The Photographs
Iris didn’t sleep that night.
She sat on her couch, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the wall. Oliver watched her from the armchair, his tail twitching, his yellow eyes unblinking. The apartment was dark except for the glow of the streetlamp outside, casting long shadows across the floor.
She had tried to sleep. She had closed her eyes, counted sheep, listened to her own breathing. But every time she drifted off, she saw the white room, the older version of herself, the smile that wasn’t a smile.
And the words: Remember what you did.
She didn’t know what she had done. She didn’t want to know.
But the voice was still there, whispering at the edges of her thoughts, and the dirt was still under her nails, and the detective’s words echoed in her ears.
A partial fingerprint. On the victim’s throat.
She had never touched Elena Vance. She had never met Elena Vance. She had never even heard that name before yesterday.
But the voice said otherwise.
You have. In the white room.
The sun rose at 6:32 AM.
Iris watched it through the window, the gray light seeping into the apartment, chasing away the shadows. She felt hollow, emptied out, like someone had scooped out her insides and left only the shell.
She stood up. Her legs were stiff. Her head ached. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
She picked it up.
A text message from an unknown number.
Check your photos.
Iris stared at the screen. The area code was local, but she didn’t recognize it. She opened her photo library.
Her blood turned to ice.
There were photographs she didn’t remember taking.
Dozens of them. Taken in the middle of the night. The time stamps read between 11 PM and 2 AM — the same hours Elena Vance had been murdered.
The first photograph showed a street she didn’t recognize. Dark, wet, lined with parked cars. The second showed an apartment building — brick, four stories, a green awning over the entrance.
The third showed a door. Apartment 4B.
Elena Vance’s apartment.
The photographs continued. The inside of a hallway. A staircase. A door with a gold number 4B. A key in a lock. A room. A bed.
A woman.
Elena Vance, asleep, her chest rising and falling, her dark hair spread across the pillow.
The last photograph was a close-up of her face.
And there, reflected in her open eye, was the reflection of the person taking the photograph.
Iris.
She dropped the phone.
It clattered on the tile floor, the screen cracking, the image of Elena Vance’s eye starring back at her.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
She backed away from the phone, her hands raised, as if the device might bite her. Oliver jumped off the chair and ran into the bedroom.
Iris’s back hit the wall.
She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
You don’t remember, the voice said.
No.
But you were there.
I wasn’t.
The photographs don’t lie.
Iris put her head in her hands.
She stayed like that for a long time.
The phone buzzed again.
Iris looked up. She didn’t want to look at the screen. She didn’t want to see another photograph, another message, another piece of evidence that she was losing her mind.
But her body moved on its own.
She crawled across the floor and picked up the phone.
Another text from the same unknown number.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not crazy.
The message repeated, line after line, filling the screen.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not crazy.
Iris typed back: Who is this?
The reply came instantly.
Someone who wants to help you.
How?
Meet me at the address I’m sending you. Come alone. Come now.
A pin dropped on the map. A location across the city, in an industrial district she had never visited.
Why should I trust you?
Because I’m the only one who knows what’s happening to you.
And what’s happening to me?
You’re remembering.
Iris stared at the screen.
The voice in her head was silent.
She had a choice. She could stay here, in her apartment, hiding from the truth, waiting for Detective Walsh to arrest her for a murder she didn’t remember committing. Or she could go to the address, meet the stranger, and find out what was real.
She stood up.
She put on her coat.
She walked out the door.
The address was an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city.
Iris parked her car across the street and sat for a moment, looking at the building. The windows were dark, the walls covered in graffiti, the chain-link fence around the perimeter rusted and bent. A single light burned in a window on the second floor.
Her phone buzzed.
Come in. I’m waiting.
She got out of the car.
The gate creaked as she pushed it open. The gravel crunched beneath her feet. The air smelled like rot and diesel.
She walked to the door.
It was unlocked.
Inside, the darkness was absolute. She pulled out her phone and used the flashlight app to light her way.
A staircase. A hallway. A room.
The light was coming from a small lamp on a metal desk. And sitting behind the desk was a woman.
Her face was older. Her hair was gray. Her eyes were sad.
It was the figure from the white room.
It was Iris.
“What the hell is going on?” Iris whispered.
The woman smiled. “Sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”