I fall hard to the ground. There's wheezing, groaning, and the heavy smell of blood in the air. Still operating beyond my limits, I raise my head and see a reception desk.

  "Welcome to Doctor's Paradise. Please take a number."

  In my pain, I stumble toward the secretary and whimper, "Please… help."

  She stares at me with empty eyes, lacking even a trace of the empathy expected of her profession.

  "Welcome to Doctor’s Paradise," she repeats, mechanically. "Due to a surplus of patients, wait times may be longer than expected. Please take this ticket."

  I can’t muster the strength to argue. Almost magnetically, my hand reaches out. The ticket reads:

  Patient: Jason

  Number: ∞ (Unintelligible)

  I look toward where the office entrance should be—but there’s nothing. Only rows of chairs filled with discarded body parts, muttering madmen… and someone who just has a cold?

  My body moves on its own, dragging me to a seat in the far corner. It’s as if it wants to die there.

  The dread. The exhaustion. The strange relief of it all possibly ending.

  It wraps around me like a blanket.

  I thank the seat.

  And fall asleep in the corner.

  +++ Doctor's Paradise – Office

  Suddenly, like cold water crashing over me, I wake up. I’m in that grotesquely familiar office again—this time seated on a patient’s chair. The doctor is already there, grinning at me with the same unsettling enthusiasm.

  “Didn’t expect you back so soon. You must really value our service,” he says, all prideful—completely ignoring the horrible experience I just had in his lobby.

  I groan. “What happened to me?”

  He replies matter-of-factly, “You died again. Broken ribs perforated your lungs. You probably drowned in your own fluids out there in reception.”

  I want to reject it—my mind screams that it’s impossible—but deep down, I feel it’s true. Too many strange things have happened. I can’t keep denying the unnatural anymore.

  “…Thank you, doctor,” I murmur.

  He corrects me, “Goodwill. Just call me Goodwill, my old boy.” Then, in that professional tone of his, he says, “Now, Jason, why don’t you share what happened? We pride ourselves on preventative medicine here at this renowned establishment.”

  I confess, still in disbelief. “A strange creature… it hunts through mirrors. That’s what did this. Honestly, if I leave this place, I’m pretty sure it’ll kill me again.”

  He just nods, nonchalantly. “Ahhh, one of those. You’re not the first. Those special operators have been great for business lately.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Something about his phrasing unnerves me. “Better business”… He hasn’t lied—I am here, even though I never wanted to come back. And the most important part—he knows what that thing is.

  I ask, “Is there any way to stop it? To keep it from tearing me apart again?”

  Goodwill tilts his head. “I don’t know personally, but I can refer you to an acquaintance at Mystery Trader Inc.”

  My ears start ringing—a sharp, metallic echo—but I focus. He’s giving me a real lead.

  He scribbles something on a card. To: (unintelligible symbols—nothing I can read). To the patient: Follow the address. Go right, left, left, right… in a sequence of sevens.

  He hands me the card. “Here you go, my boy. Now, your fifteen minutes are almost up. I should get going.”

  I feel oddly relieved. At least I have a direction now—finally, one of the shops from the list.

  Then he says it—his tone darkens. “Now, about payment…”

  I jolt upright, heart pounding. He lets the silence hang in the air.

  “…You don’t have to worry,” he continues smoothly. “Your insurance covered it. For you, it’s free—just make sure to pay the yearly premium. If not, I’ll have to take an arm and a leg.”

  A joke? He’s not smiling.

  I gather my things fast, a headache already blooming behind my eyes. As I stagger to the door, he suddenly says:

  “Oh, how silly of me. Almost forgot—let me fix that for you.”

  He takes a small hammer from his desk and taps me on the head. The world goes black again

  +++

  I hear voices. I feel the coldness of the ground, and with the rising sunlight, I slowly open my eyes. I'm lying in a street corner, looking like a bum—but oddly clean.

  Someone walks past me and mutters, “That guy couldn’t hold his liquor. What a disgrace.”

  I reek of antiseptic and alcohol.

  Ahead of me is a sign—scrawled like a child’s first attempt at writing:

  Doctor’s Paradise

  with flowers and rainbows drawn around it

  “Dr. Goodwill always available!” :)

  It’s written in childish letters. A smiley face.

  I must be truly insane...

  I inspect myself, hoping no scavengers looted anything while I was out.

  The card is still in my pocket. The monocle. The glove.

  Then I notice something new: the monocle has a passenger.

  A letter, tucked in as if it had always been there.

  I read it—and I must accept that what happened to me wasn’t a hallucination.

  This was real.

  I hold the letter close and begin to follow its instructions.

  The letter shakes slightly in my hand. Whether it’s the breeze or my nerves, I can’t tell.

  "To the patient:

  Go right, left, left, right… in the following corners in a sequence of 7’s."

  I read it again, trying to make sense of it. Seven what? Seven steps? Seven turns?

  I decide to follow instinct. That, and I really don’t want to be out here longer than necessary.

  I take the first right.

  The city shifts slightly—just enough that I notice. The grime on the walls looks painted instead of real, like part of a stage set too old to refurbish. A cat stares at me from a fire escape and doesn't blink. I take the next left.

  The streets are narrowing.

  Another left, and the lights change color—not the stoplights, the daylight itself. It feels like walking under tinted glass, only there's no glass above me. A group of kids with blank eyes watch me from behind a rusted fence, but none of them speak. I keep moving.

  The next right leads into an alley I swear wasn’t there before.

  I'm counting now. That was four. Three more to go. I think.

  The fifth corner is not a turn—it’s a spiral staircase leading downward, embedded into the sidewalk like it was always there, just forgotten. The letter doesn’t say anything about stairs, but it feels right.

  Down I go. The walls are warm, like skin. I try not to touch them.

  Six: a narrow corridor with flickering lanterns that smell faintly of incense and something far older.

  Seven.

  I reach a dead end. Just a brick wall. No doors, no signs.

  Then I hear it.

  A slow tick-tick-tick, like someone winding a clock behind the wall.

  Suddenly, a small hatch opens at eye level—just big enough for a single eye to peer through.

  “Referral?” a voice asks, toneless but expectant.

  I show the letter through the hatch. The eye studies it for a moment, then disappears.

  The wall groans. It doesn't open. It peels back—layers of brick folding inward like paper—revealing a doorway into something dimly lit and impossibly large.

  A worn brass plaque above the entrance reads:

  Mystery Trader Inc.

  “Curiosity Redeemed, Destiny Negotiated.”