Interrogation
Memory, paranoia—and something waiting beneath it all. A short story.
The fish darted through cloudy water, chasing the shimmer of something new. A glint, a shape. Then nothing. A moment later, it forgot what it was chasing.
He opened his eyes.
White. A field of snow. Endless, rippling. Cold, but only in his mind. The snow wasn’t beneath him. It was beside him. No—above? He blinked. The snow resolved into texture. Threads. Woven cotton. A pillowcase.
He was lying in bed.
That realization took effort. He tested his limbs. Heavy. Heavily drugged. His eyes wouldn’t focus, like his vision was under pressure, squeezed by invisible fingers. Something wrong with gravity, maybe. Or the lighting.
The room wasn’t right. It had walls, but they pulsed. He blinked again. No, not pulsing. Just his perception. Still, he felt off-kilter, as if the room was pretending to be a room and not quite getting the details right.
There were metal rails on the bed. Hospital? He rubbed his temples. Nothing. Not even a name. Wait.
Bill Borrow.
That floated up from somewhere. Like a fish surfacing. He clutched it. He didn’t trust it.
A woman walked in. Tall. Black. Green scrubs. She smiled, too widely. “Good morning, Mr. Borrow. You know you’re not supposed to get up until you call me.”
He hadn’t tried to get up. Had he?
She helped him sit up. Strong. Too strong. Her touch felt mechanical. Guiding, but with a force that said: you have no choice.
He gritted his teeth. “What is this place?”
“You had a fall,” she said smoothly. “Swimming accident.”
His stomach twisted. That word.
Swimming. A pool. A red rock at the bottom. Blood?
He touched his scalp. No wound. No bandage.
“This isn’t right,” he muttered.
The woman smiled again, her teeth too even. “Your wife is coming later. You should get ready.”
Wife? He didn’t have a wife.
But maybe he did.
His mind fluttered like a moth in a jar.
She handed him glasses. He didn’t wear glasses. But when he put them on, the world snapped into focus.
That scared him more than anything.
They had done something to his eyes.
They had changed him.
He stood. Legs like gelatin. He made it to a mirror over the sink. Looked.
The man staring back wasn’t him.
He was too young. Thirties? Maybe early forties. Strong. Blue eyes. Brown hair, matted.
He watched himself whisper: “You’re... you’re...” But no name came.
Except... Bill Borrow. A planted name.
He was sure of it now. He was being held. Drugged. They were softening him up.
That’s when the idea hit him—interrogation. Of course. This was some kind of psychological operation. They wanted information. Vital information. He didn’t know what it was, but they believed he had it. Maybe he did. Maybe he’d buried it so deep even he couldn’t reach it anymore.
But they were trying to dig it out.
He felt the pressure building behind his eyes. Not from the drugs—but from the knowledge. The thing he wasn’t supposed to remember. The thing he must not think about, because if he did, he might say it. Might tell them.
And that would be the end.
He stared at the floor. At the walls. At his reflection. "Don’t think," he whispered. "Don’t let them in."
But they were already in.
Spies. No. Something worse.
The room shimmered. He turned to confront the nurse. “Why are you doing this?”
She tilted her head. “You need to rest. Let’s get you some food.”
He tried walking. The walls... bent. They moved subtly, curving away from him. One corner folded like origami into another. He turned left. Then again. Then again. He was back where he started. He looked at the nurse.
She was shorter now. White. Blonde. Still wearing green scrubs. Same name tag: Nancy.
No. Not same. Different. Now it said: Beatrice.
“You changed,” he said, backing away. “You changed right in front of me.”
She said nothing. Just held out a comb.
He took it. Watched his hand tremble.
Mirrors were lies. They moved. He could swear the mirror used to be on a different wall.
He turned. The bed had moved. The window was gone. There had been a window, right?
He reached for the comb. But he was already holding it.
He blinked. He was in a wheelchair.
When had he sat down?
