I didn't sleep that night.
Not really.
Every time I shut my eyes, I'd wake up in another version of the motel room.
Sometimes the window was gone.
Sometimes the bed was still warm from someone else.
Once, I woke to see my own face reflected in the ceiling above me — upside down.
But the worst was the door.
It kept changing numbers.
103
216
313
…
616
That number again and again.
I checked out before sunrise. Didn't bother explaining.
The clerk just smiled as if he already knew.
---
I moved cities.
Again.
I booked an Airbnb from someone with no profile photo, no reviews, no name.
Anything to stay ahead of whatever this was.
The place was fine. New. Clean.
Except for the mirror.
It was exactly the same one from Room 616. Down to the crack in the top corner.
And on the glass, faint as breath:
> "Do you know who you are now?"
---
I smashed it.
Glass everywhere.
I told myself that was it.
But at midnight, my phone rang.
No number. Just static.
I answered anyway.
There was no sound…
Until a child whispered:
> "She left the fire on again."
I dropped the phone.
I could smell smoke.
I ran to the bathroom — water, towel, anything—
The mirror was whole again.
Not shattered.
But now it reflected something else.
The hallway behind me.
Even though the door was closed.
And in that reflection—
A child.
Barefoot. In ashes.
Smiling.
My sister.
---
I screamed and turned.
No one there.
I ran out into the hallway. Banged on the neighbors' doors. Pleaded with the night to wake me.
But no one answered.
Because I wasn't in the apartment anymore.
The door slammed behind me.
And I was back.
Standing in front of it.
Room 616.
---
The hallway was endless now.
The door number blinked like a countdown:
3
2
1
The door opened by itself.
And something stepped out.
Not me.
Him.
The Dreamer Before Me.
Thomas Vale.
He was exactly as I remembered from the photo — but his skin had thinned to ashpaper.
Eyes hollow. Fingers broken backward.
His mouth opened wider than it should have.
He pointed at me.
> "You brought it out.
You're the door now."
---
The walls pulsed around us.
The photos came alive — hundreds of dreamers, faces stitched together, all with the same eyes.
My eyes.
Thomas stepped closer.
> "It's hungry. It needs someone new.
You're leaking it, Mira.
You're not a person anymore."
---
I turned to run.
But the hallway was gone.
Just darkness.
And a voice — not my sister's. Not mine.
Something older:
> "You left the dream.
But the dream stayed in you."
> "And now… you'll carry it forward."
---
I opened my mouth to scream.
But I didn't have a voice anymore.
Just a smile.
The kind that wasn't mine.