Room 317
Aaron Vale looked exactly like Ethan.
Not similar.
Not related.
Identical.
The only differences were the exhaustion carved deeply into his face and the dark veins spreading beneath the skin around his eyes like cracks beneath glass. He sat motionless on the rusted hospital bed inside Room 317 wearing faded patient clothing while dim yellow lights flickered weakly overhead.
And he looked unsurprised to see Ethan standing there.
Like this meeting had already happened before.
Ethan Vale physically couldn’t move for several seconds. Every instinct screamed that the man inside the room should be impossible.
His father had died years ago.
That had always been true.
Hadn’t it?
Then Aaron finally spoke.
“You came down too early.”
Same voice.
Same one from the stairwell.
Only calmer now.
More human.
Mira Solis stared between them in disbelief. “This is insane.”
Aaron slowly looked toward her.
“You shouldn’t stay near him during memory overlap.”
The sentence immediately unsettled Ethan.
“What does that mean?”
Aaron ignored the question at first. Instead, he looked past them toward the dark hospital corridor outside Room 317.
“They’re getting closer.”
Daniel stepped into the doorway aggressively. “Okay, enough cryptic nonsense. What the hell is happening in this place?”
Aaron leaned back slightly against the rusted bedframe.
“The experiment never created hallucinations,” he said quietly. “It removed separation.”
Nobody spoke.
Because somehow that sentence felt important in ways they didn’t fully understand yet.
Dr. Mercer slowly entered the room behind the others, her flashlight trembling slightly in her hand the moment she saw Aaron sitting there alive.
“No…”
Aaron looked toward her without surprise.
“You kept the project running.”
Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
“We contained it.”
Aaron almost smiled.
“No. You buried it.”
Silence filled the old hospital room afterward while distant footsteps echoed somewhere through the decaying corridors outside.
Then Ethan stepped closer carefully.
“You’re really my father?”
Aaron met his eyes.
And for one painful second Ethan suddenly remembered something he shouldn’t have.
A childhood memory.
Standing beside a lake at sunset while Aaron laughed somewhere behind him.
The memory felt real.
Warm.
Except Ethan knew it couldn’t belong to him.
Because he had never visited that lake before.
Aaron saw the realization immediately.
“You’re already sharing memories with me,” he said softly.
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
“How?”
Aaron slowly looked toward the ceiling above them.
“The Threshold links overlapping consciousness after prolonged wakefulness.” His expression darkened slightly. “Families synchronize faster.”
Mira frowned. “Synchronize?”
Dr. Mercer answered this time.
“The brain normally isolates individual identity.” Her voice sounded exhausted now. “But during advanced Threshold exposure, thoughts and memories begin bleeding between connected minds.”
Daniel looked horrified. “You’re saying people can absorb each other?”
Aaron nodded once.
“And eventually stop distinguishing themselves from one another.”
The room fell silent again.
Then Ethan finally asked the question haunting him since the lounge.
“What happened on the Ninth Night?”
Aaron’s face changed instantly.
Not fear.
Grief.
“The woman appeared.”
Leah’s voice echoed suddenly from somewhere outside the room.
“I’m still in the lounge.”
Everyone flinched.
The voice drifted softly through the decaying hospital ward corridors beyond Room 317.
Closer now.
Aaron stood immediately from the bed.
“She found you already.”
Daniel backed away from the doorway. “Who IS she?”
Aaron looked toward the dark hallway outside.
“The first dream that stayed awake.”
Nobody understood the sentence.
But Dr. Mercer visibly paled.
“She shouldn’t exist physically,” she whispered.
Aaron looked toward her sharply.
“She doesn’t.”
The lights inside Room 317 flickered violently.
Then every rusted monitor surrounding the bed suddenly turned on together.
Static flooded the room.
And one by one—
the monitors displayed live footage of the participants standing inside Room 317.
Except the images were delayed slightly.
Ethan watched himself on-screen turning his head three seconds after he actually moved.
The delay kept increasing.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Then the footage changed entirely.
The monitors no longer showed the current room.
Now they displayed Ethan alone sitting on the hospital bed.
Asleep.
His stomach dropped instantly.
The sleeping version of Ethan slowly opened his eyes on-screen.
And smiled.
Mira physically stepped backward. “Turn them off.”
Aaron moved toward the monitors immediately.
Too late.
The sleeping Ethan on the screens whispered something silently.
Then every monitor cracked simultaneously.
Dark fluid poured slowly from inside the broken screens onto the floor like thick black water.
The overhead lights exploded out.
Darkness swallowed Room 317.
And in the darkness—
the woman finally spoke nearby.
Not through speakers.
Not through walls.
Inside the room.
“You weren’t supposed to remember him.”
Mira screamed.
Dr. Mercer dropped the flashlight.
The beam rolled wildly across the floor before stopping against the far corner of the room.
And there—
standing beside the rusted sink—
was the woman in the white gown.
Motionless.
Hair covering her face.
Water dripping slowly from her fingertips onto the floor.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Then Aaron whispered something that froze Ethan completely.
“She chose you too.”