The fluorescent lights in Room 613 never fully turned off. Even at night, they hummed faintly, casting everything in a sickly glow that made the shadows pool in strange corners. I'd been staring at them for... hours? Days? Time felt wrong here, stretched thin like old elastic that might snap at any moment.
I woke up in this room a week ago. At least, that's what Dr. Evans told me. The first thing I noticed wasn't the industrial smell of bleach, or the metal bed frame bolted to the floor, or even the wire mesh embedded in the window glass. It was the water stain on the ceiling – a sprawling brown shape that sometimes looked like a face when my eyes unfocused. I tried not to look at it directly anymore. I'm pretty sure it blinks. And sometimes, when I stare at it too long, the ceiling seems to stretch upwards, the room expanding into a vast, empty space with no walls and no end. But then I blink, and it's just a room again, small and suffocating.
They say my name is Jane. Just Jane, like I'm some unclaimed thing that washed up on a shore. Dr. Evans told me this during our first session, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the light in a way that made his eyes disappear completely. "You've experienced a traumatic event," he said, writing something in that leather-bound notebook he always carries. "A break from reality. We're here to help you piece things back together."
But what pieces? My mind feels like an empty room, echoing with footsteps that might be memories. Or maybe it's the footsteps of someone outside my door, pacing back and forth, their rhythm as erratic as the beat of my own anxious heart.
Every session starts the same way: "Do you know why you're here, Jane?" And every time, I shake my head, watching his pen scratch across the page. They won't tell me. Not Dr. Evans, not the nurses with their too-tight smiles, not even the orderly who brings my medication three times a day. "You'll remember when you're ready," they say. But ready for what? What could be so terrible that they'd rather let me sit here drowning in questions than just tell me the truth?
The medication comes like clockwork. Yellow pills in the morning that taste like chalk and make everything feel slightly off-center. I arrange them on the bedside table before swallowing them – three in a perfect triangle, no more, no less. The blue ones at lunch turn the world underwater, and I have to count the bubbles that rise to the surface, making sure they're always an odd number. White ones at night that are supposed to help me sleep but only seem to make the dreams more vivid. Dr. Evans says they'll help clear my mind, help me remember who I am. But lately, I'm not so sure I want to remember.
Something about the pills bothers me. Yesterday morning, I noticed dark veins spreading from my fingers up my arm after taking the yellow ones. When I showed the nurse, she said my arm looked perfectly normal. But I can still see them, pulsing beneath my skin like black worms burrowing deeper, forming intricate patterns, perfectly symmetrical.
The ward itself is what you'd expect from a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s - long corridors with flickering lights, a common room where patients gather during the day, and the constant smell of industrial cleaner that never quite masks something underneath. Something metallic. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it smells like copper. Like blood.
There are other patients here, of course. Mrs. Albright sits in the corner of the common room, her gnarled fingers working endlessly at her knitting. Click-click-click. The nurses say she hasn't spoken in years, just sits there with those milky eyes fixed on nothing. But sometimes, when I walk past, I catch her staring at me, a flicker of recognition in her gaze that sends chills down my spine. Emily paces the halls, having conversations with empty chairs, her voice a high-pitched singsong that sets my teeth on edge. Ms. Davis, the former professor, thinks she's Marie Antoinette. They're all lost in their own private hells, just like me. But at least they know why they're here.
The dreams started on my third night. Just fragments at first - flashes of images and sensation that slipped away when I tried to focus on them. A kitchen with white tiles. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Something red spreading across the floor. I'd wake up drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled around my legs like restraints. In the dreams, my hands are never empty. They hold a knife, a glint of silver in the harsh light, and the blade is always dripping, always perfectly clean.
That's when I started noticing things. Little details that don't quite add up. Like how the number on my door sometimes reads 614 when I'm sure it was 613 the day before. Or how the emergency lights in the hallway cast shadows in impossible directions. Or how sometimes, late at night, I hear music. Beautiful, delicate music, like from an old music box.
The first time I heard it, I followed the sound down the dark corridor. The emergency lights made everything look green and wrong, and the shadows seemed to move away from my feet as I walked. The music led me to a door I'd never seen before, tucked away in an alcove that seemed to bend the darkness around it.
That's when I heard the warning. Just a whisper, right behind my ear: "Don't touch it."
I spun around, but the hallway was empty. When I looked back, the door was gone. Or maybe it was never there at all. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, a figment of my fractured mind.
That's when the headaches started. Not normal headaches - these feel like something writhing behind my eyes, pressing against them from the inside. The pain comes in waves, each one bringing flashes of... something. A kitchen knife catching fluorescent light. Red droplets hitting white tile. The coppery taste of blood in my mouth that won't go away no matter how many times I rinse. And with each wave of pain, the walls of the ward seem to dissolve, the faces of the other patients morphing into grotesque masks, their voices a cacophony of screams and whispers.