He looked at the door. Open. No one was there.
Now. Now was the time.
He stood, stumbled, grabbed the doorframe.
Out into the hall.
Bright lights. Echoes. A tiled floor that stretched forever.
He ran. Or tried. Half-shuffled, half-limped, but fast enough that his breath caught in his throat.
Behind him: voices. Footsteps. Not many. Just one or two.
“Mr. Borrow!”
No. Not his name. Not anymore.
He turned corners at random. Left. Right. Through a fire door. Past a vending machine. The lights flickered overhead.
A shadow rounded the corner. The nurse? No. A different face. A man. Then another.
He turned again—
Dead end.
Footsteps echoed like they were inside his skull. First two figures. Then a third. He blinked. No—just one. No, two again. One of them looked like his old neighbor. Then like the orderly from earlier. Then like a famous serial killer whose name he couldn’t remember but whose face had burned itself into his nightmares. The eyes. The smile. The unblinking patience.
He backed into the corner, chest heaving. Every light overhead flared too bright, then flickered. He could see his breath—but the hallway wasn’t cold. A high-pitched whine buzzed at the edge of his hearing.
Their faces weren’t holding. They flickered with each glance. One moment: calm professionalism. The next: blank-eyed mannequins. One had no mouth. One had too many teeth. One was his father. No—his brother? Then his own face. Laughing.
“Bill, you’re confused,” one of them said, voice syrupy. “You got turned around. Let’s get you back to your room.”
His vision tilted sideways. The walls were closing in. No, they were melting. Melting like wax. The floor rippled like water under glass.
He tried to scream, but it caught in his throat like cotton. “You’re not real!”
They smiled—too still, too symmetrical. Like plastic dolls or taxidermy. Like they’d practiced smiling in a mirror they couldn’t quite understand.
They reached for him. He turned to run, but the hallway stretched longer with each step, like a treadmill set to nightmare. His legs no longer belonged to him.
And then they were on him.
He lashed out—screaming, maybe crying, maybe laughing—but their hands were cool and unyielding. Not grabbing. Not pushing. Just absorbing him. Folding him.
He was moving, but he couldn’t feel his feet.
The vending machine passed on the wrong side. The doors were numbered out of order. The signs were in a language he almost understood, then forgot.
They brought him into a room.
His room, they said. But it wasn’t.
The walls were green now. The ceiling lower. There was a humming sound coming from the floor. The bed was in the middle of the room, not the side. The mirror was gone.
“There you go,” said one of them.
He looked around in horror. “This isn’t the same room.”
They nodded kindly. “Of course it is.”
Then they were gone. He didn't see them leave. And now the light from outside was different, like time had jumped.
A new woman stood in the doorway. Gray hair. Frail. Her eyes kind.
“You’re early,” he said, suspicious. “They sent you to trick me?”
She frowned. “Bill... it’s me.”
“Nice trick. But you’re too old to be my wife.”
She walked to the mirror. Whispered something into it.
He heard static.
She turned back. Younger. Auburn hair. Eyes shining. Thirty years younger.
His breath caught.
Nancy.
His chest ached. It was her. He felt it.
Memories sloshed forward like a broken dam.
Snow. Red rock. The wedding. Her laugh. The scent of her skin.
He whispered, “How long have I been here?”
She said, “You ask me that every day.”
He believed her.
He sobbed in her arms. “I thought they took you.”
“No, my love. I’ve always been here.”
He looked past her to the mirror.
The man staring back was old. Skeletal. Wisps of white hair. Pale skin stretched too thin.
He did not recognize himself.
And then, he did.
And then, he didn't.
Outside the room, a nurse sat at her console. She adjusted a dial, glanced at a glowing blue monitor. A red button blinked under her palm.
She pressed it gently.
Inside the tank, the little fish turned.
A red rock had appeared.
Something new.
The rock waited. It wouldn't rest until it got what it wanted from him.