to shake.
Everywhere she looked she saw only the singular sickening image of someone she despised. Her mind began to fold in on itself.
Grunting with panic, she tried again to get the door open without even a hint of progress. Then again. She erupted into a flurry of frantic attempts to fix what was wrong, wheezing, sweating, sobbing, slamming the door with her fists.
None of it made a difference. The images were still there, mimicking and mocking her every move.
You’re an ugly girl, Alice. Look at yourself. Look long and hard and see just how ugly you are, inside and out.
Christy closed her eyes, sank slowly to her seat along the bathroom door, wrapped her arms around her head, and began to rock gently.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
AUSTIN WOKE with the tang of metal in the back of his throat. His tongue throbbed in lockstep with his pulse. He slowly moved his jaw and was rewarded with a sharp pain that stabbed down his neck.
Details of his ordeal filtered into his mind. As he’d hoped, they’d taken him. The question was, where?
He’d been nearly electrocuted by the hallway door the moment he’d made contact. This explained why the attendants had made no attempt to chase him. The voltag
e had immobilized him almost instantly and made short work of the attendants’ security problem. His whole body still prickled with pain.
He pried his eyes open. They felt like they’d been packed with glass. A white ceiling came into focus.
Austin rolled his head to the right and looked down at his feet. He was strapped to a gurney with two thick bands that ran across his chest and waist. Each of his wrists had been lashed to the bed rails with double-loop zip ties—one cinched tightly around each arm and the other secured to the gurney’s steel railings. Plastic, not the padded cuffs that had secured him earlier.
There was a little play, but not enough to slip through the restraints.
The room was cold and clinical, well lit by banks of lights in the ceiling. An air-conditioning unit hummed softly, pumping frigid air into the room.
A long stainless-steel table with a large articulating lamp used for medical exams stood in the middle of the room. Next to it, a tray of surgical instruments.
A medical exam room. But not just an exam room. Something more. The realization dawned on him as his attention settled on the trough that rimmed the table. Then his eyes went to the opposite wall and the four stainless-steel doors, each three feet square, which stared back at him.
He was in a morgue. The table in the middle was used for autopsies.
Acrid fear slipped down his spine.
Alarmed, Austin tuned his head to his left and blinked at the sight that greeted him. A row of gurneys, and on the last one, a body. A girl, who was strapped down, motionless. His pulse hammered. He didn’t have to see her up close to know who it was.
Alice.
He was on the second floor.
Everything snapped into place. Why he was here. Why Alice was here. And why this specific room.
Fisher’s intentions were clear. Why else would they be in a morgue?
But he was reading into what he saw. There had to be another explanation. The man already had covered his tracks. It made no sense to kill them both now.
Then again, he didn’t know who Fisher was or how deep this all ran. Either way, in conspiring to get himself onto the second floor, Austin may have inadvertently played right into the man’s hands.