I tried telling Dr. Evans about it during our morning session. His pen stopped moving across the page, just for a moment - just long enough to make me wonder what he wasn't telling me. The light caught his glasses again, turning them into mirrors, and for a split second, I swear I saw something moving in their reflection. Something that wasn't in the room with us.
"The medications may take time to fully stabilize your perceptions," he said carefully, adjusting those reflective glasses. "Try to focus on what you know is real."
But how can I know what's real when my own body feels like it's betraying me? The black veins have spread past my elbows now, a web of darkness pulsing beneath my skin. Sometimes I catch them moving when I'm not looking directly at them, like they're trying to reach something. Or escape something. And when I touch them, they writhe beneath my fingertips, as if trying to break free.
Last night, I woke up to find my sheets soaked through. Not with sweat - with blood. But when I turned on the light, it was gone. Just like the door. Just like the veins whenever anyone else looks at them. Just like Emily, who disappeared three days ago.
No one else seems to remember Emily. When I asked about her, the nurse looked at me strangely. "Who's Emily?" she said, checking my chart. But I remember her. I remember her conversations with empty chairs. I remember how those chairs were always cold. And I remember the sound she made the night she disappeared - not quite a scream, more like the noise a music box makes when you wind it too tight.
The music box. I keep hearing it at night, its melody getting clearer, more insistent. Sometimes I catch myself humming along to a tune I shouldn't know. The other day, I found myself arranging my pills in perfect geometric patterns on my bedside table, just like... just like the limbs of the woman in my dream. Her arms outstretched, her legs bent at precise angles, her head tilted just so. Perfect.
That's when I started going to the library. It's small - just a few shelves of medical texts and outdated magazines, but it's quiet and the nurses rarely check on you there. At first, I was just trying to stay awake, to avoid the dreams that kept getting more vivid. More real. Dreams of arranging things. Making them perfect.
Behind a shelf of psychiatric journals, I found a box of old newspapers. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold them, but the headlines burned themselves into my brain:
"RIVERSIDE RIPPER CLAIMS SIXTH VICTIM" "FEMALE KILLER TARGETS YOUNG WOMEN" "MUSIC BOX MURDERER APPREHENDED"
The articles were from 1963. They described a series of murders - six women, all found in their homes, posed like dolls around an antique music box. The killer had arranged them carefully, washing away the blood, dressing them in clean clothes, positioning their faces into serene, almost blissful smiles. In each case, the music box was found playing the same tune. A haunting, childlike melody that seemed to linger in the air long after the music box itself had fallen silent.
The same tune I hear every night.
The last article included a photograph of the music box. Ornate brass and dark wood, with delicate filigree around its edges. I recognized it instantly, though I couldn't say from where. Maybe from my dreams. Maybe from somewhere else. A cold dread crept over me, a feeling of recognition that chilled me to the bone.
When I went to put the papers back, I noticed something dark seeping from behind the wall panel. At first, I thought it was just water damage, but when I touched it, my fingers came away sticky. Red. The panel shifted under my hand, revealing a narrow space behind it.
Inside was a notebook. Not Dr. Evans' leather-bound one - this was older, the pages yellow and brittle. The handwriting inside looked like mine, but the dates were from 1963. Entry after entry describing the most perfect arrangements. The most beautiful smiles. The most wonderful music.
July 14th. The music guided my hands. She was so much more beautiful this way, at peace. Finally.
August 2nd. He struggled. It was... messy. But the music calmed him. They all find peace eventually.
September 10th. Three this time. A family. They look so happy now, forever frozen in a moment of joy.
The notebook fell from my trembling hands. The memories weren't fragments anymore - they were flooding back in perfect, crystalline clarity. Every detail, every arrangement, every beautiful pose. The metallic scent of blood, the feel of cold skin, the way the light glinted off the blade.
I remember now. I remember everything.
It started with my dollhouse when I was seven. Everything had to be just so. The tiny furniture arranged at perfect right angles. The little family posed in flawless tableaus. Mother in the kitchen, father in his study, children at the table - each one positioned with mathematical precision. If anyone moved them, even slightly, I'd feel this... tightness in my chest. This unbearable wrongness that wouldn't go away until everything was perfect again.
As I got older, the need for perfection grew. My room was immaculate - books arranged by height and color, hangers exactly one inch apart, bed corners folded at precise 45-degree angles. The world outside was chaos, but in my space, everything was perfect. Everything was controlled.
The first one wasn't planned. She was my roommate, and she was so... messy. Dishes left in the sink, clothes strewn about, picture frames hanging crooked. I tried to fix things while she slept, but she always ruined it. Always brought chaos back into my perfect order.
The music box was playing that night - my grandmother's antique music box that I'd wound up to help me sleep. Such a pretty tune. When I saw my roommate's body, sprawled at such an ugly angle, I knew what I had to do. I arranged her perfectly, each limb at exactly the right angle, expression peaceful, serene. Beautiful. The music box played while I worked, its melody guiding my hands.
