Not metaphorically—Mark felt it, like the earth itself was tilting under his weight.
He opened his eyes.
Bright white light burned his retinas, and for a second he thought he had died. The sterile smell, the muffled footsteps outside the door, the beeping machines… it was a hospital. But he didn’t know why he was there.
Or… who he was.
“Mark,” a soft voice whispered beside him.
He turned slowly. A girl was sitting on a metal chair, her eyes red and heavy with worry. She looked familiar, too familiar. But he couldn't place her.
“Who… are you?” His voice came out dry, like gravel under pressure.
She blinked, as if she’d heard that question too many times before. “I’m Mariam. I’ve been with you since the accident. You don’t remember anything, do you?”
He shook his head. Nothing. Just that name—Mark Fawzy—printed on a plastic bracelet around his wrist.
Days passed. Maybe weeks. Mark wasn’t sure.
Every time he was left alone in the room, something strange happened.
His heart would race. The walls would bend inward. His body would go stiff—
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Then, blackout.
When he woke up, it was never in the same place.
Sometimes the nurses said he was found in the corridor.
Once, they said he’d walked outside the hospital and collapsed near the garden.
Each time, he had no memory. Only flashes. A puddle of something red. A hand. Screaming.
One night, while the TV buzzed in the background and Mariam had dozed off beside him, Mark sat up suddenly.
The screen flickered, and a news anchor appeared.
“Breaking news: The bodies of two men were discovered earlier today in an abandoned warehouse just off Saint Michael Street. Police say the crime was brutal…”
Mark’s blood ran cold.
That warehouse.
That exact location.
He had seen it… in a dream last night.
The next morning, he tried to explain it to the hospital therapist—Dr. Bishoy—but the man only scribbled something and gave him a new pill.
Later that evening, Mariam found Mark holding his head, trembling.
“They think I did it,” he whispered.
“Did what?”
“The murders. The missing hours. The places I show up in… they think I’m dangerous.”
Mariam’s voice cracked. “Do you believe it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his hands. “But something inside me… isn’t me.”
Two days later, another crime scene.
And this time, at the center of it, they found an old cassette tape.
Labeled: “Play Me, Mark.”
Inside was a voice.
His own voice.
But it wasn’t him.
It was slower. Deeper. Calm.
“Mark, you’re close. But not close enough. Blood remembers. And you forgot.”
“My name… is Elijah.”