After that, I couldn't stop seeing the imperfection everywhere. All those people, living their chaotic, asymmetrical lives. But I could fix them. I could make them perfect, just like me.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. I stumbled back, gasping for air. The library seemed to tilt and sway around me, the books on the shelves blurring into indistinct shapes. The music box melody echoed in my ears, growing louder, more insistent.
Suddenly, a hand clamped down on my shoulder. I whirled around to find Dr. Evans standing behind me, his face pale and drawn. "Jane," he said, his voice low and urgent, "we need to talk."
Dr. Evans' grip on my shoulder tightened as the room seemed to ripple around me. The library's shelves flickered like static on a broken screen, and for a moment, I felt like I was falling—but not in my body. It was a deeper kind of disorientation, like my mind had been peeled back layer by layer, leaving nothing but raw nerves.
"I remember now," I whispered, the words feeling foreign in my mouth. "I killed them. I killed all of them."
Dr. Evans nodded slowly, his glasses catching the light in that unnerving way that erased his eyes. "Yes, Jane. You did. And we’ve been trying to help you see that for a very long time."
The library dissolved in an instant. No slow fade, no gradual dimming—just a blink, and it was gone.
I was in a concrete room. Stark, cold, and brutally real. The walls were bare, save for the faint scratches I’d apparently carved into the surface over the years—tiny music notes etched in jagged lines. My breath caught as I looked down at my hands. The black veins were gone, the pulsing patterns replaced by pale skin marred with faint scars and calluses.
I was wearing a prison jumpsuit. Bright orange, stiff against my skin.
Across from me, Dr. Evans—if that was even his name—sat on a metal stool, a thick folder resting on his lap. There was no notebook, no pen, no wire-rimmed glasses. Just a clipboard and a tired, resigned expression on his face.
"Where... where’s Room 613?" I croaked, the words clawing their way out of my throat.
Dr. Evans didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he opened the folder, pulling out a black-and-white photograph and sliding it across the table.
I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t stop myself. The photo showed a body—posed on the ground in a grotesque tableau, arms and legs bent into inhuman angles. Her face was serene, her lips curved into a faint, unnatural smile. A music box sat beside her, its lid open, though I couldn’t hear its melody anymore.
"That was your first victim," Dr. Evans said softly. "Your roommate, Hannah Brooks. You arranged her like a doll in your grandmother’s music box. You even left a note, calling her your ‘most beautiful creation.’ Do you remember that now?"
I nodded, my stomach churning. The memory was there—sharp and vivid, no longer buried under layers of dreamlike haze. But the room still felt wrong, as if the walls themselves were mocking me.
"And the others?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Dr. Evans sighed, sliding more photos across the table. Each one was worse than the last. A woman on her kitchen floor, limbs outstretched at geometric angles. A man in his living room, his face turned toward the camera with a blissful smile painted on his lips. A family of three arranged around a dining table, their lifeless bodies posed as if mid-conversation.
"You called it art," Dr. Evans said, his voice heavy. "The newspapers called you the ‘Music Box Murderer.’ Do you remember what you told the judge at your trial?"
I shook my head, tears burning at the corners of my eyes. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to remember.
"You told the court you weren’t guilty because they weren’t dead to you. You said they were ‘perfect now,’ that you’d brought them peace. The jury didn’t agree."
He leaned forward, his expression hardening. "That was twelve years ago, Jane. And no matter how many realities your mind invents to protect you, the truth doesn’t change. You’re not in Room 613. You’re in solitary confinement, awaiting execution."
My pulse roared in my ears, the words hitting me like a physical blow. "No," I murmured, shaking my head. "That’s not... that’s not possible. I was in the hospital. There were other patients. Emily. Mrs. Albright. The music box—"
"None of it was real," Dr. Evans interrupted, his voice cold now. "You’ve been living inside your own mind, creating scenarios to avoid facing what you did. The ‘hospital’ was a construct—a way for you to pretend you were the victim. But the truth is, you’re here. On death row. And your execution is scheduled for tomorrow morning."
I staggered back in my chair, the metal scraping loudly against the concrete floor. "No," I said again, my voice rising. "I don’t believe you."
Dr. Evans stood, tucking the folder under his arm. "You don’t have to believe me, Jane. The clock doesn’t care if you accept reality or not."
He knocked twice on the heavy steel door behind him. It groaned open, and two guards stepped in, their faces expressionless. As they moved toward me, I caught a glimpse of the hallway beyond—long, gray, and empty, lit by flickering fluorescent lights.
Room 613. It wasn’t a hospital ward. It had never been a hospital ward. It was my cell number, the numbers bolted to the steel door that had been my entire world for over a decade.
As the guards hauled me to my feet, the faint melody of the music box crept into my mind again, unbidden. I hummed it under my breath as they led me down the corridor, each step echoing like the ticking of a clock.
Tomorrow, I would die.
But as the guards opened the heavy door to the execution chamber, I saw not the sterile gurney I’d expected—but a room full of people.
They were all staring at me, their faces familiar.
Mrs. Albright. Emily. Ms. Davis.
And they were smiling.